International Volvox meeting, from Stephen Miller

Please join us for the 1st International Volvox Conference (focused on the green alga Volvox and its close relatives) to be held December 1-4, 2011 at the Biosphere 2, in Arizona, USA (http://www.b2science.org/).

This is the first of what we hope to be a long series of Volvox meetings to be held every other year, alternating with the Chlamydomonas meetings. The idea of a meeting on everything about Volvox and its relatives (aka Volvocales or volvocine algae; see http://www.unbf.ca/vip/index.htm) reflects both an increase in the size of the Volvox community and the realization that many researchers from fields traditionally not associated with Volvox research (e.g., physics, theoretical biology) are interested in various aspects of the system.

Volvocine algae have become an important model system for the evolution of multicellularity, development and cellular differentiation, and lately have yielded important results in fields as diverse as genomics, hydrodynamics, and social evolution. We hope that such a meeting will foster exchange of ideas and expertise, and will initiate new collaborations. With these meeting we also wish to attract new people and to build a stronger Volvox community.

In addition to sessions (contributed papers and posters) on various aspects of the biology, taxonomy, ecology, development and evolution of Volvox and its relatives, we are organizing a workshop on Volvox genetics and genomics that will provide a forum to discuss emerging tools and methods (or ways of adapting those that have been developed in other systems) to enhance our understanding of genetically-controlled processes in this group of algae.

For additional information and updates (including preliminary program, registration and abstract submission deadlines) please visit the Conference page athttp://www.unbf.ca/vip/IVC/index.htm). Travel grants for students and postdoctoral fellow are available; go to http://www.unbf.ca/vip/IVC/sponsors.htmlfor details.