SRARNZ
Society for Research on
Amphibians and Reptiles in New Zealand (Inc.)
16th Biennial Conference and 28th AGM of SRARNZ
Tahuna Conference Centre, 70 Beach Rd, Tahuna, Nelson
30 Jan-1 Feb 2015
Celebrating the legacy of Tony Whitaker
1.Introduction
The Wellington-based council and local organising committee warmly invites members to attend the next biennial conference of SRARNZ in Nelson. You can look forward to an awesome live-in style conference location and easy access to important herpetological and conservation sites in the region, including:Project Janszoon in Abel Tasman National Park, The Brook Sanctuary, Nelson Lakes Mainland Island, and the Marlborough Sounds.
The 16th biennial conference of SRARNZ will celebrate the legacy of Tony Whitaker and what his legacy means for New Zealand Herpetology.
Registration
Society members should receive a registration pack by email; others may request one by
Members: you will need to pay the registration and catering fee and send your completed registration form to the organisers. To avoid a late fee, ensure that the form and payment arrive no later than 5 December 2014.
Abstracts for regular and symposium oral presentations (ROPs and SOPs) and for posters are also due by 5 December 2014. For mini oral presentations (MOPs) titles only are due by the same date. For further information, see the ‘Presentations’ section of the registration pack.
2. Venue and Accommodation
Venue
The SRARNZ 2015 Conference will be held at the Tahuna Conference Centre adjacent to the Tahuna Motor Camp. Tahuna is in Nelson, near the airport. The venue is easy to get to by car, bus or plane. In addition to a fantastic conference venue, there are nearby playing fields and the beach for recreational opportunities.
Accommodation
Accommodation is available on-site at the Tahuna Motor Camp or close by – all in a range of styles and prices: for accommodation should be made independently. The conference organisers will not be making bookings. It is the holiday season, so early booking is advised.
Meals
The registration form allows you to opt-in for meals or make your own arrangements. Breakfast will not be catered. Meal options include lunch and dinner. Morning and afternoon tea are complimentary to all registered conference participants. When registering, please let us know if you have any particular dietary restrictions.
Transport
Transport to the venue will be under your own steam to Tahuna Holiday Camp and Conference Centre, 70 Beach Road, Tahuna, Nelson. See map below or try Google maps for yourself.
3. Conference Programme - overview
Friday30January:Registration and morning tea will be available from 9am, and the conference will begin at 10:30 am with an informal welcome, followed by a formal programme of presentations. The AGM will be held in the late afternoon. Dinner will be a casual BBQ style, with plenty of opportunity to catch up with people and contributed posters.
Saturday 31 January:Saturday is dedicated to the Tony Whitaker Symposium.Invited formal presentations covering Tony’s primary areas of contribution to New Zealand Herpetology will be followed by other relevant contributed oral presentations.We will hold a formal conference dinner in the evening including an invited speaker.
Sunday 1 February:More formal presentations and presentation of the Nicola Grimmond Student Awards will follow on Sunday. After lunch, we will offer a half-day field trip (TBD).
4. Field Trips
Conference field trips – information to follow
5. Presentations
Note: the due date for submission of abstracts or titles (see below) is 5 December 2014.
We are offering four types of presentations.
Symposium oral presentations (SOPs) are more substantial reviews of the current position of work in broader areas of New Zealand Herpetological science or conservation, in particular in those areas in which the late Tony Whitaker had an interest. The programme for the symposium has mainly been filled by invitation, but there may still be one or two slots available.The time slots for SOPs will be 30 mins in total. We ask that you plan to speak for no more than 25 mins, allowing at least 5 mins for questions. An abstract is required (see below for instructions on format).
Regular oral presentations (ROPs) are intended for those with finalised research results to present. We have up to 30 slots available. Preference will be given to those who are SRARNZ members (including SRARNZ Herpetological Research Award recipients) and who submit abstracts that arrive on time and that are clearly results-based. The time slots for ROPs will be 15 mins in total. We ask that you plan to speak for no more than 12 mins, allowing at least 3 mins for questions. An abstract is required (see below for instructions on format). As in previous years, we will prepare abstracts for potential publication and are investigating publication outlets for the conference proceedings.
Mini oral presentations (MOPs) are on offer again at this conference. They are loosely modelled on the ‘speed’ presentations used by the conference of the Society for Conservation Biology, except that we will allow a broader scope for the presentations.We have slots for up to 12 MOPs. A title only is required (no abstract). Although we have allowed 5 mins in total for each MOP, this includes transition times, so we recommend that you plan to speak for no more than 4.5 mins. There will be no time for questions within this allocation - audience members can discuss your presentation with you during the next break.
We suggest the following as possible topics for MOPs:
- Student research proposals that as yet have little or no data
- Updates on conservation advocacy projects that are of general interest to the Society
- Observations of interest concerning natural history (in the wild or captivity)
- Descriptions of possible research projects for which you as a potential supervisor or sponsor wish to solicit interest.
Posters (POTs) are a good choice for those who have some data to present, but possibly not enough for a regular oral presentation. They are also a great way of displaying eye-catching visual images for a longer time than is possible with an oral presentation. Posters should be in a vertical format (maximum size in mm: 900 w x 1200 h). If you have one already prepared in horizontal format, contact us in advance to ensure that space will be available. A photograph on the poster of the lead author is a good idea. Please bring pins and blu-tak to attach your poster to a pin board or wall. During the poster session on Friday evening, you will need to stand by your poster to elicit interest and to answer questions. Please let us know if you are intending to present a poster (see below).
Preparation and submission of abstracts (ROPs, SOPs and POTs) or titles (MOPs)
Abstracts:abstracts arerequired for regular oral presentations, symposium oral presentations and for posters. The version you send will be reproduced in the conference programme. A good abstract usually touches on all of the following in summary form: background, purpose/aims, methods, results, interpretation and conclusions. It contains factual information and avoids non-committal statements such as “…will be discussed”. The maximum word count for the body of the abstract is 250 words.
Please follow the format from the conference proceedings published in NZ J Zool (2010) 37: 59-106. An example follows:
Urinary hormone metabolites for reproductive monitoring and sex identification in the monomorphic New Zealand frog, Leiopelma pakeka
Jennifer M Germanoa, Frank C Moliniab,Phillip J Bishopa, Ben D Bellcand Alison Creea
aDepartment of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand; bLandcare Research, Auckland, New Zealand; cSchool of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
All four of New Zealand’s endemic frog species (Leiopelma spp.) are currently threatened with extinction and have been listed in the top 60 of the world’s most evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered amphibians.Management tools such as captive breeding and translocations have become more important for the conservation of these frogs.To improve the success of these tools, it is imperative that we develop a technique for sex identification in these monomorphic species.We also need to learn more about their reproductive biology, about which we currently know little, so that we can adapt our management techniques appropriately. Leiopelma pakeka (Maud Island frog) spends the majority of its life under rocks making conventional research difficult for determining details about reproduction.Enzyme immunoassays were developed to measure concentrations in urine of hormone metabolites (estrone conjugate, testosterone, and progesterone relative to creatinine) of L. pakeka. Seasonal fluctuations in concentrations of testosteroneand estrone conjugate suggest an earlier breeding season than previously thought.Additionally, differences in concentrations of urinary estrone conjugates between males and females provide a minimally invasive way to identify the sex of adult individuals. While non-invasive urinary hormone monitoring has been used for years to identify sex and track fluctuations in reproductive hormones in mammals and birds, few studies have beencarried out in other taxonomic groups. This study is the first to do so for a monomorphic amphibian.
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Following the conference, we aim to publish abstracts that are on elements of the New Zealand herpetofauna and by SRARNZ members as the Society’s Conference Proceedings. We will notify you at the meeting if we are successful in identifying an outlet for publication. The only opportunity for revision of the submitted abstract will be at the time of the conference. Any such revisions should be minor. If you do NOT wish your abstract to be published, please indicate this when submitting your abstract by email.
If presenting a ROP, SOP or Poster at the conference send your abstract as an email attachment, with ‘your surname srarnz-abstract’ in the subject field to: . Ensurethat your abstract reaches us no later than 5 December 2014.In the body of the email include your name, the paper title, your preferred type of presentation (regular oral, symposium oral or poster), your phone number, email address and if you would like to be considered for a student prize (see below). We will assume that all authors are willing to have their abstract forwarded for publication unless you say otherwise.
Mini oral presentations require only a title, author list, postal address and email address, not an abstract. Titles of MOPs will be listed in the programme, but will not be eligible for the student prize and will not be included in the conference proceedings for publication.
Send your MOP title as an email attachment, with ‘your surname srarnz-MOPtitle’ in the subject field to: rethat your title reaches us no later than5 December 2014. In the body of the email include the MOP title, the authorship, your postal address, email address, and phone number.
Draft timetable for presentations
The draft timetable will either be emailed to registrants or uploaded to the SRARNZ website by ~17 December 2014. Please check this draft to confirm that your submission has been included.
Preparation for delivery of oral papers (ROPs, SOPs and MOPs)
A PC laptop and data projector will be available (note: there will be no other format for presentation). The system will be running Windows 7. Please ensure your presentation is compatible. Individual laptops will not be catered for.
How to prepare your file: To ensure your oral presentation runs as expected, we ask that the following steps be taken while preparing to save your file:
1) Embed all audio or video files
2) If saving to a CD, please package all files (PowerPoint, video, audio, etc.). This can be done under the “File” menu of PowerPoint, under “Package For CD”
3) Embed fonts. This can be done under the “Toolssave options” when you are saving your file.
How to save your file: Please save your oral presentation to a USB stick or CD. We strongly recommend that you also save your presentation on a back-up medium and bring that to the conference as well. Presentation file names should include your day of presentation, specific time of presentation (in 24h format), and last name as illustrated in the following example: Monday_0945_Jones. (Get this information in advance from the draft timetable on the website).
How to load your presentation: Presentations will be loaded onsite at the conference. If you need to check your presentation or make any adjustments, then load it as soon as possible and use the break times.All presentations must be submitted to the presentation computerthe day BEFORE your presentation or by Friday at 1030am for the first day. Presentations will not be uploaded during your session. There will be volunteers to assist with loading your presentation file.
Nicola Grimmond Student Prize
Indicate whether you consider yourself eligible for the Student Prize. The SRARNZ Student Prize is awarded to the best student presentation(s) at conference. Only regular oral presentations and poster presentations will be eligible.
'Student' means that the “research work presented was done by the person while enrolled in an educational institution. The work must be presented within three years of the educational qualification being awarded. Joint authorship will only be eligible where either or both authors are students or where the non-student author(s) are both secondary and minor authors, e.g. when a co-author is a supervisor (eligibility decided by the judges)."
Registration Details
If you wish to attend the 2015 Biennial Conference, please pay your registration and catering fee, and complete the registration form. Both must be received by the organisers no later than
5 December 2014in order to avoid the late fee.Abstracts are also due by the same date.
1.Complete your details (name, address, email, and contact numbers, etc.)
2. Tick the relevant boxes
3. Pay your registration and catering fee. Receipts will only be issued at the conference. Either post a cheque or use automatic payment options:
Cheques:(written out to “SRARNZ conference”). Mail to:
SRARNZ
c/o Sue Keall
School of Biological Sciences
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington 6140
Automatic payment: email with “automatic payment form request” in the subject line, and we will email you the account code.
NB: All prices are in $NZD. Please contact f you wish to pay in currency other than $NZD.
4. Submit your registration form electronically as an attachment to: . Put ‘your surname srarnz-registration’ in the subject line. You will receive an email to confirm receipt.
5.Submit your abstract (or title, in the case of a mini oral presentation) electronically to . Put ‘your surname srarnz-abstract’ or ‘your surnamesrarnz–MOP’ in the subject line. You will receive an email to confirm receipt.
SRARNZ
Society for Research on
Amphibians and Reptiles in New Zealand (Inc.)
16th Biennial Conference and 28th AGM of SRARNZ
Tahuna Conference Centre, 70 Beach Rd, Tahuna, Nelson
30 Jan-1 Feb 2015
Celebrating the legacy of Tony Whitaker
REGISTRATION FORM
1. Contact Details
Name:
Postal address:
Phone: hm: wk:
mob:
Email address:
Name of any accompanying person (who must also pay the full costs):
If you DO NOT wish to have your name and contact details listed in the conference programme, then indicate here
2. Meals
Any special dietary requirements (e.g. vegan, allergies):
3. Presentations
I intend to offer a:
Symposium oral presentation (SOP)
Full oral presentation(FOP)
Mini oral presentation (MOP)
Poster(POT)
Note instructions elsewhere in this registration pack for submitting titles and/or abstracts.
4. Field Trips
These will be advertised and paid for separately once costs have been determined.
5. Student Travel Subsidy
I wish to apply for a student travel subsidy:
(Note: Only students presenting an oral presentation or poster are eligible. Priority will be given to those offering regular oral presentations and posters over those offering mini oral presentations).
Please provide a short explanation (100 words max.) as to why you should be awarded a Student Travel Subsidy. Indicate your total travel costs and any subsidies or grants available to you from other sources.
6. Payment
Please complete the following table with the item(s) you would like and their costs:
Item / No. of People / @ Price / TotalRegistration
Full -employed / $90 / $
Or Single day - employed / $50 / $
OrStudent or unemployed / $60 / $
Meals
Lunches
Dinner (Fri)
Conference Dinner (Sat) / $20/day
$35
$45 / $
$
$
Late fee (from 7 Dec 2014) / $40 / $
Donations (optional)
Student Awards / $
SRARNZ Herpetological Research Awards / $
Student Travel Subsidy / $
GRAND TOTAL / $
I have paid for all items requested and:
The cheque is in the mail
I have deposited the money by direct debit
Receipts will be issued at the conference only, except in cases of hardship. Please contact the organisers if you require a receipt before the conference.
Refund policy. Cancellations prior to 7 January will receive a full refund less the registration fee. Any refund for cancellations after this date will depend on costs incurred.
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