56th Annual Meeting of Ecological Society of Japan (ESJ56)

The 56th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Japan (abbreviated as ESJ56) will be held by the organizing committee and program committee as follows.

Outline of the meeting

The meeting features symposia, forums, oral and poster presentations, organized sessions, workshops, business meetings, award recipient lectures, and banquet. With respect to the organized sessions and workshops, please refer to “Organized sessions and workshops”section.

Registration for participation, application for oral and poster presentations, and proposals of organized sessions and workshop will be accepted on the official web site: Please refer to “Process of registration” for details. The On-line abstract submission will be available from Monday, December 15, 2008.

Any person who wishes to attend the meeting is invited to register on the official web site. However, applicants for oral and poster presentations and organizers of symposia, organized sessions and workshops should be members of the Ecological Society of Japan. For presenting papers or organizing meetings, membership dues for the 2009 year should be paid. If you are not yet a ESJ member, please fill and send the Membership Application Form when you apply for an oral or poster presentation or propose an organized session or workshop, and pay the dues by the end of January, 2009. For joining the Ecological Society of Japan, refer to http://www.esj.ne.jp/esj/index-e.html , or please contact:

    The Ecological Society of Japan
    1-8 Koyama Nishihanaike-cho, Kita-ku, Kyoto, 606-8148, Japan
    E-mail: 
    TEL/FAX: +81-75-384-0250

A Program Book of the meeting will be sent around February 2009 to all the members of the ESJ except for those in arrears with the membership dues. Please pay the dues in advance by the end of December 2008 to receive the book.

The Program Book will not be sent to non-member registrants. Please read the program on the official website which will appear around February 2009 or the Book of Abstracts which will be handed on site.

Venue and Schedule

The meeting will be held mainly in Iwate Prefectural University from Tuesday, March 17 to Saturday, March 21, 2009. Main events are tentatively planned as follows. However, the schedule may be altered depending on the numbers of proposals of symposia, organized sessions, and workshops. Details will be announced on the official web site.

• March 17 (Tue.) Iwate Prefectural University, Business meetings, Poster sessions, Organized sessions, Workshops
• March 18 (Wed.) Iwate Prefectural University, Symposia, Oral and poster sessions, Organized sessions, Workshops
• March 19 (Thu.) Iwate Prefectural University, Symposia, Oral and poster sessions, Organized sessions, Workshops
• March 20 (Fri.) Building Complex on the west side of Morioka station, General meeting, Award celemony, Award recipient lectures, Public lecture, Workshops, Banquet (Hotel Metropolitan Morioka, New Wing )
• March 21 (Sat.) Iwate Prefectural University, Symposia, Oral sessions, Organized sessions, Workshops

Process of registration

The organizing committee commissions the JTB Tohoku to collect fees for registration and banquet to save labor for management of the meeting. All the participants who can not write Japanese characters, should follow the two necessary procedures. First, register in the ''registration system managed by the ESJ'', and next send a facsimile to the address shown below for payment.

We appologize for the inconvenience. An English version of the JTB online payment system is not available.

Firstly, please apply for the participation in the registration system linked from the ESJ56 official web site. If you wish to give an oral or a poster presentation, please apply for the presentation at the same time. The registration number issued in this procedure and your password are necessary for submission of the abstract of your presentation. Please record and hold them by the time.

Secondly, please fill the ESJ56 Payment Information Form ( MS Word File / ( PDF File ) and send it by facsimile to

    Morioka Branch, JTB Tohoku Ltd. 
    2-5 Uchimaru, Morioka 020-8525, Japan
    Fax: +81-19-623-4425 (From Overseas) 
            019-623-4425 (From Japan)

If you cannot pay by a credit card, please send your personal information by facsimile to JTB Tohoku and also ask how to pay the registration and banquet fees via email to .

JTB Tohoku will send you a JTB ID by facsimile. For submission of abstract the JTB ID is also necessary. Please record and hold them.

Accommodation and tour reservation:

JTB Tohoku is an official travel agent for the meeting and will handle hotel accommodations and tour reservations. Please send a facsimile or an email to Mr. Goto () for information on hotels.

The fees for registration and banquet and payment

Registration fee (including a copy of book of abstracts)

• By Friday, February 20, 2009:
  • Regular member 7,500 yen, Non-member (except for students) 8,000 yen
  • Students (including non-member) 4,500 yen
• On site:
  • Regular member 10,000 yen, Non-member (except for students) 10,000 yen
  • Students (including non-member) 7,000 yen
• Banquet
  • Regular member 6,500 yen, Non-member (except for students) 7,500 yen
  • Students (including non-member) 4,500 yen

Book of abstracts will be available for 3,000 yen per copy and sent after the meeting.

The member means an ESJ member in the 2009 year. The regular member fee will be applicable to those who send application form at the time of registration and pay the dues by the end of January, 2009.

The fees once paid are not refundable. A copy of Book of Abstracts will be sent to registrants who are inevitably prevented from attending the meeting. Application for banquet is open until the tickets are exhausted, you can enter the application after the payment of registration fee.

Deadlines

Deadlines for proposals are as follows.

• Proposal of organized session and workshops: October 24, 2008 (Fri.) 17:00
• Application for an oral or poster presentation: November 14, 2008(Fri.) 17:00
• Abstract submission: January 9, 2009 (Fri.) 17:00
• Early registration: February 20, 2009 (Fri.) 17:00
• Early payment: February 20, 2009 (Fri.) 17:00

For proposal of an organized session or workshop and application for an oral or poster presentation, prior registration is necessary. For abstract submission, the registration number, password, and JTB ID are necessary. Those who need to submit an abstract should get a JTB ID and complete payment by the end of December, 2008.

If payment is not completed by February 20, 2009 (Fri.) 17:00, the on-site rate will be applied at the reception desk.

Oral and Poster Sessions

ESJ members are invited to give a presentation at oral or poster sessions. The representative (speaker at oral sessions and main contributor at poster sessions) of a presentation are requested to register the title of the presentation, author name(s) and affiliation(s) on the official website at the time of the registration for participation. Deadline for application for an oral or poster presentation is Friday, November 14, 2008, 17:00. Please choose your preference for the presentation style (oral or poster). However, for the reasonable use of limited space and time, we may ask you to change your presentation style (oral or poster).

We solicit oral presentations in English for providing ESJ members with opportunities to talk and discuss in English and also to communicate with those who do not understand Japanese. We offer choices of "prefer a presentation in the English session" and "prefer a English presentation at a specified session."

For encouraging young scientists, we award a Prize for excellent poster presentations. See the section of Poster Prize below for details.

For assigning rooms and times for oral presentations and sorting poster presentations appropriately by the contents of presentations, please choose two or three sections from the most preferable in the following list. If applications for some poster sections are less than five, these applications may be assigned to the second or third preferable sections.

Sections at oral and poster sessions

1. Plant community / 2 .Plant population / 3. Plant ecophysiology / 4. Plant reproduction / 5. Life history of plants / 6. Pollination / 7. Seed dispersal / 8. Mycological ecology / 9. Microbial ecology / 10. Landscape ecology / 11. Succession/Regeneration / 12. Phenology / 13. Animal-plant interactions / 14. Evolution / 15. Species diversity / 16. Mathematical ecology / 17. Animal community / 18. Animal reproduction / 19. Animal population / 20. Life history of animals / 21. Behavior / 22. Socioecology / 23. Molecular ecology / 24. Paleoecology / 25. Conservation / 26. Ecosystem management / 27. Invasive species / 28. Urban ecology / 29. Production ecology / 30. Material cycling / 31. Education and popularization of ecology / 32 English (only oral and for any special subject)

Notice

• Speaker (or main contributor at poster sessions) of each presentation has to be the Class-A or B member of the ESJ (co-authors need not be ESJ members).
• Each ESJ member is allowed to represent only one oral or poster presentation (she/he can co-present more than two).
• Oral and poster presentations are closed to organizers and speakers in symposia. These restrictions are imposed for sharing limited resources (space and time).
• Those in arrears with the membership dues or the registration fee will lose the opportunity to give a presentation at an oral or poster session, an organized session or a symposium. Please pay the fee before the end of January, 2008.

Each presentation at the oral sessions should be 15 minutes long (12 minutes for presentation followed by a 3- minute question and answer). Sounds of a bell will inform you of elapsed time from the start of your presentation; first at 10, second at 12 and finally at 14.5 minutes. Each speaker will be asked to chair a talk after her/his own. Session rooms are equipped only with an LCD projector and a Personal Computer with Windows XP. No overhead projector and slide projector are available. Microsoft Power Point Viewer (Power Point 2003 on Windows) and Adobe Acrobat Reader are installed on the PC. The use of your own PC is not acceptable.

Method for submitting presentation files are now under review. Details will be informed on the official web site.

Preparing oral presentations

Each presentation at the oral sessions should be 15 minutes long (12 minutes for presentation followed by a 3- minute question and answer). Sounds of a bell will inform you of elapsed time from the start of your presentation; first at 10, second at 12 and finally at 14.5 minutes. Each speaker will be asked to chair a talk after her/his own.

Session rooms are equipped only with an LCD projector and a Personal Computer with Windows XP. No overhead projector and slide projector are available. Microsoft Power Point Viewer (Power Point 2003 on Windows) and Adobe Acrobat Reader are installed on the PC. The use of your own PC is not acceptable.

Method for submitting presentation files are now under review. Details will be informed on the official web site.

Preparing poster presentations

Each poster will be mounted on a 90cm width by 210cm height poster board.

The Ecological Society of Japan (ESJ) awards a Prize to excellent poster presentations for encouraging young scientists. The award will be selected from posters by young scientists who entered for the contest. Applicants are asked to understand the purpose of the prize. Processes for selecting award winners will follow the rule applied in the 55th Fukuoka meeting. Details will be printed on the Program Book and posted on the official website. Please prepare your poster, taking care of the points shown in the document.

Remark on color scheme of tables and figures in presentations

About 5 percent of Japanese males are weakly sensitive to a specific range of color mixed with red or green. To cope with the situation, Dr. Masataka Okabe (Department of Anatomy, The Jikei University School of Medicine) and Dr. Kei Itoh (Institute of molecular cell biology, the University of Tokyo) are spreading "Method of color barrier free presentations." Please refer to Dr. Okabe's web page to produce barrier free tables and figures.

Carrier explorer mark (CE mark)

Student or post-doc presenters who wish to do so can show the carrier explorer mark expressing that the presenter is looking for employment, in his/her oral or poster presentation. Please show it on the title page of an oral presentation or on the poster board near the title.

Since the ESJ has obtained permission, the CE mark can be downloaded on the web site of the Japan Society of Applied Physics.

Abstracts

Abstracts of presentations should be submitted on the official website by Friday, January 9, 2009, 17:00. The entrance for abstract submission will be available from Monday, December 15, 2008. The abstracts should be shorter than 800 characters in Japanese or 200 words in English including the name(s) and affiliation(s) of author(s). Details will be found on the official website.

Symposia

Proposals for symposia were closed on Friday, July 11, 2008. Now, organizers and the program committee are preparing for the symposia. Details will be posted on the official web site.

Organized sessions and workshops

The ESJ56 solicits proposals of organized sessions and workshops in the same way as in the ESJ55. Organized sessions and workshops are invited collectively and divided into organized sessions and workshops by the program committee considering choices by the organizers. We expect a lot of applications from those who understand the following points.

Organized sessions

• Participants of the organized sessions are requested to pay the registration fee.
• For the organized sessions, the abstracts of individual talks will be printed on the abstract book. The purpose and outline of the whole session will be printed on the program and the abstract book.
• Speakers and organizers can give a presentation in a symposium, oral or poster session. However, the program committed does not consider the possible overlaps of the sessions.
• Each session will be 2 hours. Organized sessions are planned on March 17th (Tue.), 18th (Wed.), 19th (Thu.) and 21th (Sat.).

Workshops

• For the workshops, only the purpose and outline of the whole session will be printed and the abstracts of individual talks will not be included in the abstract book.
• Speakers and organizers can give a presentation in a symposium, oral or poster session. However, the program committed does not consider the possible overlaps of the sessions.
• Each organized session or workshop will be 2 hours. It is probable that workshops are assigned time zones in the days when some business meetings or the public lecture are held.

Organizers of organized sessions and workshops have to be ESJ members including the Class-C members.

Those who hope to organize organized sessions and workshops should submit proposals by Friday, October 24, 2008 17:00 on the official website.

Both the organized sessions and workshops should be held under the responsibility of the organizers. The program committee is not concerned in the contents, unless they include a slander or a personal attack and so on.

Because of limited space and time for the meeting, we may be forced to decline some proposals. If too many workshops are proposed, the program committee will ask the organizers who submit multiple proposals to step aside. Next, we ask the symposium organizers to give up the proposals. If the number of proposed workshops still exceeds the expected, the program committee will determine winning workshops by lottery. The decision will be sent to the organizers by November 21, 2008 (Fri.) via e-mail.

Forum

One or two forums organized by some committees in the ESJ will be held. A forum is aimed at widely soliciting opinions of the ESJ members, allowing them to share common information and making general consensus among them through a broad discussion, on the theme the committees are concerned with. The organizers and panelists reserve the right to organize a symposium or give a presentation in some sessions.

Banquet

Enjoy the banquet at Hotel Metropolitan Morioka, East Wing in the evening of Friday, March 20, 2009. The place is located venue of the day (Malios and Aiina) and largest in Morioka city. We welcome many participants.

Day nursery

A day-care center will be open in the main venue, Iwate Prefectural University, and the place for general meeting and public lecture (Morioka Civic Cultural Hall, Malios). Details on available time and application will appear on the official website of the ESJ56.

Eco Photo Award 2009

The ESJ56 organizing committee planned a photo exhibition to rouse interest of the general public in nature and ecology by expressing ecologists’ natural views. The title of the photo exhibition is “Ecologists' selects of the universe for the future generation.” The committee is looking forward to receiving your wonderful photograph. The applied photograph need not be connected to your own research theme. Only one unpublished photograph per person will be accepted.

Procedure for application

1. Please send a low-resolution digital image (in a JPEG file less than 500KB) as an attached file of email with the applicant’s name, business address, title of the photograph, and comments within 100 characters to the following address shown below. The subject of the email should be the applicant’s name with the prefix “epa2009” (for example, epa2009Hanako_Morioka).

2. The ESJ56 organizing committee selects (provisional) 40 exhibits through a preparatory judgment. Those who receive notices of selection should send a high-resolution digital image (with more than 1600 by 1200 pixels) recorded in a medium (CD is recommended) to the organizing committee. In both processes, the applied photograph will be used only for judgment and exhibition. However, under the permission of the author(s), some exhibit may be used as a cover photograph of Ecological Research and so on. Files sent to the committee will be erased on the responsibility of the committee after the use. Medium sent to the committee will be returned at the reception desk or sent by mail to the author.

Judgment and commendation: Photographs that will have passed the preparatory judgment will be printed and exhibited on panels in the place for the general meeting and public lecture on Friday, March 20. Excellent photographs will be selected by votes of the participants and general public. Award-winning photographs will be announced, and given commendations in the banquet.

Contact email address:

Period of application: from Monday, September 29, 2008 to Friday, November 14, 2008

Ecocup 2009

A competition of footsal games, Ecocup 2009 is planned as a satellite program on Sunday, March 22, 2009 at the Iwate Prefectural Gymnasium (12 minutes by bus from the Morioka station). It is managed by an independent organizing committee for Ecocup 2009. Details will be appeared on the official website.

Accommodation and tour

No accommodation is available around the main venue, Iwate Prefectural University. In Morioka city, there are many hotels around the station and in the city center. However, the number of rooms are limited. The organizing committee asked JTB Tohoku to handle hotel accommodations and tour reservations as an official travel agent for the meeting. Please send a facsimile (+81-19-623-4425 (From Overseas), 019-623-4425 (From Japan)) or an email to Mr. Goto ( ) for information on hotels and tours.

Parking lots are available both in Iwate Prefectural University (free of charge) and around Morioka station (with some charge). Please use winter tires in case of snowfall and road freezing.

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Contact address

  Organizing Committee of the 56th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Japan 
    c/o Iwate University, Laboratory of Environmental Biology,
       Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ueda 3-18-34, Morioka, 020-8550 JAPAN
    Tel : 019-621-6829　FAX: 019-621-6829
    Chair: Masatoshi Yui 
    Secretary General: Younosuke Maki
    Email: 
    Official web site: http://www.esj.ne.jp/meeting/56/index-e.html

or correspondence on any subjects , please enter your questions in the inquiry form on this website.

For transportation and accommodation, please contact Mr. Goto () of the official travel agent, JTB Tohoku.