Microbial Diversity and Its Role in Conservation: The 2007 AMNH Center for Biodiversity and Conservation Spring Symposium

2007年4月26日和27日，美国自然历史博物馆生物多样性和保护中心（CBC）将举行第十二届年度春季研讨会。今年的主题是“微生物多样性及其在保护中的作用”。这次独特的聚会将召集不同的科学家小组来研究微生物和保护生物学的交叉。通过一系列的会谈、小组讨论和海报展示，会议将讨论地球上微生物多样性的数量、这种多样性对其他生物的积极和消极影响，以及保护措施应如何考虑微生物生命等紧迫问题。本次研讨会将为疾病生态学家、微生物基因组学家、海洋病毒学家、生物地球化学家和保护遗传学家/生物学家提供第一次机会，仅举几例，聚集在一起讨论如何评估微生物多样性，它如何受到威胁，以及“看不见的大多数”如何深刻影响地球上所有其他生命的命运。这次研讨会代表了跨学科保护思想的一个重要的新倡议。该项目包括来自不同群体的演讲者。在24名确认的参与者中，有10名（42%）是女性。在整个研讨会期间，将展出来自其他科学家的约70张海报，其中包括来自当地机构的研究生和博士后研究员，以及国家和国际项目，为许多崭露头角的研究人员提供了向不同观众展示他们工作的机会。会议记录将以四种方式向科学界和公众传播。首先，第一天晚上有一个对公众开放的讲座，因此这是向普通观众介绍研讨会主题的一种方式。其次，所有的专题讨论会都在CBC网站上存档，包括演讲文稿和演讲者摘要、个人简介和出版物清单；今年，所有演讲的播客都将被发布。然后将广泛传播有关这些材料的资料，并制订一项包括当地高中和本科院校在内的分发计划。纽约大都市区是美国种族最多样化的地区之一；该地区至少有30所公立和私立中等教育机构，少数民族入学率从31%到100%不等。第三，本次专题讨论会汇集的各种主题将合并成一册经编辑的卷。最后，CBC的春季专题讨论会通常会吸引当地、国家和国际媒体的成员，他们会报道研讨会演讲和海报中分享的信息，再一次将信息传递给公众。

On April 26 and 27, 2007, the American Museum of Natural History's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (CBC) will hold its twelfth annual Spring Symposium. This year, the topic will be "Microbial Diversity and Its Role in Conservation. This unique gathering will convene a diverse group of scientists to examine the intersection of microbes and conservation biology. Through a series of talks, panel discussions, and poster presentations, the conference will address pressing questions of the amount of microbial diversity on the planet, how this diversity influences other organisms, both positively and negatively, and how conservation practices should take microbial life into account. This symposium will represent one of the first opportunities for disease ecologists, microbial genomicists, marine virologists, biogeochemists, and conservation geneticists/biologists, to name a few, to come together and discuss how microbial diversity is assessed, how it is threatened, and how the "unseen majority" profoundly affects the fate of all other life on Earth. This symposium represents a significant new initiative of interdisciplinary thinking for conservation. The program includes a diverse group of speakers. Ten of the twenty-four confirmed participants (42%) are women. Throughout the symposium, approximately 70 posters from other scientists, including graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from local institutions but also national and international programs will be exhibited, providing an opportunity for many up-and-coming researchers to present their work to a diverse audience. The proceedings of the symposium will be disseminated to the scientific community and to the general public in four ways. First, there is an evening lecture on the first day that is open to the general public and thus is a means of introducing the subject of the symposium to a very general audience. Second, all symposia are archived on the CBC website, including presentation transcripts and speaker abstracts, bios, and publication lists; this year podcasts of all of the talks will be posted. Information on the availability of these materials will then be disseminated widely, with a distribution plan that includes local high schools and undergraduate institutions. The New York metropolitan area is one of the country's most ethnically diverse regions; there are at least 30 public and private secondary education institutions in the region whose minority enrollments range from 31 to 100%. Third, the diverse topics that are being brought together in this symposium will be merged into an edited volume. Finally, the CBC's Spring Symposia typically attract members of the local, national, and international media who report on the information that is shared in the symposium talks and posters, again, taking the message back to the general public.