NEWSLETTER
  Animal Behavior Society

Dear Fellow ABS Members,

We are pleased to announce the 2021 annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society, to be held August 3-6, 2021.  As with our 2020 annual meeting, this meeting will be entirely virtual, and we look forward to the same high level of participation by animal behaviorists from around the world as enjoyed with ABS 2020. Registration costs for the meeting will be $60 for regular ABS members and free for students, postdocs and participants from developing countries who are current ABS members.

With the 2021 meeting, we are excited to feature the return of many important elements of our typical in-person meetings. These include terrific lineups of both plenary speakers and symposia on diverse topics spanning the range of animal behavior. We also have a full slate of pre-meeting workshops we invite you to investigate. As always, the Allee Symposium will be a highlight of the meeting, with 20-minute talk slots for the students accepted into this competition.

We will retain plenty of time for contributed talks and posters, albeit with some tweaks to the format used in our 2020 meeting designed to enhance interaction.  Contributed talks slots will be 10 minutes, with live questions immediately following each talk.  Talks will run in several concurrent sessions in the morning and late afternoon. All participants will submit a pre-recorded talk the week before the conference, but will have the choice to either play that recording or deliver their talk live during their session. Poster sessions will be in the early afternoon to help make them accessible to a worldwide audience. Poster format will be similar to those seen at in-person conferences, and presenters will have the option to post a link to their own Zoom room for live discussion with attendees during their poster session. 

We are also providing space for more informal interactions, with the opportunity for attendees to schedule their own themed “Happy Half Hour” Zoom session in either the morning or late afternoon to broaden accessibility. These were a big hit at the 2020 meetings and we encourage you to plan ahead and schedule a meeting or two around  your favorite topic in animal behavior. There will also be mentoring programs for early career researchers and plenty of time for ABS members to learn about the exciting new initiatives underway in the Society.

Together with the ABS Meeting Planning Committee and the ABS Executive Committee, we are excited to invite you to our 2021 meeting. We look forward to a vibrant virtual meeting, full of good science and great interactions, that will set the stage for future hybrid ABS meetings that include both virtual and in-person components.

More information will be available soon, including online registration and abstract submission, which opens March 25. Please check the ABS website often for updates. 

We look forward to hosting you this summer at ABS Virtual 2021!