antbase.org

Schedule

Provisional schedule as of August 1, 1996.

The aim of this workshop is to prepare a manual, including guidelines for how to use leaf-litter ants in biodiversity and conservation researach, as well as discussions of the pros and cons of specific techniques, limitations, and required research.

To achieve this aim in this short time, the following rules will apply.

Lectures should generally not be longer than 30 minutes, 15 minutes for case studies.
After each lecture there will be discussion, which will be summarized. In cases were decisions have to me made, a consensus has to be achieved.
Each speaker has to take notes of the discussion. Participants are asked to submit longer arguments toward a specific subject in written form, which then will be integrated into the respective paper. The authorship for that part will be given to this participant.
Each argument in a discussion should be written down on a piece of paper, with the number of chapter involved and the author. The paper has than to be posted on a specifically designated area. For longer submissions, figures and tables, please prepare them at home and bring them along on a computer disk. This will allow the author of the chapter to include all the contributions.
Redundancy should be omitted. Especially in case studies, do only present the specific data, and a brief outline of the methods. Discussion of methods should be included in the technical chapters.
The sessions will be chaired either by Jonathan Majer or Donat Agosti.
A template of an earlier version of the Amphibian book is mailed to each of the participants, and guidlines to the other will be distributed at the conference.

18. August

8pm - 930pm

Wellcome
Introduction I
The introduction of the participants
Ilheus: History, Biodiversity and Conservation Keith Alger, IESB
The ALL - Workshop: the general setting, the aims, the administration

19.August

The background: biotic inventories, bioindicators for biodiversity and conservation. Donat Agosti
Ant diversity and natural history: an overview. William L. Brown jr.
Broad-scale patterns of leaf-litter ant species diversity. Philip S. Ward
Ant Communities. Mike Kaspari

lunch

2pm-530pm

Correlations between ant and other organismal diversity. Leeanne Elizabeth Tennant de Arias
Biology of the interaction of ants with other leaf litter organisms. Ted Schultz and Terry McGlynn
Functional Groups in ants. Alan Andersen
Ants as biodiversity indicators. Raghavendra Gadagkar>
A comparison of rainforests around the world. Wayt M. Thomas and Donat Agosti
SUMMARY: Limits, research required. Philip S. Ward et al. [Based on discussion]

800pm-1000pm Case Studies (each 15 minutes)

The West-Malayisan case. Annette K.F. Malsch
The Indian case. Raghavendra Gadagkar
The Malagasy case. Brian Fisher
The Australian case. Alan Andersen and Jonathan Majer
The Manauan case. Heraldo Vasconzelos
The Amazonian case. Ana Yoshi Harada
The Atlantic forest case. Jacques Delabie, xx, and Donat Agosti
The Atlantic forest case: edge effects. Jacques H. Delabie and Jonathan Majer

20. August

730pm-9pm

Field techniques: An overview and description of collecting techniques. Brandon Bestelmeyer
The use of pitfall traps for sampling ants and other invertebrate fauna - a Critique. Jonathan D. Majer.
Handling of the samples. Gary D. Alpert and John Lattke
Identification. C. Roberto F. Brandão

21. August

Sampling design: How many samples need to be taken, how have they to be distributed. Jonathan Majer, Jacques H. Delabie and xx
What you can do with the data. John Longino
Discussion and conclusion for the chapter: "A protocol for the standardized collection of ant faunas". Donat Agosti et al.

2pm-530pm Informatics tool - towards a global network

Computerized keys. Kye S. Hedlund and Ana Harada
The ALATI sample bank and web sites. Dave Gladstein and Donat Agosti