Day 2 Summary

6th November 2020

Thank you everyone for attending the #TropiCon20 online conference. On our second day, we’ve had even more presentations and conversation than we did yesterday! This afternoon there have been another 15 full presentations and 27 lightning presentation tweets, bringing our conference total to 57 presentations. Along with your questions, that adds up 413 people tweeting and 1703 tweets on the conference hashtag (we’ve seen more elsewhere!), with a potential audience size of 779 279!

We started off with an hour of lightning presentations, where we all learned a lot very quickly! Links to each presentation can be found at the bottom of the page.

Then we had our first presentation from Daniel Zani, who told us about the links between the exotic pet trade and snake bite numbers in Brazil. https://twitter.com/ZanielDani/status/1324698452752814088

Elise Sivault then presented their research on body mass and skull dimensions of mammals as predictors of seed dispersal, combining datasets across the tropics. https://twitter.com/ESivault/status/1324701944921890817

Peter Williams told us about the effects of defaunation on seed mortality in Borneo, exploring the impacts of vertebrates, invertebrates, and fungi. https://twitter.com/peterw_ecol/status/1324706990359146496

Britte Heijink explained her research on changes in palm abundances in Amazonian forests over time, using reconstruction of fire and vegetation history. https://twitter.com/BritteHeijink/status/1324713711978844161

Alec Christie presented their research into the biases and gaps within conservation, finding severe geographic biases to the studies being carried out. https://twitter.com/AlecChristie888/status/1324716987361222658

Marie Seraphim explained their work on changes in fish assemblages following coral reef restoration efforts, finding multiple positive impacts of coral out planting. https://twitter.com/SeraphimMarie/status/1324720853381189632

Rosie Drinkwater showed us the value of leeches from logged and unlogged forests, revealing the DNA of 14 Bornean mammals in the blood they had consumed. https://twitter.com/RosieDrink/status/1324724538899353607

Joe Williamson used airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and temperature to find microclimatic refugia amongst oil palm landscapes. They recommend wider riparian buffers and restoration of degraded buffers https://twitter.com/JoeWilliamson93/status/1324728253949583360

Diego Llusia explained their research using acoustics to study global change impacts of weather on biodiversity of amphibians https://twitter.com/DiegoLlusia/status/1324732608123604992

Ollie Metcalf presented their research comparing bird diversity in tropical forests using autonomous recorders, and found that lots of short surveys produced better results than fewer long surveys. https://twitter.com/ecoacou_ollie/status/1324735984823603204

Sara Villén-Pérez explained a new methodological framework to assess the human impact on threatened vertebrates in Brazil and to identify conservation priorities https://twitter.com/SaraVillenPerez/status/1324739869298536451

Emily Waddell presented their research using path-modelling to examine drivers of plant invasion withing rainforest remnants in oil palm landscapes in Malaysian Borneo. https://twitter.com/emilyhwaddell/status/1324743639575257089

Toby Jackson told us how their research with cheap sensor technology can be used to detect risk of wind damage for tall trees in Borneo. https://twitter.com/Toby_D_Jackson/status/1324748607027892228

Rosalie Wright explained how they used remotely operated vehicles to better understand coral ecosystem dynamics in the Comoros https://twitter.com/rosalie_wright_/status/1324751412719476739

Max Titcomb was our final speaker of the conference and explained their research to model detailed changes in Panama’s coastline over the past 10 000 years! https://twitter.com/Maxtitcomb/status/1324754500415115270

After loads of fantastic talks, we finished off the conference with a zoom call, hosted by Andy Suggitt where we finally got to see each other in video form! Thanks were given to our presenters, the BES, Wildlife Acoustics, the helpers, chairs, and co-organisers. Prizes were awarded for best talks (1st place: Sian Green - £100, 2nd place: Rosie Drinkwater - £50) and lightning talk (Daniel Nicholson - £50). Our prizes were generously donated by the conference sponsor Wildlife Acoustics. We then had a question and answer session with some of our presenters (Jennifer Powers, Erin Dillon, and Alec Christie), which resulted in the perfect kind of conversation to round off our conference.

Thanks again to everyone who got involved during the course of the conference and we encourage you to follow our presenters, keep asking questions, and continue these valuable conversations. These tweets will remain online for the foreseeable future so we hope you will reread your favourites and continue sharing all the amazing research that has been presented!

We look forward to welcoming you all back to next year’s conference, whether that’s in the real world or online!

Links to lightning presentations:

Susan Cheyne: https://twitter.com/BES_Tropical/status/1324683449182007296

Jasper Wubs: https://twitter.com/BESConservation/status/1324684070127894529

Heather Moorhouse: https://twitter.com/BES_Tropical/status/1324684455622135810

Darren O’Connell: https://twitter.com/BESConservation/status/1324685065754992642

Paulina Meller: https://twitter.com/BES_Tropical/status/1324685461743374336

David Bartholomew: https://twitter.com/BESConservation/status/1324686035910070272

Andrés Gonzalez Melo: https://twitter.com/BES_Tropical/status/1324686468716072962

Lilian Unger: https://twitter.com/BESConservation/status/1324687056052932608

Joe Brooks: https://twitter.com/BES_Tropical/status/1324687475252563969

Emilio Vilanova: https://twitter.com/BESConservation/status/1324688131132739584