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AES Sponsored Symposia

ESA 2020 Annual Meeting Organized Oral Session:

Towards a More Mechanistic Understanding of Drivers of Ecological Stability

Date and Time: TBA

Organizers:

Lin Jiang, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Biological Sciences

Shaopeng Wang, Peking University, Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, China

Moderator:

Xian Yang, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Biological Sciences

Session description:

A fundamental property of an ecological community is its stability. Questions such as why some, but not others, communities return to their steady-state conditions more quickly after perturbations, show stronger resistance or robustness, and/or fluctuate less in their dynamics have fascinated ecologists for decades. While a host of abiotic and biotic factors have the potential to influence ecological stability, much of the existing research on ecological stability has focused on its relationships with species diversity. Within this context, earlier studies have mostly investigated diversity-stability relationships via conceptual and mathematical models, and it was until the 1990s when ecologists began to use theoretical and experimental approaches to systematically explore the consequences of changes in biodiversity for ecological stability, in an effort to understand the significance of rapid, global biodiversity loss for ecosystem functioning. The diversity-stability research in the past two decades has yielded fruitful results, leading to the identification of both general patterns (e.g. positive relationships between diversity and community-level temporal stability) and underlying mechanisms (e.g., increased asynchrony in more diverse communities). More recent research has expanded to consider multiple dimensions of biodiversity as well as multiple dimensions of stability and to explore diversity-stability relationships across temporal and spatial scales. Building on this existing research, we propose to organize an oral session at the 2020 ESA Annual Conference, to rally active players with broad backgrounds in the field to discuss the next step of stability research. Presentations in this session will explore various mechanisms, including but not limited to those related to biodiversity, that regulate ecological stability. Topics to be discussed include 1) community and food web characteristics that stabilize communities, 2) the role of species dispersal and spatial processes in regulating community stability, 3) the importance of the stabilizing role of species diversity relative to other factors, and 4) linking environmental change drivers to diversity-stability research. This session provides a platform for researchers at the frontier of stability research, together with the audience, to discuss topical ideas and future directions in an exciting field of community ecology.

 


 

2005 90th ESA symposium: 

Ecological Impacts of Asia on Global Sustainability at Multiple Scales

Organizers: 
Young D. Choi, Purdue University, Calumet Richard N. Mack, Washington State University; ShiLi Miao, South Florida Water Management District; Changhui Peng.

Highlight “2004 Co-organize Beijing International Symposium on Biological Invasions: Species Exchanges between Eastern Asia and North America:”

2004 89th ESA symposium: 
Biological Invasions: Species Exchanges Between Eastern Asia and North America

Organizers: 
Young D. Choi, Purdue University, Calumet Richard N. Mack, Washington State University ShiLi Miao, South Florida Water Management District Harbin Li, USDA Forest Service

2004 Co-organize Beijing International Symposium on Biological Invasions: Species Exchanges between Eastern Asia and North America:
Threats to Environment and Economy, held June 8-15 2004 in Beijing, China. The main organizers of the Symposium were the Institute of Beijing, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Sino-Ecologists Club Overseas.
A special issue will be come up in 2005 on the Journal of Biological Invasions.

2003 88th ESA Evening session: 
Cross-Continental Invasions of Wetland Non-Indigenous Species: Comparing the Experience among Asia, America, and Europe

Organizers: 
ShiLi Miao, South Florida Water Management District Young D. Choi, Purdue University, Calumet

1997 ESA Symposium

ESA Symposium: Accelerated Changes in Asian Ecosystems: The Consequences of Human Actions and Economic Development. 
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1:15-5:15 p.m.

Organized by YUDE PAN, The Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, PAUL MOU, Department of Forestry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, and JERRY M. MELILLO, The Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543. Sponsored by the Asian Ecological Section, and the International Relationship Committee. BALLROOM B (West Complex-Upper Level)

  • Jerry Melillo (Marine Biology laboratory, MA, USA): Introduction to N cycle in China.
  • David Schimel (National Center for Atmosphere Research, CO, USA): China-US N cycle comparison.
  • Dennis Ojima (Colorado State U, CO): Land use in temperate East Asia.
  • Guanghui Lin (Biosphere 2, AZ, USA): Effect of sweage discharge on a mangrove forest in China.
  • Nobukazu Nakagoshi (Hiroshima U., Hiroshima, Japan): Natural and historical disturbances in forest ecosystems in Japan.
  • Sui-Li Huang (National Chung-Hsing University, Taipei, China): Urban ecosystem and indicators of sustainable urban development for Taipei.
  • Changman Won (Forestry Research Institute, Seoul, South Korea): History and current status of the terrestrial mammals of the Korean Peninsula.
  • Andrew Smith (Arizona State U., AZ, USA): Bio-diversity on the roof of the world: Strategies for sustainability.

1996 ESA Symposium

ESA Symposium: Current and Emerging Ecological and Environmental Issues in Asia.