Ho ho ho, off to Lille we go!

Well, this is exciting the BES is in France! Obviously there are talks and lots of conference things happening but there’s also a Christmas market with wooden chalets selling Christmas decorations and festive food, and an exciting museum which I’m hoping I can visit between talks. For those of you who like such things the Sunrise Fun Run is not to be missed, I know I wouldn’t. Talks that caught my eye include

Wednesday

Woodroffe on wild dogs looks fascinating, how can we preserve this iconic species in the face of climate change?

Loeuille explores the interplay between eco-evolutionary dynamics and agriculture.

Froy decomposes the population-level responses to climate and determines the relative importance of within- vs between-individual variation, is plasticity the key?

Kunstler can traits may be used to predict competitive interactions in forests at large scales? It seems that trait values that favour tolerance to competition also render species slow growing in absence of competition, could this be the answer to the coexistence paradox?

Eichhorn mechanisms generating lumpy size distributions, does asymmetric competition hold the key?

Barot Are low rates of nutrient acquisition a form of altruism?

Thursday

Koricheva how not to bodge your meta-analysis!

Van der Vaart Using ABC for IBMs – can you estimate a complex model’s parameters? Come along and find out.

Preece why were some species domesticated and others not? Top team at work here.

De Roos Solving evolutionary problems in continuous time, a software package to do the hard work for you!

De Deyn what traits predict plant soil feedbacks? Perhaps not the ones you expect – see also Dawson.

Friday

Jones getting better as you age, well yes it can happen apparently, but when and why?

Berger how to provision your kids as you age, have marmots got the right idea?

Maurel insights from the garden – do traits or timing/size of introduction influence invasion success?

As ever come along and meet the editors at the BES stand (Richard Bardgett and I will be there, plus several Associate Editors) or follow us living tweeting from the talks, it’s going to be awesome!

Mark Rees

Editor, Journal of Ecology