The tropics strongly impact global climate. From tropical rainforests to subtropical desert belts tropical ecosystems affect continent-wide precipitation and temperature, vice versa they respond to “Global Changes”. The conference intends to gather knowledge on all past, actual and future changes in the tropics or initiated by the tropical regions with special focus on all aspects of life including, biodiversity, bio fuel production and human biology. The conference consists of six plenary sessions and three guided poster sessions. Each plenary session will be opened by an invited keynote speaker.

We invite all colleagues to submit a presentation. For oral presentations participants are advised to prepare a 30 minute PowerPoint presentation, including approximately 5 minutes for questions and discussion. Oral presentations can be submitted on a specific symposium topic or independently. Posters should be 120 cm wide x 80 cm tall, or smaller. Abstracts for both oral and poster presentations should include title, author(s), institute(s), corresponding address(es), and keywords, and should be 300-500 words long. Please submit abstracts to Rhett Harrison (rhett@chikyu.ac.jp) by 30th April 2006. Anyone interested in organizing a special session please contact Rhett Harrison with your suggested topic and a list of speakers.