Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that following the success of the genomics workshop held at the last SMM conference in New Zealand in 2013, we will be running a full-day follow-up workshop at the Biennial in San Francisco on Sunday, December 13. To supplement conference presentations, this workshop offers an opportunity for researchers to present not only their latest results and findings, but also to share experiences on the successes and pitfalls of using genomic techniques that can benefit the research community. 

 

If you are interested in presenting, please send a 300-word abstract by email to Kristina and myself before August 5 (abstract decisions will be announced no later than August 24). Students are encouraged to apply. The workshop schedule will include slots for both 30-minute and 10-minute talks, so please indicate in your abstract submission which talk length you would prefer. Note that presentations at the workshop should differ to a significant degree from those given at the main conference. For example, if you are presenting the results of an applied study at the conference, you may want to present a more in-depth discussion of the strengths and limitations of your new methodology at the workshop.

 

Remember to register for the workshop prior to Sept. 15, 2015 to be eligible for the early registration fee of US$80 for a full-day workshop; beginning Sept. 16, 2015 fees will increase to US$90. To sign up for the workshop, visit the conference registration site: https://www.marinemammalscience.org/conference/conference-registration/.

- Andy

Genomics Workshop II
Following the previous marine mammal genomics workshop held at the Biennial Conference in New Zealand in 2013, the field of genomics has continued to progress rapidly, experiencing relevant advances in sequencing technologies, laboratory techniques and data analysis methods. At the time of the previous biennial conference, genomic studies on marine mammals were hampered by a lack of suitable reference genomes, with only the high quality genomes of distant terrestrial relatives such as the dog, cow and elephant available for anchoring generated genomic data. However, by the time of the San Francisco conference, the number of high quality genome assemblies of marine mammal species is expected to be in double figures, facilitating the progression of our field, which is also benefiting from new innovative methods being applied to marine mammal species and more data being made publicly available. As a result, the number of published inter- and intra-specific genomics investigations on marine mammal species is expected to significantly increase during 2015. This workshop offers the opportunity for participants to keep track of this progression from genetics to genomics; to present their latest results and findings; and perhaps most importantly to share their experiences on the successes and pitfalls of different genomic techniques that can hopefully benefit us as a community by preventing needless and expensive replication and promoting better, more cost-effective use of resources.
Organizer and contact email: Andy Foote (FooteAD@gmail.com) and Kristina Cammen (kristina.cammen@maine.edu)