The 51st annual meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), the largest organization in the world for the study and conservation of tropical systems, was convened in Cairns, Australia during July 20-24. The meeting brought together 589 scientists and conservationists from 55 countries Australia’s wet tropics. XTBG scientists including Alice Hughe, Akihiro Nakamura and some others attended the conference.  

Director of XTBG Center for Integrative Conservation made a presentation entitled “Targeting plant zero extinctions in Xishuangbanna, China”. He introduced the target set by XTBG to reduce plant extinctions in Xishuangbanna to zero, by first identifying species in need of conservation action and then using a combination of in and ex situ conservation to ensure their long-term survival. 

A festschrift was held on July for Prof. Roger Kitching, an adjunct professor XTBG. The symposium was named “Insect ecology and diversity”. Dr. Akihiro Nakamura of XTBG made a presentation with the title of “Beta-diversity patterns along elevational gradients: a cross-taxon and cross-continental approach”. Afterwards, Dr. Akihiro Nakamura sent a gift to Prof. Roger Kitching, on behalf of Prof. CAO Min, in recognition of his contribution to scientific research and tal ent training for XTBG.  

Other presentations made by XTBG at ATBC 2014 are as following: 

Latitude-altitude gradients-inferring effects of climate change on biodiversity 

Australian altitudinal transects: the challenge of the comparative dimension. 

A simple, replicable method for assessing wildlife exploitation intensity based on flight initiation distance. 

Response of savanna tree species seedlings to grass competition: geographical patterns, trade-offs, and functional traits. 

The influence of altitude and latitude on tropical rainforest and communities in eastern Queesland, Australia. 

Shifts in seed dispersal characteristics in fragmented tropical forests of Xishuangbanna, China.