Conference Videos
Video Competition
A video competition was held to encourage and reward scientists for showcasing their research with the public and colleagues outside their own field.
Two prizes were awarded: a ‘People’s Choice Award’ voted by the public (with a prize of $1000) and a ‘Conference Award’ selected by the conference attendees.
Species on the Move 2019
The next Species on the Move Conference is likely to be held in Kruger National Park, South Africa, in 2019. Join the conference mailing list and we will notify you as planning proceeds.
Species on the Move
International Conference
This successful inaugural conference was held at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia from
9 to 12 February 2016.
The global redistribution of our planets’ species is widely recognised as a fingerprint of climate change, however, the mechanisms that underpin such range shifts are poorly understood. Additionally, the pervasiveness of range shifts, from poles to the equator, and depths of oceans to tops of mountains, provides us with unique opportunity to advance our theory of biogeography, evolutionary ecology and macroecology.
Our move into the ‘anthropocene’ allows unprecedented opportunity to understand the mechanisms that drive species distributions across ecosystems and address the fundamental tenet of ecology: what lives where and why? However, such dramatic changes also pose significant challenges for sustainable management of our natural resources.
The conference targeted scientists and natural resource managers working in the disciplines of global change, biogeography and evolution, and relevant in contexts of natural resource management, biodiversity management and conservation, and theoretical ecology.
Species responses to climate change is a rapidly evolving research field, however, much of our progress is being made in independent research areas: e.g. understanding the process vs responding to the implications, terrestrial vs marine ecosystems, global meta-analyses vs in depth species-specific approaches. This interdisciplinary conference would develop connections between these parallel streams, and across temporal and spatial scales.
If you would like more information about the outcomes of Species on the Move 2016 or plans for the next Species on the Move Conference (likely to be in 2019 at Kruger National Park in South Africa) please contact Gretta.Pecl@utas.edu.au.
Associate Professor Gretta Pecl & Professor Stephen Williams
Conference Co-Convenors
Report
The conference report provides an overview of the conference and media associated with the conference.
By the Numbers…
275+
Conference Attendees
20+
Countries Represented
30+
News Articles
4000+
Views for the Video Competition
155
Presentations
No. 4
Trended on Twitter in Australia
21
Video Presentations Available
3
Plenary Sessions
55+
Posters
450+
Joined in the Public Forum
Conference Sponsors
We acknowledge the generous support of the following conference sponsors.
Species on the Move was hosted by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and the School of Biological Sciences (Zoology and Plant Sciences) at the University of Tasmania, with support also provided by the School of Land and Food and the Faculty of Law.
www.imas.utas.edu.au
www.utas.edu.au/land-food
www.utas.edu.au/law
www.utas.edu.au/zoology
www.utas.edu.au/plant-science
The Land and Water and Oceans and Atmosphere Flagships proudly support the Species on the Move conference
Greening Australia is undertaking strategic revegetation projects to offset the carbon emissions from this event.
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) is proud to sponsor the “Decision-making for assisted colonisation as a climate change adaptation strategy” session of Species on the Move.
Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre
This event is proudly supported by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
The Ian Potter Foundation is one of Australia’s major philanthropic foundations. The Foundation makes grants nationally to support charitable organisations working to benefit the community across a wide range of sectors including the Arts, environment, science, medical research, education and community wellbeing. The Ian Potter Foundation aims to support and promote a healthy, vibrant and fair community for the benefit of all Australians.
Facebook Posts
#SpeciesOnTheMove researchers - PhD's and post docs available.
At the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, University of Copenhagen, we have just advertised 8 PhD and postdoc positions See link for full description:
Hi - our PhD student Hannah is now only 16 votes from first place with only 11 hours to go. If you think her #SpeciesOnTheMove research is good, and you'd like to help her secure funds for her research working with fisheries managers about how to adapt to #SpeciesOnTheMove - please vote! You need to register first but it is super quick. Anyone with at least one peer-reviewed publication can vote. Thanks heaps in advance everyone!
It's voting time for the Thinkable Peer Prize for Climate (voting closes in 12 days). If you're a researcher with at least one peer-reviewed science article published you just need to register to vote...
#SpeciesOnTheMove can drive reassembly of ecological communities across large areas, but long-term changes in community composition have been difficult to study. In a new paper in Ecology Letters, Ryan Batt and colleagues use an extensive set of marine ecological surveys to show that species richness in nine continental shelf ecosystems around North America has been increasing or stayed flat over the last few decades, even after accounting for imperfect observations. Much of the increase in richness was driven by transient species that repeatedly colonized and were extirpated. The paper contributes to the ongoing debate about whether and why species richness is changing at sub-global scales.
Full paper available here (feel free to message page if you cant access it and we'll PM it to you): onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.12812/abstract
Novel diseases are increasing in animals, and this might have serious consequences for wildlife living in a hotter world. Sasha Greenspan et al, just published in Scientific Reports, shows that fungal infections reduced the heat tolerance of frogs by up to 4 degrees Celsius. Climate change and new diseases might work together to drive species to extinction but in a way that is not always obvious — the changing of the animal’s tolerance of heat. www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09950-3
It's voting time for the Thinkable Peer Prize for Climate (voting closes in 12 days). If you're a researcher with at least one peer-reviewed science article published you just need to register to vote (and that's quick!). Here's a great entry worth checking out by IMAS/CMS PhD student at the University of Tasmania Hannah Fogarty, who's submitted an entry based on her Honours work. Please vote so she can continue her #SpeciesOnTheMove work! www.thinkable.org/submission_entries/o8mooEq1
thinkable.org
Marine species are shifting their normal distributions in response to long-term climatic changes seven times faster than terrestrial species. Species redistribution can have positive and/or negative e...