Registration for the conference is now closed.

Programme

A detailed conference programme will be available here soon. Talks should last no longer than 15 minutes, with 12 minutes for the presentation and 3 minutes for questions. Talks may be in Spanish or English, but if the latter, a Spanish abstract must be submitted for inclusion in the printed programme.

Every day during the three day conference, two symposia will be developed. Each symposium will be led by an expert in the topic who will give an introductory talk. Up to three students will be selected to present a talk in each symposium. Question sessions and networking events will also be included.

Symposia

- Spatial and temporal patterns in species richness (Keith Willmott, McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville, USA).

- Systematics and Biology of the Pronophilina (Tomasz Pyrcz, Zoological Museum, Jagiellonian University, Institute of Zoology, Kraków, Poland).

- Systematics and Biology of the Ithomiinae (Gerardo Lamas, Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Perú; Andre Freitas, Universidade de Campinas, Campinas, Brazil, and Keith Willmott).

- Ecology, Evolution and Genetics of the Heliconiinae (James Mallet, University College London, London, UK and Mauricio Linares, Instituto de Genética, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia).

- Museums and field work: Key tools for butterfly conservation. (Blanca Huertas, Natural History Museum, London, UK).

- Butterfly "Farms" and the Rearing of Butterflies for Research and Sustainable Development (Valeria Luna and Augusto Mulanovich, Mariposario Inkaterra, Peru).

We expect the conference to run from 0830-1800 on the 4th and 5th September, and to run from 0900-1600 on 6th September. A farewell party is being organized for 5th September at 7pm. Details will be available soon.

Talks and posters

The deadline for registration for oral presentations and posters is June 15 2008. If you want to join a symposium with an oral presentation or poster, please contact first the leader of the relevant symposium to check availability. Please complete the registration form and send it by e-mail to tabdarwin@gmail.com with a copy to kwillmott@flmnh.ufl.edu. Please remember that there are limited spaces.

Talks and posters should be related to the topic of Andean butterflies only. All abstracts must be submitted in Spanish, or in Spanish and English, with a maximum of 150 words excluding title and author details. Please use only font Arial size 10. There is limited space for posters and oral presentations. Authors accepted for both posters and talks will be notified before 30 June by the organizers. Both oral presentations and posters must follow the guidelines of the application form.

Accommodation

We have reserved rooms at the Hotel San Agustín Urubamba, where the conference will take place, and nearby Hotel San Agustín Monasterio de la Recoleta, both of which are under the same management. If you require a room for the conference please state this on your registration form, do not contact the hotel directly. Those registered for the conference who receive a discount should expect to pay approximately US$20-30 for their stay (see registration form), with the remainder of the hotel bill being covered by the TABD project. If you are accompanying a conference participant as a spouse or partner, you will need to pay approximately US$25 per night to cover the costs of your stay - see the registration form for more details. Urubamba also has several other fine hotels if you prefer. We expect most participants to arrive on the afternoon/evening of September 3, and to depart either the evening of September 6, or the morning of September 7. Please note that though we have a number of rooms reserved for the night of September 6, they are more limited and preference will be given to those submitting registration forms early.

Getting there

The nearest airport is in Cuzco (CUZ), served frequently by TACA and Lan Peru from Lima, along with several other airlines. If arriving from outside Peru, it is more economical to book a flight direct to Cuzco (via Lima), rather than booking a flight to Lima, and Lima-Cuzco separately. Information about transportation from Cuzco to Urubamba will be made available here shortly.

About the region

The town of Urubamba is located approximately 1 hour by road from Cuzco in the valley of the Rio Urubamba, at approximately 3000m above sea level. It is an ideal base to visit the Sacred Valley (the upper Rio Urubamba), with its numerous archaeological sites, the most famous being Machu Picchu. For information about the possibilities of butterfly collecting field trips in the region, please contact Gerardo Lamas (glamasm@unmsm.edu.pe) or Gorky Valencia (gorkyv@yahoo.com) in the local organizing committee.

Additional information

We will provide letters of invitation to participants who need to request funding or leave from universities and institutions, as soon as abstracts have been received. Information about visa requirements can be found here. For further information, suggestions or comments please send an email to the TABD project email address tabdarwin@gmail.com.