Dear WMBC participants,

The call to join us in Valencia to share results on Marine Biodiversity Research at the World Marine Biodiversity Conference (Valencia, Nov 11-15, 2008) was an overwhelming success, with over 500 registered participants before the deadline, meeting the maximum capacity of the venue.

In the absence of precedents of comparable conferences, we estimated, along with the organizing committee and supporting organizations, a probable attendance of 300 (about 80 marine scientists participated at the Diversitas Open Science meeting in Oaxaca in 2005, consistent with the finding that marine biodiversity research represents about 10% of that on land 1). We, thus, considered a venue of 500 to be adequate to host the participants.

This estimate turned out to be overly conservative and we were contacted by hundreds of frustrated colleagues requesting access to the meeting above the maximum attendance, colleagues who are now patiently waiting on a very slow-moving waiting list for opportunities to attend due to cancelations.

We struggled to find solutions to this situation as to accommodate the maximum possible number of participants, with the sole ceiling of the legal limit set by Valencia’s fire department for the venue. We had to reconsider the program to accommodate the maximum number of oral presentations as well as all of the poster presentations requested, limited to one presentation per registered participant. We could accommodate most, but not all, of the requests for oral presentations, and, with the help of session chairs, moved the excess orals to poster format. We expect your understanding in case you preferred an oral but have been offered a poster presentation.

All of these adjustments required considerable time and imposed a delay of about 1 month in composing the program. We are now posting the preliminary program, subject to minor changes due to possible cancelations and other unexpected events. We hope this information will help you plan your travel to Valencia.

Soon each participant will receive an e-mail with instructions on the time and format of their presentation, along with instructions on format, etc. In the mean time, please locate, in the attached program the time of your presentation (identified by session and the name of the first author).

We regret that many colleagues will be unable to join us and that some colleagues will use a different format to present their research than originally requested. We thank you all for your patience and understanding. Whereas these difficulties are unfortunate, they do signal the existence of a large community, possibly approaching 1,000 scientists, who are not currently served by existing conference series, and who will welcome opportunities to present their research. We, therefore, hope that this will be the first in a series of future World Marine Biodiversity Conferences, whose chairs would benefit from our experiences to plan a conference that will welcome all interested.

Sincerely,

Carlos M. Duarte and Carlo Heip
WMBC co-Chairs

1. Hendriks, I.E., C.M. Duarte. 2008. Allocation of Effort and Imbalances in Biodiversity Research. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 360: 15–20.

Programme