Anti-Predator Coloration Symposium 4 & 5 August 2016 Welcome to the symposium and thanks for attending! The symposium will take place on 4 & 5 August 2016, at the Cornwall (Penryn) Campus, which is located approximately 2-3 hours travel from Exeter city (where the main ISBE is held). Anti-predator coloration is widespread in nature, from camouflage and startle displays to warning signals and mimicry. Research on these defences begun with the likes of Wallace and Bates, and actively continues today. Yet there remain many unresolved questions to answer. The aim of the symposium is to bring together researchers at all career stages interested in defensive coloration in nature. The event will involve a mixture of short (five minute) talks mostly in sets of three, followed by discussions. There will also be four workshops (two simultaneous sessions), exploring key issues and unresolved questions in the subject area. General Information Contacts Organising committee: Martin Stevens, Sara Mynott, Sarah Paul, Emmanuelle Briolat, Jolyon Troscianko, Natasha Price and Ossi Nokelainen. Enquiries: For general enquiries, please contact Martin ([email protected]) or Sara ([email protected]). For information about the conference dinner, contact Sarah ([email protected]). Send your presentations to Ossi ([email protected]) in advance of the symposium. Location The University of Exeter’s Penryn campus is located in South Cornwall, not far from the seaside town of Falmouth. According to higher authority (Sasha Dall, who says he’s done the maths), the campus has the highest number of behavioural-evolutionary ecologists found anywhere in the world. It is also located in one of the most beautiful parts of Britain with many scenic spots, beaches, and wildlife. Behavioural research at the campus focuses on animal life histories, group behaviour, reproductive biology, signalling and communication, sensory ecology, human behaviour, and beyond. There are also plenty of groups working on things like sexual conflict, coevolution, disease biology, and conservation. Getting to Falmouth/Penryn By train: If travelling from Exeter by rail, take the train from Exeter St David’s to Truro, where you will need to change for the Falmouth branch line service. From here it will be a 15-20 min journey into Penryn, Penmere, Falmouth Town or Falmouth Docks (the latter three stations all in Falmouth). Total journey time is about three hours. By car: From Exeter, take either the A30 or A38 dual carriageway into Cornwall. Follow the signs to Truro and then Falmouth. Note that normal travel time from Exeter (about 2-2.5 hours) can be much longer if traffic is bad due to road works (plenty of these right now) and tourist traffic. Accommodation Check the website (http://www.sensoryecology.com/anti-predator-coloration-symposium/) for some suggestions. We strongly suggest booking early as Falmouth and Cornwall in general are very touristy in the summer. Things to do If you have some spare time or are staying for longer, here are a few suggestions. Falmouth: Often voted/designated as one of the best places to live in the whole of the UK. In and around Falmouth the main attractions include the beaches, specifically Gyllyngvase, Swanpool and Castle Beaches, and Maenporth beach (short walk along the coast path from Swanpool). There are numerous restaurants (lots of seafood places) and cafes, and plenty of pubs (The Front having an outstanding selection of local ales). Other things include the National Maritime Museum, and Pendennis Castle, as well as various watersports like kayaking and surfing. Gyllyngvase and Castle beaches have some of the most biodiverse rock pools in the UK. Around Falmouth: There are endless things to do, especially to do with history and nature in Cornwall (and numerous tourist books about Cornwall), so here are just a few places close to Falmouth. St Mawes (picturesque village reached by boat) and the Roseland (quaint villages and beaches); Trebah, Glendurgan, and Trellisick Gardens (historical and subtropical gardens – all within 30 min drive); Lizard Peninsular (area of outstanding natural beauty and southernmost point of UK mainland); Truro (capital of Cornwall and a nice little city); Helford Passage (area of outstanding beauty, and some good country pubs – can be reached by boat or car); St Michaels Mount (historic monument and beautiful setting – 1 hr drive); St Ives (famous seaside town and art galleries – 1 hr drive); Minack Theatre & Porthcurno beach (historical open air theatre and spectacular beach and setting – 1.5 hr drive), Godrevy and Perranporth beaches (huge sandy beaches north coast, great for surfing – 1 hr drive); Eden project (botanical garden famous for its rainforest biome greenhouse - 1 hr drive); Lanhydrock house (historical house and estate – 1 hr drive), various historical tin mines (Cornwall is famous for its mining heritage)… and much much more. The Symposium Detailed directions to the symposium from Falmouth If coming from Falmouth, take the train from Falmouth Docks, Falmouth Town, or Penmere to Penryn (5-10 mins). Trains leave every half hour and one about 8:20 (based on current timetable) would give plenty of time to arrive for the start of day. Tickets can be bought on the train from the conductor (£2-3 return) if they get to you in time! At Penryn, leave the station and turn left down the hill, at the cross roads turn left again and walk along the road underneath the railway bridge and follow the road along for about 5 min until it curls round to the right. About here there is a pedestrian entrance on the left to campus. Walk along this part for about 5 min until you get to the second set of steps on your right. Walk up these all the way to the top and it takes you to the heart of the campus. The symposium is located in the Exchange rooms Green and Yellow. Entrance is opposite the main campus Reception. Lunch and tea/coffee We’ll provide tea and coffee etc. during the day. There are several places to have lunch on campus. The Stannary cafeteria serves a selection of hot meals each day, while Koofi café is a popular spot for pizza. Sandwiches and snacks can also be found at the Stannary and Koofi, as well as in other cafés in the Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI) building and Performance centre (see campus map). Talks We will have a computer with PowerPoint etc. set up for the talks. Due to the way the talks work it would be really helpful if people can send us their talks in advance (we will remind you about this nearer the time). Each session comprises three (occasionally two or four) sets of talks on a similar topic. We’ve arranged these as best we can, so apologies if your talk seems a bit out of place. Each talk is 5 minutes absolute maximum, and after all three talks the chair will open up the floor for 10 minutes of questions to all speakers. The idea here is to encourage discussions among the speakers and the audience, rather than simply having a series of talks. We will be strict to keep to time! After four minutes the chair will hold up a photo of an animal with warning signals to warn the speaker they are running out of time. Once the 5 minutes are up, the chair will hold up a photograph of an animal with a startle display, scaring the speaker off the stage through mimicry, conspicuousness, or whatever mechanism works. Workshops There are four workshops that will take place, two concurrent sessions, and it’s up to attendees which ones they wish to go to. We have tried to arrange these topics based on the most popular choices and suggestions from the attendees, and also to minimise overlap in peoples’ choices between concurrent sessions. The workshops are as follows: Workshop 1: Image analysis and vision modelling – new methods and considerations Jolyon Troscianko Cameras are powerful tools for quantifying colour, pattern and lighting information in a range of disciplines, and can be more flexible, convenient and affordable than alternative tools, such as spectrometers. However, off-the-shelf consumer cameras are designed for producing images for human viewing, and cannot be used for making quantitative measurements without first calibrating the images appropriately. In this workshop I will go over the image calibration process, focussing on our free Image Analysis Toolbox: http://www.sensoryecology.com/image-analysis-tools/ , and providing examples of different photography methods, and potential sources of error. This will include UV photography, and converting images to animal cone-catch values. I will have hands-on examples of different camera setups, and there will be plenty of time for camera-related questions and a discussion of future directions. Workshop 2: Multi-function / component signals and trade-offs Emily Burdfield-Steel and Jim Barnett Animal colouration fulfils many different functions including communication, thermoregulation, and defence from predators. These various functions have predominantly been studied in isolation, but under natural conditions animal colouration is likely to be affected by multiple selection pressures. Recent research has begun to reveal how these multiple functions interact to either compromise or co-opt signals. For example, certain conspicuous signals can act as camouflage when viewed from greater distances or in certain microhabitats, whereas others are conspicuous only to particular observer visual systems. Many questions still remain and an inclusive framework is needed in order to understand multi-function colouration. In this symposium session we will explore multi- function colouration, what evidence there is for it, and how to best approach these questions in future. The workshop will begin with a brief introduction to multi-function signalling, after which participants will be invited to split into smaller groups and choose from several discussion topics.