Symposium - Individual Based Models for Conservation

I am currently organizing a symposium session at the 2009 International Society of Ecological Modeling (ISEM) to take place in Québec City, October 6-9, 2009. The goal is to get together researchers who have realized the importance of individual based approaches for resolving ecological problems. Individual-based models allow for underlying processes to be explicitly described--including behavior, movement, social dynamics--so that the key things that we think are important--survival, population decline or increase, effect of changing landscapes--can be explicitly addressed. I am co-organizing this symposium with Danielle Marceau, University of Calgary.

To date, I have tentative confirmations on projects ranging from wolves recolonizing the Italian alps (Dr. Francesca Marucco, Italy), to understanding how endangered butterflies move between remnant patches (Dr. Ghislain Rompré, USA), to how we can use individual-based models as part of a conservation planning process (Dr. Michel Baguette, France).