Guest Post: Grateful to AuthorAID for Providing Travel Grant to Attend NAPC 2015

[This post is from Dr. Sabuj Bhattacharyya (Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore), who recently received an AuthorAID travel grant. Thank you! —Barbara]

I am really grateful to AuthorAID for providing the travel grant to facilitate my participation in the 3rd Conference of the North American Pika Consortium (NAPC 2015). This conference was held in Golden, Colorado, USA, on 17–18 April 2015. The travel grant covered my round-trip airfare, local transport, and miscellaneous expenses.

The conference focused on the impact of climate change on various ecological aspects of a high-altitude small mammal, the American pika (a relative of rabbits and hares). The American pika is reported to be highly sensitive to climate change. However, its response to climate change varies significantly across landscapes.

Hence, this conference facilitated exchange of interdisciplinary research information, ideas, and findings related to American pika ecology. One purpose was to identify pathways through which climate change might affect American pikas. Another purpose was to assess the possibility of using pikas as model species for climate change monitoring programs in high-altitude ecosystems.

The conference included exciting talks and posters and a wonderful plenary talk that enlightened me about current research trends in pika ecology. In addition, I received excellent comments on my talk and research. These comments were extremely useful for improving the manuscript that is based on my talk.

At the conference I also attended 2 workshops that were very informative and helpful for my future research. Furthermore, I was able to interact with fellow researchers from different universities and institutes with common research interests and discuss possible future collaboration.

I am thankful to AuthorAID for giving me the opportunity to attend and present my work at NAPC 2015.