There are only three more days to register for the next International Statistical Ecology Conference (ISEC). Many workshops are now fully-booked, but there is still a significant line-up of invited sessions, general speakers, and social events on offer. And with so many statistical ecologists attending, this conference promises to be well above average! But for those of you facing uncertainty, Dr Rachel McCrea, Chair of the ISEC Scientific Committee, has outlined some of the upcoming conference highlights.

The biennial International Statistical Ecology Conference is returning to where it all started in 2008, at St Andrews in Scotland.  The 6^th conference runs from 2^nd to 6^th July 2018, with workshops on 29^th June to 1^st July.

The public lecture, Counting on Conservation, is early evening on Monday 2^nd July, and features Dr Alison Johnston of the Universities of Cornell and Cambridge, talking about threats to migrating birds, and Dr Stacy DeRuiter of Calvin College, talking about the effects of underwater sound on whale and dolphin behaviour.

Dr Alison Johnston and Dr Stacy DeRuiter will talk birds and dolphins at the Counting on Conservation public lecture

Plenary speakers are Jennifer Hoeting (Colorado State University), “Combining mathematical and statistical models: a disease ecology perspective”;  Kerry Mengersen (Queensland University of Technology), “Why don’t we ask: can citizen science improve ecology and conservation?”;  Bill Link (USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center), “Model selection and evaluation for hierarchical models”;  Stephen Ellner (Cornell University), “Trait-based demography: linking individuals, populations, and communities in varying environments”;  and Steve Buckland (University of St Andrews) “Monitoring biodiversity: opportunities and pitfalls”.

Invited sessions are on Movement Modelling (chaired by Roland Langrock), New Kinds of Survey Data (chaired by Nick Isaac and Stephen Marsland), and Distance Sampling (chaired by Rachel Fewster and David Borchers).

ISEC 2016 involved over 300 experts from around the world. This year the conference promises to be bigger than ever!

The workshops on Friday 29^th June are Combining Different Data Types in a Single Model (Nick Golding, Nick Isaac and Liz Martin) and Template Model Builder (Anders Nielsen, Mollie Brooks and Andrea Havron).  On Saturday 30^th June, the workshops are Modelling Spatial Point Processes with INLAbru (David Borchers, Janine Illian and Finn Lindgren) and Hierachical Modelling of Species Communities (Otso Ovaskainen).  The two workshops on Sunday 1^st July are Model-based Multivariate Analysis of Abundance Data using R (David Warton) and Statistical Models for Animal Movement (Mevin Hooten, Devin Johnson, Brett McClintock and Juan Morales). Most workshops are now fully booked, and with more delegates than expected attending the conference, you may want to arrive early for the public lecture and plenary sessions.  An overflow venue with live streamfeed will be provided should the demand for seats exceed supply.

Statistics isn’t always serious…

Satellite events include BES lunchtime workshops, a BES Movement Ecology Special Interest Group social event on the evening of Tuesday 3^rd July, with Roland Langrock, Stacy DeRuiter and Juan Morales as speakers, the BES Quantitative Ecology Special Interest Group one-day conference on Monday 9^th July, and a workshop on Bayesian integrated population modelling using JAGS and BUGS in Aberdeen 25-29 June, given by Michael Schaub and Marc Kéry. Members of the British Ecological Society, led by Chris Grieves (Assistant Editor of Methods in Ecology and Evolution) will also be running two free lunchtime workshops aimed at early career researchers, one on “How to get published” and the other on “How to be a peer reviewer”. They take place on Tues and Thurs lunchtime at 1-2pm.

The famous Old Course at St Andrews

The opening reception takes place on Sunday 1^st July from 5 to 6:30pm, the poster session is on Tuesday 3^rd July from 4 to 6pm, and the conference banquet and ceilidh is at the Old Course Hotel from 7pm until midnight.

For more information about the conference and access to the draft schedule of contributed talks and posters please visit http://www.isec2018.org. Registration closes 18th May 2018.