Intecol 2013 special symposium: The diversity of diversity studies: retrospectives and future directions.

The Nordic Society has put together a special symposium for the upcoming Intecol meeting.  We hope to see you all there and that you will find it an interesting set of talks.  It is a double session on Tuesday August 20^th in the morning. The full programme details will be available by the end of July apparently.

Goals of the diversity symposium

The primary objective of this symposium to highlight the breadth of diversity studies, both empirical and theoretical, with an eye to promoting novelty and identifying research gaps for the next 100 years.  Ancillary goals that will be addressed to meet this overarching objective include the following.

(i) To critically examine scale as it relates to understanding ecological and evolutionary processes that shape patterns of diversity.

(ii) To develop a clear set of directions for future studies of diversity that augment species diversity estimates with genetics in spatial landscapes.

(iii) To describe pivotal concepts and relationships that limit our capacity to effectively use and measure diversity and how it has changed and will change in the future and propose solutions.

(iv) To identify the critical species and places that anchor diversity studies and enhance diversity in changing climate.

The line-up of speakers is very extensive, and the second column in each table lists the allotted time.  We designed the first session to cover mover ground quickly and directly and the second session provides a bit more time for their respective topics.

Session 1 chaired by Jens-Christian Svenning

Dr Richard Michalet	The contribution of local-scale facilitative interactions to community diversity and composition	15
Dr Carlos Melian	Connecting diversification and biodiversity dynamics across spatial scales	15
Mr Tadashi Fukami	Spatial scale and the historical contingency in community assembly as a source of beta diversity	15
Dr Brody Sandel	Patterns of diversity across scales: Challenges and opportunities	15
Dr Hanna Tuomisto	A critical look at the diversity of diversity: do we know what we are talking about?	15
Dr Pedro Peres-Neto	Spatial autocorrelation, metacommunities, and null models: the thrills of diversity	15
Dr Franz Uiblein	Widely distributed species versus species complexes in the oceans: where to go towards management of species-rich resources and habitats?	15
Summary by Chair		15

Session 2 chaired Christopher Lortie 

Dr W. Daniel Kissling	Multi-species interactions across trophic levels at macroscales: retrospective and future directions	30
Mr Matthias Schleuning	Integrating functional and interaction diversity into biodiversity-ecosystem function research	30
Dr Lonnie Aarssen	Evolution and the sizes and numbers of species:  unpacking the diversity of vegetation	30
Dr Christian Schöb	Global patterns of β-diversity along alpine gradients point to locally changing drivers of community assembly – but only in the absence of foundation species	15
Dr Christopher Lortie	Diversity versus interactions: are diverse groups more important than large effects?	15