McMaster's Departments of Biology and Psychology are co-hosting this year's Ontario Ecology and Ethology Colloquium (OEEC) May 3-4.

The conference is a venue for researchers to present their work in the fields of ecology, animal behaviour, evolution and environmental science.

There will be two plenary speakers at the conference, as well as 90 talks and more than 20 posters on display.

The plenary speakers are:

Paul Hebert

Barcoding Life's Diversity

Department of Zoology

Guelph University

Date: Saturday, May 3

Time: 9:20 a.m.

Location: Arthur Bourns Building Room 102

Nelson Hairston

Role of rapid evolution in trajectories of population cycles in predator-prey systems

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Cornell University

Date: Sunday, May 4

Time: 9:20 a.m.

Location: Arthur Bourns Building Room 102

Approximately 200 delegates from universities across Southern Ontario will attend the conference. Of these, about two-thirds will be graduate students and one-third will be professors and postdocs, says conference organizer Sigal Balshine, adding a few participants are expected from universities in northern New York State.

“The OEEC is a useful venue for graduate students to present their research findings for the first time,” says the assistant psychology professor. “The meeting is organized to be both relaxed and friendly. It also provides students with a chance to meet with other graduate students, professors and postdocs in their fields from other nearby universities.”

McMaster last hosted the conference in 1993. Details of the program and final schedule can be found on the conference Web site http://psych.mcmaster.ca/oeec2003/