The Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) is convening a major international symposium in tropical studies in June 1988 to celebrate the Silver Anniversary of its founding. The symposium will last one week and will consist of a North American segment and a second part in Costa Rica where most OTS field activities have historically been located. Appropriately, the North American part of the symposium will be hosted by the University of Miami where OTS was founded in 1963. The unifying theme of the U.S. portion of the symposium will be Resource Availability and the Structure and Functioning of Tropical Ecosystems. Six plenary sessions will address the following topics: I. Soil fertility, nutrient cycling, and the decomposer food web; II. Resource availability and plant community structure; III. Resource availability and plant-herbivore interactions; IV. Resource availability and food-web structure; V. Resource availability and muturalisms; VI. Resource availability and the conservation of biotic diversity in the tropics. The Costa Rican sessions will include: Addresses from representatives of OTS and from the government of Costa Rica, awards to winners of contests with tropical conservation themes, a series of presentations on research, sustainable use and conservation issues and a series of field trips to areas of biotic interest. The organizers for this symposium have done a truly excellent job that will make the OTS 25th anniversary observance a memorable scientific event. The Programs of the Division of Biotic Systems and Resources take pride in recommending funding.
