The proposed workshop aims to provide an opportunity for delegates (including students) to learn more about the way in which the process of scholarly publication is developing, and likely future trends.

Potential topics for discussion include open-access publishing, the shift to shorter papers with longer online supplements, and to short and non-comprehensive reviews as in Trends journals; the role of online databases; and how to deal as an author or referee with the new world of electronic-based publishing. 

A number of Editors of international journals will be attending INTECOL, and we would ask attending Editors to participate in the session. Representatives from Wiley-Blackwell would also speak on the changing world of journal publishing.

This is a half day workshop for a maximum of 30 participants, which will increase the participants’ awareness of how the media operates and how best to use the media to get their stories across. It will include a panel discussion with working journalists and an opportunity for some participants to demonstrate and practice their media interview skills. It will cover the three key aspects of any media story: the story, the interviewee (talent), and the pictures. It will give tips on how to use the media to get a science story out through the media, which is attractive to the media, but also clearly conveys the scientist’s messages.

The larger issues of human development and conservation of biodiversity, carbon stocks and environmental services needs to be debated so ecologists can be well placed for sustained engagement in research and policy agendas in environmental offsets.  This workshop will bring together ecologists who have either worked in the area of environmental offsets or have an interest in developing skills and knowledge in this emerging area of research and policy implementation. We expect this workshop theme will appeal to researchers, natural resource managers and those involved with developing and implementing environmental offsets policy and practice.  The workshop format is yet to be finalized but we envisage some plenary sessions and/or case studies by experts dealing with theoretical and practical applications of environmental offsets, together with small group sessions on ‘hot topics’ identified by the group prior to or during the workshop.

Estimates of animal diversity and abundance are central to testing ecological theory, managing populations and measuring environmental health. Technological advances have always been incorporated into methods used to make these estimates. Most recent developments in electronics and communication (e.g. smartphones) have great potential to extend our ability to monitor and measure animal diversity and abundance, and significantly reduce the cost of this monitoring. These developments allow the possibility of remote data collection in real-time, delivery of data to the desk-top, and web based systems that can be used to organise data collection and processing, and remotely control data acquisition arrangements. The goal of this workshop is to bring together current and potential users of remote sensor equipment designed to measure or monitor animal diversity and abundance. The focus will be on acoustic monitoring equipment. The workshop will cover recent developments in acoustic sensors and will include examples from on-going projects. Discussions and demonstrations will deal with elements from sensor deployment and data acquisition and delivery, to processing and management of data.

Native seeds are a vital part of revegetation and habitat restoration projects.  There are many issues relating to the collection and supply of seed in Australia.  These include:

• The physical quality of seed e.g. low seed viability rates because of poor storage or handling practices,
• The genetic quality of seed e.g. low seed viability rates because seed is collected from small, fragmented populations that have high levels of inbreeding, and
• Biodiversity risks. 

Biodiversity risks resulting from seed collection and supply practices include

• the introduction of weedy species or sub-taxa as a result of planting seed from inappropriate taxa or provenances;
• recreating the wrong habitats - the lack of viable seed from key species (because of difficulties collecting, storing or germinating them) often means that revegetation goes ahead with simply the species we have, rather than the species we need;
• Over-collecting from remnant bushland sites

Florabank is Australia’s Native Seed Resource.  Florabank is working to address seed supply constraints and to improve the biodiversity values of revegetation through information provision, training for seed collectors and seed buyers, bringing seed buyers and sellers together, and by working with the Australian native seed industry to develop a certification and accreditation process.  Our information partners include CSIRO Plant Industry, Greening Australia, and Australian Seed Conservation and Research (AuSCaR).

This workshop brings together research projects on native seeds that are making a difference to the success of revegetation and habitat restoration projects.  In the morning we will hear about a range of seed-related research issues with case-studies from projects around Australia.  In the afternoon, Florabank will present on our initiatives to bring native seed research into practice (including demonstrations of our webtools).  This will be followed by facilitated discussions to bring together different aspects of seed research, and work towards some new collaborations to solve practical problems in Australia and beyond.

If we are to preserve important ecological services of mangroves and tidal wetlands, there is an urgent need to develop management strategies to deal with their various responses to climate change - based on sound scientific studies and effective monitoring. There is a similar need to learn what types of changes are expected, to disseminate this information and raise awareness for effective change adaptation planning.

To date, communities label mangroves as ‘bad’ when they: expand; choke tidal navigational channels; block storm drainage canals; spread along coastal foreshores; smother saltmarsh and reduce habitat for migratory waders; and, invade upland. Such one-sided views are manifest currently in several coastal communities of Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, as they experience likely early responses to changing climate coupled with corresponding increases in landuse disturbance.

A chief difficulty is that base drivers of change are often ill-defined and arguable, while convincing evidence is lacking. Meanwhile, management responses to such changes are understandably reactive, responding to ill-informed community pressure. For example, as seawater encroaches inland threatening property, there is a cry to construct defensive seawalls without regard for tidal wetland habitat left with nowhere to go. Similarly, where rainfall levels might increase, tidal wetland vegetation responds by increasing biomass, biodiversity and changing relative abundance, to be labelled as invaders, weeds and invasive species.

Such responses may be predictable, but research is needed to identify, define and model expected ecological and geomorphological outcomes. There are problems also with confounding influences of human impacts delivered directly by conversion and physical damage, and indirectly as pollution, nutrients and turbid runoff.

This workshop will draw together knowledgeable tidal wetland researchers from various disciplines with managers to identify key issues and knowledge gaps, and contribute towards current reviews and strategy documents for regional and national climate change adaption plans.

Ecological impact assessment uses specific methodological approaches. As a profession, ecologists have the experience to understand the principles of the science and how it can be meaningfully applied. Although Australia and New Zealand have disparate policies on impact assessment there is no industry-driven policy about how ecology fits into the overall impact assessment framework (e.g. as a driver for sustainable development).
The Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (IEEM) have successfully standardised guidelines for the UK and these have been endorsed by all government agencies. To ‘standardise’ guidelines for a given country requires information about relevant species and legislation. This would not be achievable in this workshop. Nevertheless, the principles by which assessments are done or standardised procedures are developed, remain the same e.g. the need to establish objectives, conduct seasonal fieldwork, establish minimum levels of sampling effort, understand species in relation to processes and function of the ecosystem, assess impacts against natural variation and fully reference or explain assumptions made.

The aim of this the workshop is to discuss and identify core principles so and present these as guidance. Perhaps they may ultimately be used to develop impact assessment methods and possibly inform national or state-specific processes for standardised procedures at a later date. The final objective is to draft guidelines that could apply equally in Australia and New Zealand (or elsewhere) and assist practising professionals and governments better understand the role of ecology in practice.

Networking is an essential part of the research process; promoting collaboration, generating new ideas and preventing duplication of effort. INTECOL10 provides a perfect platform for student ecologists to come together, learn about what research is currently being undertaken by students, make international links and form interdisciplinary collaborations, and discuss, debate and brainstorm hot ecological topics. 
The student day is designed for Honours, Masters and Doctorate candidates, and postdoctoral researchers within 3 years of completing their PhD undertaking research in ecology or related field.  They need to be a delegate of INTECOL to attend the day.

In this workshop we will present a range of modelling techniques which enable the exploration of suitable management strategies for invasive plants.  Participants will be introduced to both commonly used tools and some new models for dealing with demography, landscape heterogeneity, human behaviour, economics and spread. We will also discuss general findings from modelling studies which can be applied in the absence of detailed information.  Participants will be provided with model code and we will work through practical examples of the use of selected models and case-studies. Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptops but a small number of additional computers may be provided so it is not essential to bring your own. Participants will take away a cd containing model code, workshop case-studies and relevant papers.

Topics covered will include some or all of the following (participants to be asked to state their preferences and topics covered will depend on demand):
Demography: deterministic & stochastic matrix models, use of elasticities and simulations to inform management.
Dispersal: integration of matrix models and dispersal kernels to assess management to contain spread.
Landscape context: GIS based and neutral landscape models, habitat heterogeneity, integration with dispersal & demographic models to inform surveillance & management
Whole of ecosystem processes: disturbance & the role of weed management as a disturbance, stochastic dynamic & analytical models.
Economics: incorporating impact & management costs vs. commercial benefits into management decision models.
Human behaviour: models of sub-catchment weed management

Species distributions are a fundamental component of ecology. Delineating historic and current ranges, and identifying important biophysical features are often of interest. Questions associated with how species distributions change in response to changing environmental conditions are particularly relevant at present.

A species distribution can be defined as all those locations on the landscape where the species is present; hence to reliably identify locations that are outside it current distribution requires information on species absence, particularly when sampling effort is not consistent across the area of interest. However, many species are not detected perfectly by field surveys when present at a location, resulting in false absences and potentially misleading conclusions about species distributions and the factors affecting them. The potential for misleading conclusions is amplified when the ability to detect the species is influenced by the same biophysical features that are under consideration for affecting species distribution.
The inability to confirm a species is absent from a location has long been recognized, although only relatively recently have methods been developed allowing reliable conclusions to be drawn about species distributions in the face of imperfect detection. These methods require that each location is surveyed multiple times within a relatively short timeframe in order to provide the necessary information to disentangle the real biology (species distribution) from the sampling (species detection).

In this workshop an introduction to these methods will be provided. Details of the underlying estimation procedures will be presented in a lecture-style format, along with worked examples illustrating key concepts. Applying these models to produce distributional maps or to predict changes in the species distribution will also be covered. Participants will be encouraged to interject with questions at their leisure. Topics planned to be included are:

• Problems with presence-only data.
• Background on the effects of imperfect detection.
• Investigating species distributions at a single point in time.
• Changes in distributions through time.

Study design considerations.

This workshop would provide international delegates with an orientation to the ecosystems of NZ and Aust, and involve the participants in a discussion about their characteristics (and differences) with analogous ecosystems in other countries.

The day workshop will divided into two parts. The morning will involve presentations and discussions involving:  the development of climate change scenarios; models and tools for assessing impacts and adaptation; and examples of applications. The afternoon will involve “hands-on” exercises in which participants can use integrated models to construct scenarios and apply them to various environmental and ecological problems.

Workshop attendees will need to bring laptops. Software will be provided during the workshop. Please ensure that you have full administrative rights to your laptop to ensure successful installation of the software provided on the day.

The workshop focuses on the integration of processes involving planning, execution and long-term monitoring of restoration of a World Heritage Area using leading-edge technologies to test or develop new scale-specific conceptual models encompassing the scientific, economic and social dimensions of ecological restoration.

The project area occurs within close proximity to four universities within two major urban centres in South-east Queensland, with on-site accommodation and conference infrastructure, providing an ideal logistical environment for scientific, educational and community participation in the project.

The project centres on the recovery of about 200 hectares or more of refugial rainforest, wet and dry sclerophyll forests and montane heaths within a World Heritage precinct in the McPherson Range of the Gold Coast hinterland of South-east Queensland, Australia. The plateau region is a well-preserved, biogeographically isolated remnant of an extinct 23-Million year old shield volcano.

Compressed environmental gradients in altitude, rainfall, soils, geology, and geomorphology within a matrix of ecosystems at various stages of recovery from land-use change over a century provide an ideal test bed for ecological theories. Ecosystems range from lowland rainforests to montane heaths and cloud forests. Biodiversity includes exceptional levels of short-range palaeo- and neo-endemism and relict disjunctions among invertebrates, vertebrates (including frogs, reptiles and songbirds) and a wide range of plant taxa. Many lineages have had pivotal roles in radiations from Gondwanan Southern Hemisphere continents to the Northern Hemisphere. Threatening processes include the globally acknowledged grand challenges of our time — land-use change, invasive species and climate change.

The workshop will address the challenges of cost-effective, flexible, socially acceptable, adaptive restoration at ecologically meaningful and economically feasible scales, incorporating appropriate decision support systems encompassing policy, strategic planning and on-ground management, and exploring the full potential of emerging technologies for environmental monitoring such as large scale wireless sensor networks.

Plant traits have received considerable attention in the last decade as ecologists search for ways to classify plants according to function rather than taxonomy alone. These classifications are important to enhance our understanding of evolutionary diversification, community structure, and ecosystem function as well as to predict plant responses to climate change. This day-long workshop is presented by an international group of expert plant ecologists whose research focuses on development and application of trait-based techniques in comparative plant ecology. We will combine practical presentations, traditional seminar style talks, break-out group discussions and hands-on demonstrations to make the application of trait-based plant ecology accessible to a broad audience. We will consider what constitutes a plant trait and what traits have proven informative; specific leaf area, wood density, seed size, and plant height for example, have thus far been the most focused on axes. Leaf size and leaf size to twig size ratios have also been examined. Other axes have remained elusive e.g., root traits. We will discuss how to measure, model and analyse plant traits. And, we will hear presentations demonstrating the application of these techniques to current issues relevant to the congress theme. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss their own datasets and theoretical or analytical questions with other group participants. The workshop will be of particular interest to students and early career researchers, but will also be relevant to ecologists generally interested in learning about the latest developments in plant traits and comparative ecology.

Premise: Ecosystems around the globe are under increasing stress from anthropogenic influences such as pollution, over-exploitation and climate change. The challenge to ecologists is to define appropriate criteria by which to record, measure and so interpret impacts on biodiversity (Visser & Both 2005, Richardson & Poloczanska 2008). While we can measure the actual stressors imposed on systems  (see Halpern et al. 2008) measuring impacts on biodiversity is more challenging. Key stressors will vary between regions (e.g. tropics vs poles, northern vs southern hemisphere) and between systems (e.g. marine vs terrestrial). Understanding climate change impacts on biodiversity may thus require a global database (Poloczanska et al 2008).

Structure: The workshop will commence with 3 key presentations on measuring ecological change in terrestrial, marine and freshwater systems. Emphasis will be on subsequent discussion and working time and we will encourage active participation.  

1. Do terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecologists report climate change impacts differently? If so, why, and are there common methodologies that could be employed to enable comparison? Should we be reporting species, functional groups, community changes, and how do we want these to be reported by the IPCC?  

2. How do we measure distribution changes in different habitats? For example,  from range edges or from the centre of a distribution? Should we use distribution models to calculate 95% confidence limits of species’ distributions?   

3. How do we measure phenological changes in different systems? Is this a reasonable measure for global comparison if there is little seasonality over the tropical regions of the world?   

4. Can we develop a global database for biological impacts of climate change?

This is an intensive one-day workshop for a maximum of 16 scientists who want to develop media stories and practice their interview skills with TV, print and radio journalists. This workshop will help scientists feel comfortable with the media and have more control over their media appearances through:

• knowing what to expect when the media does a story
• practicing their interview techniques with working journalists
• getting their message out as accurately as possible.

The workshop will cover:

• what makes a good TV, radio or print story
• how to take control of the media agenda
• making the big announcement
• what to do when a journalist calls
• handling difficult questions
• organising a good media release 
• in the hot seat – interview practice with working journalists

We propose a one day workshop to discuss and demonstrate new developments and novel applications of Marxan software.  Marxan is now the most widely used conservation planning software in the world and is available for free from http://www.uq.edu.au/marxan/index.html?page=77654. It was used to rezone the Great Barrier Reef, the single biggest implemented systematic conservation plan in the world and has users in 93 countries from hundreds of agencies.

This workshop will bring together research managers and others involved in the development and running of national or international networks of Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites or similar. The workshop will be run in the context of the nascent Australian LTER network (AusLTER) actively looking to expand its national coverage and improve linkages at an international level.  AusLTER is also seeking to increase the effectiveness of its contribution to addressing the big questions in ecology nationally and globally (such as climate change), while still ensuring that its member sites continue to address local issues and undertake place-based research according to the LTER charter.

The aim of the workshop will thus be for participants collectively to demonstrate a range of successful networking models, and share ideas about the relative merits of these models under different conditions.  Different networking models might be better suited to different national research or education priorities, or networking capabilities.  In providing an opportunity for members of both long-established, successful networks and developing networks to share and discuss ideas, the workshop will prove a useful learning experience for conference delegates from all parts of the globe.

The workshop will take place immediately following the Intercol10 conference. A symposium show-casing some topical outputs from LTER sites around the world is also planned for the conference.

The regional ecosystem classification and mapping framework has been developed to assist the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency plan for biodiversity both on and off reserve. The framework has been incorporated into several management and planning initiatives including tree clearing regulations under the Vegetation Management Act 1999, the development of local government planning schemes, the assessment of the comprehensiveness, adequacy and representativeness of the conservation reserve network and as a guide for proactive conservation actions by government and non-government organisations. The programme classifies and maps the landscape of Queensland into vegetation communities in a bioregion that are consistently associated with a particular combination of geology, landform and soil. Mapping has been completed for 85% of Queensland and work in currently underway to complete the remainder of the state and develop comprehensive descriptions and other supporting information. The workshop is intended to explain the classification and mapping system and methodology to participants and to engage with other vegetation classification practitioners. There will be two components: a half-day session with presentations and discussion on the classification system, mapping methods and information delivery followed by an afternoon field trip of the Brisbane valley showing a range of eucalypt forests and woodlands types and demonstrating how they are classified and mapped.

No system operates alone and yet species are often grouped for study without looking at the larger interactions. Studying how global warming will affect species is no exception. This workshop aims to bring together people working on various systems/species/trophic groups in order to develop a better understanding of how the timing (phenology) of ecological events is changing interactions between species and how adaptive species are to these changes. This will in turn allow us to build a better understanding of how global warming is affecting these events and to build better models for predicting future changes.
We aim to build a group of experts in various fields for this work shop  ie,

• Pedologists
• Botanists - Trees and flowers and Forest ecologists
• Ichthyologists - Marine and fresh water fish
• Ornithologists- Marine, Waders, Passarines
• Mammologists
• Entomologists
• Herpetologists
• GIS specialists and climatologists
• Marine and freshwater ecologists and Limnologists

enabling us to clarify the interactions between species. We expect this workshop to break new ground for collaboration among the various participants. A few of the questions we will be exploring are:

• What are the current gaps in knowledge of the phenology-related interactions between the systems?

• Which techniques used in different areas could be useful to study these interactions?

What are the major challenges for future research in this field?

Bayesian analysis of data is becoming more common in ecology, but most of the books on the topic are challenging for many ecologists. This two-day workshop will introduce ecologists to Bayesian methods, providing background information and hands-on experience. The course covers: analysis of means, linear regression, ANOVA, generalized linear models, detectability and false absences, Bayesian assessment of model fit, and synthesis of prior information. The course is suitable for ecologists with a solid foundation in statistical methods (e.g. estimation, null hypothesis significance testing) but with little or no experience with Bayesian methods.

Workshop attendees are encouraged to bring laptops.