Regarding the Sapporo Conference 2023

The 39th Annual Meeting of the Society of Population Ecology will be held at Hokkaido University's Sapporo campus and the Tomakomai Experimental Forest of Hokkaido University. This will be our first in-person meeting in quite some time. The last time we met in Sapporo, it was for a training camp style symposium at Jozankei. That was our first style 'lodging together' meeting in nine years, but this time, it's our first face-to-face meeting in four years.

Whether the COVID-19 pandemic has truly subsided is still unclear. Our institutions and rules within universities and organizations have shifted in alignment with the transition to Stage 5. During the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence-based policy-making and decision-making have become widely recognized social issues. We have been forced to face several challenges anew. What have we learned from these experiences, and how can we apply those learnings? While we are placing emphasis on returning to in-person meetings, we hope that we can engage in many discussions about ecology in Hokkaido while considering these matters.

One of the charms of meeting of the Society of Population Ecology is that its smaller scale allows students and seniors to engage in open and passionate discussions, breaking down barriers. It's also a great opportunity to bring together a diverse group of researchers crossing the boundaries of mathematical, field, basic, and applied research. While we couldn't make the decision to organize a training camp style this time, we are preparing so that as many students and young researchers as possible can get a strong sense of this spirit. We warmly invite you to visit Hokkaido in this coming fall. Although we're prioritizing in-person attendance, we are planning for online streaming as well, so online participation is of course also welcome.

At this conference, we have arranged various symposiums with themes that encapsulate the charm of field research and the cutting-edge of statistical analysis and causal inference. In addition to the planned events, we will also set up symposiums based on open calls. We invite a broad range of researchers interested in population ecology and related fields, not just members. Of course, we'll have poster sessions, the autumn school, satellite projects, and more. Please visit the conference website for more details.

As of the end of May 2023

Chair of the Conference Committee, Shunsuke Utsumi

Conference Committee Members: Masahiro Nakaoka, Takashi Noda, Osamu Kishida, Noboru Katayama, Kazuya Kobayashi, Ryo Yamaguchi