Group Travel Support for the Symposium "Biogeography and Ecology - Two Lenses in One Telescope"; Herakleon, Crete; January 2011

生态学和生物地理学都是具有不同方法的大型学科：生态学倾向于关注自然界中的局部模式和过程，而生物地理学则侧重于大规模的、大陆的模式和过程。然而，这两个学科都有一个共同的总体目标，那就是更好地理解自然生物系统。本项目将支持研究生参加国际生物地理学会专题研讨会“生物地理学与生态学——一架望远镜中的两个镜头”。在本次研讨会上，生态学家和生物地理学家将对两个学科共同感兴趣的四个主题进行分析：生态位、比较生态学和宏观生态学、群落聚集和多样性。这次研讨会将是第一次明确地将生态学家和生物地理学家聚集在一起，批判性地回顾和讨论这两个学科的交叉点，并将有助于指导每个合并学科的未来研究。这次研讨会和由此产生的期刊是及时和必要的，因为区域和国际研究项目在回应生态学和生物地理学之间的界面的大规模问题方面越来越普遍。生物多样性保护和气候变化等许多环境挑战发生在区域尺度上，需要生态学和生物地理学共同指导基于科学的政策和决策。象研究区域和大规模问题的科学一样，环境管理和管制努力也正在跨越国界，达到区域范围。更直接的是，研究生将被资助参加研讨会和国际生物地理学会会议。学生的旅行支持将有助于学生的发展？并将对未来生态生物地理学的研究产生重大影响。

Ecology and biogeography are each large disciplines with different approaches: ecology tends to focus on local patterns and processes in nature, while biogeography focuses on large-scale, continental patterns and processes. Yet both disciplines share the overall goal to better understand natural biological systems. This project will support graduate students to attend and participate in a special symposium of the International Biogeography Society, entitled Biogeography and Ecology - Two Lenses in One Telescope. In this symposium, both ecologists and biogeographers will present analyses of four subjects of common interest to the two disciplines: niche, comparative ecology and macroecology, community assembly, and diversity. The symposium will be the first to explicitly bring together ecologists and biogeographers to critically review and discuss the intersection of the two disciplines, and will help steer future research in each of the merging disciplines. The symposium and resulting journal issue are timely and essential because regional and international research programs are increasingly common in response to large-scale problems at the interface between ecology and biogeography.Many of the environmental challenges, such as biodiversity conservation and climate change occur at regional scales, and will require that ecology and biogeography together guide science-based policies and decisions. Like the science of regional and large-scale questions, environmental management and regulatory efforts are also crossing borders and reaching to regional scales. More immediately, graduate students will be funded to attend the symposium and International Biogeography Society conference. Travel support for students will help launch students? careers and will have a strong influence on the future of research in ecological biogeography.