Cary Conferences | Goals | Schedule | Participants | Management | Definitions
Conference Sessions
All conference sessions and meals (except the final banquet) will take place at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY, and will use its 150-seat auditorium and numerous smaller meeting rooms. Conferees will be housed on site. The Institute is situated on 2000 acres that provide attractive and safe opportunities for walking, jogging and other recreational pursuits during the conference.
Proceedings will begin Tuesday morning (April 29) and run through Thursday evening (May 1). Travel days are Monday, 28 April and Friday, 2 May. Participants are expected to stay for the entire conference.
The conference program will include plenary presentations by invited speakers, small group discussions, poster presentations and panel discussions. One of the specific goals of the conference is to promote discussion and interaction among participants. Our schedule provides ample time for informal discussion and interactions.
Overview of Conference Program
Six scientific sessions will be incorporated into the 3-day conference.
Session 1. Spatial Heterogeneity and Ecosystem Ecology: Successes, Failures and Challenges
This session will consist of three talks that will lay out the issues for the conference and challenge us to move forward.
Session 2. Diverse Views of Heterogeneity
A series of talks will focus on how other fields conceptualize and model spatially heterogeneous processes and why they do it this way.
Session 3. Heterogeneity and Function of Landscapes
This session includes speakers representing different ecosystem types (e.g. deserts, coastal oceans, etc) who have been asked to address two questions:
- When does spatial heterogeneity matter for ecosystem function in this system and when does it not matter?
- What causes spatial heterogeneity in the system and what is the interplay between heterogeneity and ecosystem function?
The final speaker will look for common threads among the answers to these questions.
Session 4. Practical applications
Speakers in this session have been asked to address whether and how incomplete understanding of spatial heterogeneity limits progress on resolving environmental issues.
Session 5. Looking forward.
A combination of speakers and small group discussions will consider the future research agenda for this field. Two speakers will address this issue in a plenary session, followed by parallel small group discussions in which each group independently lists the most important research questions. Afterwards, group leaders will meet to synthesize the lists and give a single summary report.
Session 6. Conference summary.
The closing session will be a panel discussion in which each panelist will summarize progress in the conference and the state of the science. A general discussion will follow.
Posters
The posters are meant to provide a forum for all participants, and help stimulate discussions before, during and beyond the conference. Two late-afternoon "poster pub" sessions have been scheduled.