PARENT SESSION
Symposium #1: Linking Molecular Insight and Ecological Research.
Organized by: RB Jackson and CR Linder
Monday, August 5. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM. Crystal Ballroom, TCC.
Ecology AND molecular biology: A wedding of complementary interests and expertises.
Linder, C. Randal*,1, 1 University of Texas, Austin, TX
ABSTRACT- The time is ripe for ecologists and molecular biologists to forge a stronger and deeper scientific relationship. Many ecologists can benefit from the use of molecular techniques to address questions at a number of scales. Molecular biologists? quest to understand the function of all the genes in model organisms and beyond will be enhanced and facilitated by detailed knowledge of the ecological circumstances in which the genes and their products function, as well as the historical ecological conditions under which they were selected. The topic of the symposium will be placed in the broader context of the goals of an NSF-sponsored workshop held in August 2001 and the drive to develop an NSF-based initiative to promote interdisciplinary collaborations between ecology and molecular biology.
KEY WORDS: NSF initiative, molecular biology