The Ottawa skyline.
From 6 to 10 July, members of the American Society of Naturalists, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the Society for the Study of Evolution (three North American professional societies that usually meet jointly) will join the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution and the European Society for Evolutionary Biology in Ottawa for what will be pretty much the biggest meeting of evolutionary biologists ever.
And we’re going to be there!
But all those biologists in one place means that this year more than ever, attendees will have to pick and choose what talks they make an effort to see. There will be no fewer than fourteen concurrent session talks—the “regular” 14-minute talks most attendees present—running in different rooms at the same time, at any given time of day, and in addition to multiple longer-format symposia. Fortunately, Ottawa is also the first Evolution meeting with a scheduling app for smartphones, which lets attendees select talks and symposia sessions to create personalized schedules.
But that still means we’re spending our spare time poring over the program, making tough choices. Which events are we not going to miss? Read on:
Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! 