July 2020 Newsletter
Dear ATBC Community,

The importance of biodiversity has never been as clear. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic is reminding all of us of how essential tropical biology is for our very existence. The ATBC leadership has spent the last couple of months reflecting on the state of our Planet and our role in it. More than ever, we will continue our mission to advance and promote research, capacity building, science outreach, and conservation in the tropical regions of the globe.

Through this newsletter, we invite you to:




The ATBC is evolving to meet the ongoing changes in our World. This includes wider engagement with other academic institutions, governments, and society at large, in addition to continuing to support diversity, equity & inclusion, and continue to foster excellent research in tropical biology and conservation. To do so effectively, we need active participation and engagement of our members. Do not forget to renew your membership this year . Your support is crucial!

Thank you so much for being part of the ATBC community. May the distance bring us closer in our mission to foster tropical biology and conservation.

Be safe & stay well,
Lúcia G. Lohmann
Executive Director
ATBC Committees
We are actively inviting members who want to be involved in the activities of the Association to engage in the ATBC Committees.

Learn more about the various ATBC Committees through the links below and get in touch with the Committee's chairs and members to get involved!


The ATBC Capacity Building Committee aims to provide ATBC members with new training opportunities in Tropical Biology and Conservation. The Committee organizes skills-oriented workshops, mentoring circles , webinars, and field courses as a means to help ATBC members to gain additional research and leadership skills.

The DEI committee aims to foster diversity, equity and inclusion within Tropical Biology and Conservation by embracing individuals from various backgrounds, cultures, ethnicity, geography, gender, and identity. This diverse environment contributes to more productive, impactful, creative and innovative thinking, leading to a sustainable growth of our community.

The application of sound science is an essential prerequisite for effective resource management and conservation practice. This Committee facilitates the development of policy around topical conservation issues, in particular where our annual meetings take place, and supports outreach and capacity-building activities to strengthen implementation of conservation across tropical regions.

The ATBC hosts meetings that aim to catalyze the exchange of knowledge and collaboration among scientists, decision-makers, educators, and social actors working in the Tropical regions of the World. The Annual Meetings Committee is constantly searching for new meeting locations. This Committee also provides guidance to annual meeting organizers.

Each year, the ATBC recognizes high achievements in research and practice in Tropical Biology and Conservation through a variety of awards. This Committee leads the selection of awardees following the evaluations and guidance of reviewers and judges. Awards are intended to recognize scientists and conservation practitioners worldwide, at different career stages.
Co-Chairs: Lisa Davenport and Sabrina Russo

SECSCI (Student and Early Career Scientist) aims to create opportunities for the professional development of students and early career scientists working in Tropical Biology & Conservation. More specifically, this Committee encourages the involvement of students and early career scientists in ATBC activities, as well as serves as a hub to promote networking and collaborations involving students and early career scientists interested in Tropical Biology and Conservation.
ATBC 2020 Webinar Series on Tropical Biology & Conservation
We are pleased to invite all ATBC members to participate in the ATBC 2020 Webinar Series on Tropical Ecology and Conservation . Each of these 2-hour online events consists of three talks and a Q&A session. Download the full schedule and click below to reserve your spot on each one of them!
TOPIC II: Professional Skills in Tropical Biology & Conservation
TOPIC III: Teaching Tropical Biology and Conservation


SEPTEMBER 16, 2020 | 3-5PM (EST)
TOPIC IV: Frontiers in Tropical Biology and Conservation


OCTOBER 8, 2020 | 3-5PM (EST)
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ATBC 2021 Cartagena, Colombia
We are very pleased with all the enthusiasm and interest in our annual meeting planned for Cartagena (Colombia), between July 11-15, 2021. We have accepted 78 symposium proposals organized by researchers from 21 countries, leading to a total of 570 oral presentations. We will continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation around the Globe and will keep you posted on updates. In the meantime, many cool activities are being planned, including a second edition of the successful Cascoland Lab and Kitchen Workshop held during ATBC2019 in Madagascar. 
ATBC 2020 Honorary Fellows
The ATBC Honorary Fellow award is the highest recognition offered by the Association to researchers with a long-distinguished service to the field of tropical biology and conservation. We are very happy to announce that this years’s winners: Robin Chazdon and Mercedes Bustamante . We are extremely grateful for their long and distinguished service to tropical biology and conservation!
Robin Chazdon
Mercedes Bustamante

" The internationalization of ATBC has provided new opportunities and enabled new collaborations and friendships that I value greatly " Robin Chazdon

" The work of the ATBC has always been a source of inspiration enabling scientific exchange and dissemination in the area of Tropical Ecology " Mercedes Bustamante


Navjot Sodhi Award 2020
Walter D Mbamy, Omar Bongo University, Gabon
We are happy to announce this year’s winner for the Navjot Sodhi Conservation Research Award . This most prestigious award is given every year by the ATBC’s President in remembrance and recognition of the contributions of our colleague and friend Navjot Sodhi, who inspired many students and colleagues with his passion for research and the conservation of tropical biodiversity. This award is presented to student members of ATBC who are working on research that directly contributes to conservation of biodiversity within the tropics.

This year, the winning student is Walter Djeny Mbamy , a Master’s student from Omar Bongo University in Libreville, Gabon. His project is entitled “ Linking human activities and elephant movement around Ivindo National Park, Gabon ”. We congratulate Walter on this very well-deserved recognition and wish him success with his project.
ATBC Seed Research Grant Award Winners
The ATBC Seed Research Grant supports research addressing tropical biology and conservation at Master’s and early Doctoral levels. Ten grants of up to $1,000 were awarded to outstanding ATBC student members. This year’s winners are:
Angelica Torres
Universidad Nacional de Colombia sede Amazonia, “ Reciprocal stream-riparian arthropod fluxes along a vegetation structure gradient in the Colombian Amazon ” (Colombia)
Hayden Davis
University of Washington, “ A Genomic Approach to Estimating Biodiversity in Southeast Asian Gecko Lineages ” (Malaysia)
Andrea Haberken
University of British Columbia, “ Trade-offs in fitness as a function of web architecture in tropical spiders: prey, predator risk, and investment in silk ” (Ecuador)
Georgia Hernandez
University of Connecticut, “ Plastic and adaptive responses of high and low elevation plant morphotypes to current and future warming temperatures ” (Costa Rica)
Jacob Moutouama
University of Tennessee at Knoxville, “ Herbivory as driver of center-periphery dynamics in an endemic plant species ” (Benin)
Mayra Ninzaunta
Florida International University, “ To defend or reproduce? An overlooked dilemma of a highly variable trait: seed size ” (Costa Rica)
Nicholas Russo
University of California, Los Angeles, “ Exploring the Drivers of Seed Dispersal by Hornbills Across Spatial Scales in Cameroon ” (Cameroon)
Sarah Sherburne
King Mongkut's University of Technology Thronburi, “ Spatial ecology of the Javan mongoose (Herpestes javanicus) within a Degraded Forest Fragment ” 
(Thailand)
James Watuwa
University of Tennessee at Knoxville, “ Association between Stress Levels and Parasites in African Elephants in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda ” (Uganda)
Lino Zuanon
Federal University of Uberlândia, 
“ Vulnerability of ants from the Brazilian Cerrado to global warming: The influence of time of activity, food preference and nesting habits ” (Brazil)
Winners of the ATBC Short Video Contest
We are very excited to announce the three winners of the first  ATBC Short Video Contest on Science Communication: Success Stories in Tropical Biology and Conservation . This initiative was co-organized by ATBC, Mongabay, BAND Foundation, within the  Smithsonian Earth Optimism Summit .

We were thrilled to receive so many submissions from around the world and learn about so many people’s passion for understanding and conserving our ecosystems. Congratulations to the winners and thank you for sharing your stories of hope and optimism around conservation science!
May they never stop singing

Michelle Castellanos (Panama)
Community-based management of giant arapaima

Joao Vitor Campos-Silva (Brazil)
When forests heal

Health in Harmony (Indonesia)
A new alliance: Applied Ecology Resources
The ATBC is now a founding member of a new information repository, Applied Ecology Resources (AER) , an initiative from the British Ecological Society which will provide new publication opportunities to our members, especially in what concerns the publication of more applied science and conservation-oriented information. 
 
AER promotes evidence-based decision-making by curating a wide range of information sources such as open access journal articles (including the new associated journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence , research summaries and other grey literature to preserve, share and discover knowledge on the management of environmental resources.
Join the ATBC Community!
We are the only professional society dedicated to the biology and conservation of tropical ecosystems. Receive a discount if you renew your membership for the next 3 years. And check out our new special rates for postdocs! Your support is crucial!!
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