This award helps support a conference entitled, "Quaternary Grassland Forest Dynamics" at the biennial meeting of the American Quaternary Association (AMQUA) in Lawrence, Kansas on June 26 - 28, 2004.
Specifically, the award provides participant support for approximately fifteen (15) graduate students and post-doctoral researchers to participate in presentations and discussions that examine the complex interaction among climatic, geologic, biologic, and human systems in the dynamics of grassland-forest boundaries.
Among the organizer's objectives are: 1) provide a forum for presentation of new data and approaches for understanding the biological, geological, paleoclimatological, and cultural aspects of grassland/forest transitions; 2) bring together a diverse group of researchers to foster synergistic activities that will benefit both established investigators as well as students; and 3) encourage interactions that will promote new projects aimed at collecting data, foster the development of novel tools for research and analysis, and enable integrative efforts among researchers and students that are in scientific disciplines that do not often participate in the same meetings or conferences.
All presentations at the conference will be published by AMQUA in a volume of abstracts that will be available for purchase by the wider scientific community.
