This symposium is in honor of Professor Donald W. Thomas who died suddenly in early summer 2009 while doing field research in Corsica. The symposium will focus on recent advances linking environmental variation, energetics and the fitness of endotherms. Don Thomas was recognized world-wide for his contribution to the ecology and physiology of bats, rodents and birds. As Dr. Thomas pointed out on his web-site: "Although I have a slight bias towards bats, chipmunks and blue tits in Corsica, I like to think that it is the question rather than the taxonomic group that drives research". His research focused mainly on physiology of thermoregulation, hibernation and over-wintering strategies of bats and rodents, as well as the evolutionary and physiological ecology of breeding birds. Some of his most important contributions demonstrate how energetics serves as a mechanistic link between environmental variation and the fitness of endotherms. This is an important and rapidly growing area of research in physiology and ecology, driven in part by recent successes in embedding field-based measures of physiological traits into long-term field studies of individual fitness and population dynamics, as well as the search for mechanistic traits that may be used to predict population responses to environmental change. The ability of animals to respond and adjust to environmental challenges is the key concept of the Darwinian theory of natural selection. Fitness in turn, defined as the reproductive success of individuals (or their per capita rate of growth) describes their success in a given environment. Individual variability in energy acquisition, expenditure and conservation influence life history traits, which eventually lead to differences in performance and fitness. Thus, resolving the link between an individual's environment and its energetics and fitness is crucial for understanding the persistence and performance of animals in various environments. This organism-environment linkage has recently been identified as one of the five grand challenges of organismal biology. We have selected "Environment, energetics and fitness" as the focus of this symposium because of the importance of Don Thomas' contribution to this topic and its growing importance to organismal biology. An essential part of Don Thomas' legacy was his infectious enthusiasm for science and discovery that was especially influential on young researchers. The international diversity of confirmed presenters for this symposium, which includes early career researchers as well as internationally recognized senior researchers, both women and men, from Poland, Israel, Australia, South Africa, the USA and Canada, is reflective of the diversity of Don's international influence.

Sponsors: DCBP, DEE, Sable Systems Int.

Organizers

• Michal Wojciechowski, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland
• Murray Humphries, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
• Berry Pinshow, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Speakers