The following information is based on the newsletter published by the Ecological Society of Japan in June 2014. The information will be updated in this page and the top page.

62nd Annual Meeting of Ecological Society of Japan (ESJ62, Kagoshima)

The 62nd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Japan (ESJ62) will be held by the organizing committee and the annual meeting planning committee as follows.

Contacts

Organizing Committee of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Japan

Eiji SUZUKI, Chair of Organizing Committee
Tomoko YAMAMOTO, Secretary General of Organizing Committee
Faculty of Science, c/o Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Kagoshima University, Korimoto 1-21-35, Kagoshima, 890-0065, Japan

Official web site of ESJ62 (Japanese) http://www.esj.ne.jp/meeting/62/
Official web site of ESJ62 (English) http://www.esj.ne.jp/meeting/62/index_english/

For correspondence on any subjects, please enter your questions in the inquiry form. The content below may be updated as needed. Please refer to the latest information on the official website (http://www.esj.ne.jp/meeting/62/index_english/).

Venue and Date

Venue: Korimoto Campus, Kagoshima University
Kagoshima Citizen’s Culture Hall
Date: Wednesday, March 18 to Sunday, March 22, 2015.

For details refer to the next Newsletter.

Schedule and Deadlines

Registration start dates

Symposium organizing proposals: Tuesday, 27 May, 2014

English presentation award call for entry: Tuesday, 1 July, 2014

Other applications: about one month before each deadline indicated below.

Deadlines

Membership application for presenters and organizers who are currently not ESJ members

Membership application: Thursday, 23 October 2014, 17:00 (JST). Please refer to the society website for further details.
Payment of membership fee for 2015: Thursday, 23 October 2014, 17:00 (JST)

For presenters and session organizers

Proposals for symposia: Thursday, 31 July 2014, 17:00 (JST)
English presentation award call for entries: Monday, 1 September 2014
Proposals for organized sessions: Thursday, 6 November 2014, 17:00 (JST)
Proposals for workshops: Thursday, 6 November 2014, 17:00 (JST)
Applications for oral and poster presentations: Thursday, 6 November 2014, 17:00 (JST)
Abstract submissions: Wednesday, 4 February 2015, 17:00 (JST)
Presentation file submissions: A few days before the meeting.

These deadlines are subject to change. Please refer to the official website for the latest information. No changes and additions will be accepted after the deadlines.

Qualifications for applications

Presenters＼membership	ESJ member	Non-member
Contributed oral and poster presenter	X
Symposium organizer	X
Symposium presenter	X	X
Commentator for symposium, organized sessions and workshops^*1	X	X
Organized session organizer	X
Organized session presenter	X	X^*2
Workshop organizer	X
Workshop presenter	X	X

*1: Commentators without abstract registration. Commentators with abstract follow the same qualification rules as presenters.
*2: Only one presentation for an organized session is allowed and the presentation approvals from both the organizing committee and the planning committee are required.
Those who are currently non-members of ESJ but are to be a presenter and/or organizer should apply and pay for the 2015 membership before Thursday, 23 October, 2014. This deadline also applies to those who are to rejoin ESJ due to failure to pay member fee in previous years.
Non-members can be audience of any session only after paying the registration fee of the meeting.

Registration fee and Banquet fee

The details for payment of registration and banquet fees will be announced in the next newsletter. Please note that the ESJ membership fee should be paid separately with the registration and banquet fees.
To encourage the participation of undergraduate students, we are now discussing to reduce or even to waive the registration fee.
No registration fee is needed if you only attend the workshop as an audience.

Visa application

Please refer to the web site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan to see if you need a visa and for visa application processes. http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/index.html
For the documents to be provided from Japan, ESJ office will provide necessary support. More information will be announced in the next newsletter.

Public lecture

Title (tentative): Biodiversity of Southwest Islands: its establishment and conservation
Date and time: 13:00-16:30, Sunday, 22 March 2015
Venue: Room 203, Faculty of Law, Economics and the Humanities, Korimoto Campus, Kagoshima University

Further details will be announced in the next newsletter.

Call for symposium proposals

We invite proposals for organized sessions and workshops in ESJ62. The following points should be confirmed when submitting your proposals. An ESJ membership is required to be an organizer of either an organized session or a workshop. Both are about 2 hours long. The organizing committee will not intervene in the content of proposals except that slander exists against any individuals and/or organizations.

Organized sessions

Individual abstracts in each session will appear in the abstract page of the official website of ESJ62. Session introductions and summaries will appear in both the abstract page of the above website and the printed program.
An organizer or a speaker of an organized session may not serve as an organizer or a speaker in a symposium or a workshop.
An organizer or a speaker of an organized session may not serve as a contributed oral or poster presenter.
In general, a speaker for an organized session is limited only to ESJ members. As an exception, one non-ESJ member can be a speaker in each organized session, but the justification for the exception should be included in the session proposal. The exception does not apply for an individual who serves as the session speaker for two consecutive years.
If the introduction or comment for an organized session has an abstract, the speaker will be considered as a regular speaker and “one presentation rule” will be enforced.
For efficient use of time and space available, an organized oral session should consist of at least 3 speakers.

Workshops

Workshops have traditionally been valued in ESJ annual meetings as a means to promote free discussions on innovative topics, some of which can even step beyond the framework of ecology. However, workshops are not considered as an official function of the meeting, and those who only attend workshops would not be considered as the participants of ESJ meeting.
The introductions and summaries of workshops will appear in both the printed program and the abstract web page, but individual abstracts from the speakers will not be accepted.
Speakers in workshops may present in other sessions or contributed talks/posters. However, the organizing committee will not, in principle, make arrangements of the schedules.
Because all the workshops are not considered as the formal sessions, workshop organizers are expected to take care of their meeting rooms.

Proposal submission

Proposals for organized sessions and workshops must be received by the organizing committee at the official website at the official web site on or before Thursday, November 6, 2014, 17:00 (JST). A proposal for an organized session must include a session summary, a full list of speakers and their co-authors, and presentation titles. Session or workshop organizers and all speakers in an organized session should register as participants and obtain a registration number before submitting a proposal. All the deadlines for above registrations are Thursday, November 6, 2014, 17:00 (JST).

Evaluation and decision

Proposals for organized sessions will receive higher priority over workshop proposals. In case that meeting rooms are not enough for proposed organized sessions even after cancelling all workshops, the organizing committee will decide the proposals for organized session by drawing lots.
If the number of workshop proposals exceeds capacity of the venue, we will first decline workshop proposals from proposers who submit more than one session and/or workshop proposals, and then those from proposers who submit a symposium proposal. If the space is still not enough, decisions will be made by drawing lots.
To make best use of limited resource in the meeting, those who have submitted proposals for symposia and other sessions as organizers or each organizer are kindly requested not to apply for workshops. An individual should not be allowed to submit more than two workshop proposals.
Decisions on approved workshops will be made by November 18, 2014.

Comparison of symposium, organized session and workshop

	Symposium	Organized session	Workshop
Feature	Centerpiece, core topics and official functions	High-lighted topics and official functions	Various topics and unofficial functions
Time limitation	ca. 3 hours	ca. 2 hours	ca. 2 hours
Priority in the meeting	Top	Middle	Low
Priority in the program schedule	Top	Middle	Low
Involvement by the organizing committee	Yes	No (only in case of any slander)	No (only in case of any slander)
Organizer qualification	ESJ member	ESJ member	ESJ member
Presentation by non-ESJ member	Encouraged (registration fee may be waived for invited speakers)	One speaker per session but not allowed for two consecutive years, registration fee needed.	Possible, registration fee not needed if participating only in workshop
Waived registration fee for invited speakers abroad	Yes, but only limited individual	No	No
Presentations in contributed oral/poster sessions (one presentation rule)	Not allowed	Not allowed	Allowed
Presentations in other sessions (one presentation rule)	Allowed only in workshop or forum	Allowed only in workshop or forum	Allowed
Deadline for proposal	Jul. 31, 2014	Nov. 6, 2014	Nov. 6, 2014
Deadline for registration including summary, titles and speaker information	Nov. 6, 2014	Nov. 6, 2014	Nov. 6, 2014
Session summary and individual abstracts	Summary appears in the printed and online program, and individual abstracts in the online program.	Summary appears in the printed and online programs, and individual abstracts in the online program.	Only summary appears in the printed and online programs

Forums

Forums are organized by the committee of ESJ and are aimed at inviting opinions on issues related to ecology. ESJ is addressing, promoting and sharing information among ESJ members and developing agreement in ESJ by widespread discussion. Organizing and providing topics are exempt from “one presentation rule”.

Oral and poster sessions

ESJ members are invited to give a presentation in either oral or poster sessions. Please choose your preference for the presentation style (oral or poster). However, due to limitation in space and time, we may ask you to change your presentation style (oral or poster).
For assigning rooms and times for oral presentations and sorting poster presentations appropriately by topic, we ask you to choose sections from the list that matches your presentation when applying for presentation. Your section may be subject to change due to application numbers and limitation in space.
We will provide chances for presentation and discussion in English in oral sessions. We encourage oral presentations in English to enhance scientific communication with participations who have difficulty in using Japanese. You can also choose to make your oral presentation in only English oral sessions, which will be assigned to a corresponding section according to your presentation topic. The oral presentations in English in these topic sections will be grouped together with the presentations entered for the English Presentation Award.

Notice

Speaker (or main contributor at poster sessions) of each presentation has to be a member of ESJ (co-authors need not be ESJ members).
Each ESJ member is allowed to represent only one oral or poster presentation as a presenter (she/he can co-present more than one).
Oral and poster presentations are closed to organizers and speakers in symposia and organized sessions. These restrictions are imposed for sharing limited resources (space and time).

English Presentation Award

ESJ62 has initiated the English Presentation Award to promote scientific communication in English in the meeting and provide more opportunities among international students, scientists from abroad and Japan. We are paying particular attention to increase opportunities for young scientists to strengthen their communication ability in English. To enter for the award, you need to send an application e-mail as indicated at the official website on English Presentation Award before 1 September 2014. Please refer to the official website (https://sites.google.com/site/esj62engpresenawarden/) for latest information.

Poster Award

ESJ will award young researchers (undergraduate, graduate students, or those young scientists without doctoral degree) presenting excellent posters. While preparing your poster, we encourage you to consider those participants who do not understand the Japanese language. Details for Poster Award will be announced in the next newsletter.

Ecocup 2015

A competition of futsal games (five on five soccer game), Ecocup 2015 is planned as a satellite program. It is managed by an independent organizing committee for Ecocup 2015. Details will be posted on the official website of ESJ62.