Monday October 12 was the first official day of the 18th Biennial conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals at the Quebec conference centre…and myself and my Whale Nerds friends were very excited to be attending. There were many pre-conference workshops over the weekend and we all participated. I went to the workshop on Ecological Modelling for Marine Mammalogists and Mer, Nat and Jax went to the Global Warming and Arctic Marine Mammals workshop.
The welcoming sign at the conference in the Quebec Conference Centre
At the Ecological Modelling workshop there were talks on topics including: the basics of the ecological modelling of marine mammals, modelling with presence only data i.e. from ‘platforms of opportunity’ such as whale watching boats and ferries, recent work on movement studies using tags and the challenges associated with ecological modelling of marine mammals.
The following describes the workshop from the SMM website:
“There is tremendous interest in applying statistical modeling techniques to the quantitative assessment of marine mammal distribution and habitat use, and our workshop seeks to explore both traditional and the latest methodologies. Our goal is to bring together practitioners that can share their experience with various approaches to ecological modeling by addressing topics ranging from collecting data, selecting the appropriate model, evaluating the model's results, and applying those results in a management scenario.”
And Mer, Nat and Jax learned about the following at the Global Warming and Marine Mammals workshop:
“Knowing how polar ecosystems change with global warming will help to develop strategies for conservation and species management. A reference collection of samples from the complete food web is being developed to build a model of trophic interactions from marine mammals down to nutrients and phytoplankton.
This symposium is relevant to the Society of Marine Mammal Mammalogy's 18th biannual conference. Participants will present and review research results and progress from 2007 and 2008 field activities and discuss how to organize research findings into collaborative science capable of providing an adaptive assessment of climate change effects on Arctic marine ecosystems.”
Here we are at the conference: Me, Jax, Mer and Nat
After a weekend of workshops the conference began Monday October 12 and ran until Friday October 16th. There were many many talks on a variety of topics including: Biologging (tagging) and New Technology, Genetics, Communication, Ecology, Management and Law, Behavioral Ecology, Passive Acoustics, Evolution and Systematics, Conservation, Noise Effects, Physiology, Habitat preference, Genetics, Population Monitoring and Abundance, Distribution among many more.
Most days there were also plenary sessions which included the following talks:
- “A purview of marine mammal molecular ecology and the prospects for conservation genomics in the 21st century” – David W. Coltman
- “Combining evolutionary and ecological approaches to make sense of pelagic ecosystems from phytoplankton to whales” – by Victor Smatecek
- “Big habitats, big studies: Lessons learned from international cooperative studies of wide-ranging large whales” – David Mattila
- “The Calvin Project, Endangered Species Recovery Through Education” – William McWeeney, Meredith Houghton and Madison Koos
- “F.G. Wood Award Winner: Determination of steroid hormones in whale blow: It is possible” – Carolyn Hogg
In addition to a multitude of talks during the week the daily poster sessions included over 800 posters of marine mammal research all over the world. We were all very inspired by this week full of thought provoking and inspiring presentations and it gave us many ideas to take home with us...I am now more motivated to pursue a PhD project over the next year!
During this week we also enjoyed some of the sights of Quebec City including a "ghost" tour of the Old Town (which is given by a ghost rather than being about ghosts!) a couple of nights at the pub (we enjoyed Saint Alexandre) and wandering around the Old Town.
Here are some pictures of highlights from our stay!
The lovely private room four of us shared at the Hostel International in Quebec City. It was only 500 m from the conference centre with great staff, facilities and breakfast included
Hotel in the old part of Quebec City
Above 2 photos: the Fairmont hotel, the Chateau Frontenac, where we went for hot chocolates after our 'ghost tour' of old Quebec
Night view in Quebec City
During our 'ghost tour' which consisted of historical stories of the Old Town
Cannons on the walls surrounding the Old Town
Playing with the light at night
Heading down the narrowest street in Canada
...and on through an alleyway
"Sous le Cap" the name of the alleyway
Ahh...the fall decorations!
More fun with lighting!
The church in the main square
At the end of our tour with our guide
And we had some pub time as well! (From left to right: Mer, Jax, Mallard and I)
And then we got joined by some more...the Washington State crowd!
Mark and the ladies (from left to right: me, Nat, Mark, Kari, Nick and Nic)
Me, Nat, and Mark
Jax and Rhonda looking cute
Sitting in the many talks
The poster session room
Jax taking in some poster info
Kyla checking out one of the 800 posters
On the wall surrounding the Old City
Nice sunny day
The wall for the Old City
Quebec City buildings
Local troublemakers...or budding photographic artists?
Some nice Quebec architecture
The beautiful plant covered planters. Don't worry we didn't crush any flowers!
The beautiful architecture at night!
The outdoor skating rink just outside the gates to the Old City
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