International Biogeography Society (IBS) Special Meeting 2016

It is our great honour and pleasure to invite you to the International Biogeography Society (IBS) Special Meeting 2016 (IBS2016-China for short). The IBS, founded in 2001, is the world’s leading scientific society of biogeography and provides the primary forum for biogeographers worldwide by hosting biannual conferences or spatial meetings. IBS2016-China will be the first IBS meeting held in Asia. As the interdisciplinary of ecology and evolutionary biology, biogeography is a dynamic and burgeoning field that seeks to understand the role of historical factors in shaping biodiversity, to develop predictive capacities for gauging how biodiversity will respond to our rapidly changing world, and to enhance biodiversity conservation. To encourage communication between different fields, the theme of the IBS2016-China is set to be “the Biogeography of Ecology”. In particular, the meeting will include seven symposia: 1) Biodiversity patterns and maintenance; 2) Phylogeography; 3) Species distribution under global change; 4) Community phylogenetics; 5) Biological invasion; 6) Conservation biogeography; 7) Functional biogeography. As the capital of China, Beijing has a history dated back to three millennia. The city is known for its imperial palaces, gardens, temples and tombs. Beijing has over 50 universities and many museums, which make it a center of education and culture in China. The IBS meeting in Beijing will provide an opportunity not only to improve academic exchanges on biogeography between Asian biogeographers and those from the rest of the world, but also to facilitate communications between eastern and western cultures. IBS2016-China will be hosted by Peking University (http://www.pku.edu.cn), and Institute of Botany (http://www.ibcas.ac.cn/) and Institute of Zoology (http://www.ioz.ac.cn/) of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Peking University, founded in 1898, was originally known as the Imperial University of Peking and currently is a major Chinese research university. The campus, known as "Yan Yuan" (the garden of Yan), stands near to the Yuanmingyuan Garden and the Summer Palace. Institute of Botany and Institute of Zoology, both with a long history over 80 years, are two leading institutes of organism biology and biogeography in China. We believe that IBS2016-China will provide a platform for Asian and western biogeographers and ecologists to communicate new findings and technologies and the future development of biogeography.