First Overseas Conference Travel Fund Report

First Overseas Conference Travel Fund Report

Australian Society for Fish Biology Conference, Townsville, Australia

22 - 24 July 2011

Andrea Varela (Victoria University of Wellington)

Thanks to the NZMSS First Overseas Travel Fund I was able to attend to the Australian Society for Fish Biology (ASFB) Conference on 2011 and to present a talk about my PhD project onglobal population genetics of the deep-sea fishHoplostethusatlanticus (orange roughy). The conference took place over three days and congregated more than 200 fish scientist mainly from Australia and New Zealand, but there were also delegates from the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, India, Iran, Turkey, Chile, and the USA.

It was the 37th Annual Conference of the ASFBand the Society also celebrated its 40th anniversary. The conference covered a range of topics about marine and freshwater fishes, fisheries conservation and management. Since the Conference was hosted by James Cook University in North Queensland, most of the talks and presentations were related with studies conducted in The Great Barrier Reef, one of the vastest coral systems in the world. It was a great experience to be there, learn more about many different aspects of fish biology and make links that could lead to future collaborations.

It was a high standard conference in an excellent venue. The welcome function took place in the Townsville’s Aquarium, which gave us the amazing opportunity to see most of the local fauna during night time.

I received several compliments and good feedbacks about my talk from both scientist and fellow students. I was very pleased with my contribution, which was the only one dedicated to the study of fish population connectivity using molecular markers.

I am deeply grateful for the financial support of the NZMSS which allowed me to travel to Australia and to participate in this well renowned annual Conference.