The purpose of this award is to defray costs associated with the International Symposium on Olfaction and Taste, a meeting held every 12 years in the United States. The 2008 meeting is planned for San Francisco, California on July 21-26. Two symposia are to be supported by this award. The one entitled Olfaction in Birds will honor Dr. Bernice Wenzel, by exploring the sensory biology and ecology of olfaction in a wide variety of species, from the perspective of a variety of disciplines including foraging ecology, social behavior and neuroethology. The symposium on the Neuroecology of Chemical Senses will focus on neuroecological approaches, which range from behavioral and community ecology to neural and molecular mechanisms of action, placed squarely within the context of the evolution. The aim is to bridge the gap between knowledge of physiological effects and ecological consequences. Eight speakers will be supported and six of them are young investigators or post-docs. Furthermore, support of this symposium will allow funds from the sponsoring organization (the Association of Chemoreception Sciences) to be dedicated to underwriting meeting costs for all graduate student attendees. The proceedings of these symposia will be published in two forms. First, the abstracts from all presentations at the meeting will appear in a special issue of the journal, Chemical Senses (Oxford Univ. Press). Also, proceedings from the symposia will be submitted for journal publication.
