Conference: Hormonal Regulation of Whole-Animal Performance: Implications for Selection (2009 SICB Meeting Boston, MA)

尽管公众和媒体强烈关注人类使用类固醇来提高运动成绩，但令人惊讶的是，关于激素如何调节整个动物的性能特征，如跑步、咬和游泳能力，我们知之甚少。有明确的证据表明，这些特征对个体的生存和繁殖很重要，但对于选择对表现的影响，以及它的潜在生理学（包括激素）是如何间接地通过激素的广泛影响影响表型的，人们缺乏普遍的理解。在马萨诸塞州波士顿举行的2009年综合与比较生物学学会（SICB）会议上，研讨会的一个关键方面将是强调激素可能影响一系列动物物种的各种性能特征的多种方式。这次研讨会将鼓励一种综合方法，首次将一个致力于脊椎动物和无脊椎动物的激素和表现的国际研究小组聚集在一起。这些研究人员跨越了广泛的职业阶段和地理位置，通常没有机会直接互动。近一半的研讨会主持人来自美国以外，一些参与者不定期参加SICB会议。这次研讨会的一个好处是，它将为学生和初级研究人员提供一个与更成熟的研究人员交流思想的绝佳机会。这将通过研讨会期间的直接互动，计划的涉及研讨会参与者和学生的社会活动，以及补充的论文会议来实现。历史上代表性不足的群体的参与也正在实现，其中近三分之一的参与者是女性或少数民族。在SICB的期刊《综合与比较生物学》上发表研讨会的论文集将确保研讨会的知识成果得到广泛传播。

Despite intense public and media attention given to steroid use by humans to enhance athletic performance, surprisingly little is known about how hormones regulate whole-animal performance traits, such as running, biting, and swimming ability. There is clear evidence that such traits are important to individual survival and reproduction, but there is a lack of a general understanding of how selection on performance, and indirectly it's underlying physiology (including hormones), affects the phenotype via the wide-ranging effects of hormones. One key aspect of the symposium at the 2009 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) meeting in Boston, MA will be to highlight the diverse ways in which hormones may affect various performance traits across a range of animal species. This symposium will encourage a synthetic approach by bringing together, for the first time, an international group of researchers working on hormones and performance in both vertebrates and invertebrates. These researchers span a wide range of career stages and geographic locations that do not normally have the opportunity to interact directly. Nearly one-half of the symposium presenters are from outside the USA, and several of the participants do not regularly attend SICB meetings. One benefit of this symposium is that it will provide an excellent opportunity for students and junior researchers to exchange ideas with more established investigators. This will be accomplished through direct interaction during the symposium, planned social events involving symposium participants and students, and a complementary contributed paper session. Participation by historically underrepresented groups, with nearly one-third of participants being women or minorities, is also being accomplished. Publication of the symposium's proceedings in SICB's journal, Integrative and Comparative Biology, will ensure that the intellectual products of the symposium are broadly disseminated.