Funding will support a one-day symposium entitled, "The Crisis in Invertebrate Conservation," to be sponsored by the American Society of Zoologists (ASZ) and held during its 1992 annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia in December 1992. At the Vancouver meeting, ASZ will assemble together with the Canadian Society of Zoologists, providing an international forum. The symposium addresses a growing problem in conservation biology: the relatively small attention given to major problems in invertebrate conservation across some 28 phyla and all major earth habitat types. There will be eleven speakers, each addressing an urgent topic. They will discuss the effects of environmental alteration, pollution, introduced species and over harvesting on many invertebrate phyla from habitats as diverse as coral reefs, temperate rocky coasts, fresh water streams and lakes, and temperate and tropical forests. The symposium will dramatize the crisis to a broad audience, facilitate exchange of ideas, concerns and approaches to dealing with invertebrate conservation, and stimulate much needed action in the area of invertebrate conservation biology.
