College of William and Mary, 2010

47th Annual Meeting of the Animal Behavior Society,

25-29 July, 2010

Founded in 1693, William and Mary is the second oldest university in the US and situated in scenic Williamsburg, Virginia (http://www.wm.edu). As a “public Ivy” William and Mary is consistently rated as one of the best public schools in the US. The City of Williamsburg was the colonial capital of the “New World” and sits nestled between two other historic sites: Jamestown (the first permanent British colony) and Yorktown (site of surrender of British in the US Revolutionary War). Colonial Williamsburg itself has been restored as a living history museum and lies adjacent to the William and Mary campus (http://www.history.org). For US history buffs, this is a veritable playground. There are also a lot of other tourist attractions, including a large water park (http://www.watercountryusa.com) and Busch Gardens Williamsburg (http://www.buschgardens.com), both of which offer wonderful entertainment for families. The area also has lots of natural attractions and parks that are great for nature hikes, canoeing, and birding.

Scientific Program Highlights

Featured Speakers:

Keynote speaker: Ellen Ketterson, Indiana University, Lecture title TBA.

Distinguished Animal Behaviorist Address: Lee Drickamer, Northern Arizona University, Lecture title TBA.

ABS Fellow Lecture: Andy Sih, University of California at Davis Lecture title TBA.

Symposia, Workshops, and Special Sessions:

ABS Presidential symposium: Adaptive Variation in Female Mate Preferences

Organizer: Molly Morris, Ohio University

Symposium: Collective Animal Behavior: Decision-Making of Groups

Organizers: Noa Pinter-Wollman, Stanford University; Deborah M. Gordon, Stanford University

Symposium: Signaling in Multiple Modalities

Organizer: James Higham, University of Chicago

Career Workshop: Thriving as a Beginning Assistant Professor

Organizer: Jennifer Mather, University of Lethbridge

Special Poster Session: Applied Animal Behavior, Monday July 26

Organizer: John Wright, Mercer University

Film Festival:

The XXVI Annual Animal Behavior Society Film Festival
Evening 1: Amateur (Non-Commercial) Film Category - Monday, 07/26/10, 7pm-10pm
Evening 2: Professional (Commercial) Film Category - Tuesday, 07/27/10, 7pm-10pm

The winner of each category will be announced at the closing banquet held on Thursday 07/29/10. .

Special Events

• An opening reception will be held on Sunday July 25, 2010

• Posters will be on display in two sessions throughout the conference. The first set of posters will be on display from Monday July 26 to 27; the second set from Wednesday July 28 to 29.

• A closing banquet will be held on Thursday July 29

• Annual 5K fun run! Contact Caitlin Gabor (gabor@txstate.edu) for details.

• A Silent Auction will be held once again. Please bring items to donate to the auction: (1) Books on animal behavior, biology, ecology, conservation, applied animal behavior, etc.; (2) autographed books from ABS authors; (3) items with animal themes (t-shirts, jewelry, calendars, greeting cards, posters, etc.); (4) software useful for members (statistics, data collection, etc.); (5) videotapes for teaching or entertainment with behavior themes; (6) memorabilia from past ABS meetings and members (vintage artifacts); (7) animal photography; (8) animal artwork; (9) statistical consulting; (10) behind-the-scenes tour of a zoo, etc. Donated items will be placed on tables next to bidding forms, or described, if the item is not present.

Registration

Online registration and mail-in forms will be available in February via a link from the ABS website TBA. To present a paper or a poster at ABS 2010, you must register and submit abstracts by May 14, 2010. Only ABS (and ASAB) members are allowed to present research at ABS Meetings, which means participants should apply for membership or renew by May 7, 2010, in order to submit an abstract.

Be advised that there is a limit on the number of Contributed Talks that can be accepted. ABS bylaws require us to accept talk abstracts in the order received rather than the merits of the abstract or the presenter. You may still submit your most excellent abstract as a contributed poster, but not as a contributed talk, once this limit has been reached. The current limit is set at 200.

Registration fees for 2010, as approved by the Executive Committee, are listed below (all prices in U.S. Dollars):

Lodging

There is a nice hotel (Williamsburg Hospitality House, http://www.williamsburghosphouse.com) within a couple of minute's walk of the conference venue, with discounted rooms (single or double occupancy) at $109 per night. Attendees will need to contact the hotel independently to book rooms and mention the ABS conference to get the room discount rate. There are also a couple of budget hotels (Super8, Days Inn) an easy 5-10 minute walking distance from the conference.  Additionally, there will be on-campus dorm housing at approximately $35 per night for double occupancy and approximately $50 per night for single occupancy. On campus housing can be booked through the same website as for online registration.

Food Options

As usual, there will be snacks at breaks during the conference. There will also be options to purchase on campus meal plans, and the conference center has a full cafeteria. There are also dozens of restaurant choices within easy walking distance of campus, ranging from cheap sandwich joints and bars to high end dining in Colonial Williamsburg.

Transportation

Williamsburg is an easy drive from many of the big East coast cities, and from the Carolinas. We have three nearby airports: Newport News/Williamsburg (PHF, 20 minutes away); Richmond International (RIC, 45 minutes away); and Norfolk International (ORF, 60 minutes away). Each of which have ride share services and taxis to Williamsburg. For people who drive to Williamsburg, there will be options to purchase on-campus parking passes through the registration website. The Williamsburg Hospitality House offers free parking to hotel guests.

Things to Do

Williamsburg enjoys the benefits of being a major tourist area and so there is no shortage of things to do in and around the City. From historic sites, to theme parks, natural areas, and extensive discount shopping, it's pretty easy to entertain yourself and your family for a week in Williamsburg. We'll be posting more specific information on the conference registration website, but for now you may want to look at the following site (www.visitwilliamsburg.com) to get an idea of how you may want to spend your downtime or extend your stay in the area. Here are some of the attractions that may be of interest:

• Colonial Williamsburg (http://www.history.org)

• Jamestown and Yorktown (http://www.historyisfun.org)
• Busch Gardens (http://www.buschgardens.com)
• Water Country USA http://(www.watercountryusa.com)
• Great Wolf Lodge (http://www.greatwolf.com/williamsburg/waterpark)
• Virginia Living Museum (vwww.thevlm.org)
• Norfolk Zoo (http://www.virginiazoo.org)
• Nauticus (http://www.nauticus.org)
• Virginia Aquarium (http://www.virginiaaquarium.com/Pages/default.aspx)
• Children's Museum of Richmond (http://www.c-mor.org)
• Outlet Mall Shopping (http://www.primeoutlets.com/locations/williamsburg.aspx)
• York River State park (http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/yor.shtml)
  

Child Care

Although William and Mary cannot offer daycare specifically for conference attendees, we intend to put together a list of local daycare facilities that will take children on a short term basis. This will appear on the conference website at a later date.

For Further Information

Contact the conference hosts John Swaddle (jpswad@wm.edu) and Dan Cristol (dacris@wm.edu).

Online registration and mail-in forms will be available from a link at the ABS website TBA.