[Aqualist] Southern Connection Conference

[Simon Haberle]

Dear All,

Below is the first instalment from BoB Hill on SC Congress V for Adelaide 
next year.


Southern Connection Conference

22-26 January 2006

Adelaide, South Australia

The next Southern Connection Conference will be held at the University of 
Adelaide. Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and sits on the 
edge of the vast Australian arid zone. In recognition of this, we have 
added a specific arid-zone theme to this conference. However, there will 
still be plenty of general interest topics and we will be intending to run 
a field trip to Kangaroo Island, which sits just south of Adelaide and has 
a remarkable native biota. We will also offer assistance to those who wish 
to organize their own tours before or after the conference.

At this stage we are suggesting the following themes:

1.  Aridification on the four southern continents: Australia, South 
America, Africa and Antarctica.  Timing of desertification and implications 
for the biota. (Andy Austin, Steve Donnellan, Bob Hill)
2. The impact of terrestrial islands (e.g. karst systems) on the local 
biota (Steve Cooper)
3. Southern temperate marine ecosystems
4. Megafaunal extinctions
5.  Biogeographic scenarios on the three southern continents.  Much recent 
work has loosened the hold of vicariance as an explanatory causal agent in 
southern hemisphere biogeography.  Long distance dispersal seems to be 
plausable in many cases with some recent molecular genetic divergence times 
(David Yeates, Mike Crisp, Lyn Cook)

We will also have a general session and we are happy to consider additional 
themes if people would like to suggest them to us.

We will soon have our own web site and will advertise that widely. In the 
meantime, any questions can be directed to Bob Hill (bob.hill at adelaide.edu.au)


_________________________________________________________________
Dr Simon Haberle

Fellow and Director of the Centre for Archaeological Research

Department of Archaeology & Natural History
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
Canberra, ACT 0200
Australia

tel:            +61 2 6125 3373
fax:            +61 2 6125 1635
web page:       http://palaeoworks.anu.edu.au/
                 http://car.anu.edu.au/
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