International Meeting on Malaria and Related Haemosporidian Parasites of Wildlife

Friday August 5th - Sunday August 7th, 2011

National Conservation Training Center, Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Sponsored by the NSF Research Coordination Network for Haemosporida of Terrestrial Vertebrates

Organizing Committee:

Robert Fleischer and Ellen Martinsen
Smithsonian Institution

Ravinder Sehgal
San Francisco State University

The NSF sponsored Research Coordination Network for Haemosporida of Terrestrial Vertebrates (Malaria RCN) invites you to participate in a three day meeting including keynote talks by leading experts in the field, general paper and poster sessions, plus a training session and roundtable discussion.

Topics for the meeting address the Haemosporida of natural populations of vertebrates and include: haemosporidian systematics and genomics, species limits and definitions, generalist versus specialist parasites, evolution of virulence, geographic distribution of vectors and hosts, host shifts and emerging infectious diseases, parasite ecology, and vector parasite relationships.

The program will commence on Friday morning, August 5th, with a half-day training session on haemosporidian classical taxonomy. Keynote talks and general paper and poster sessions will follow on Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday morning. The meeting will end on Sunday afternoon, August 7th, with concurrent two- hour roundtable discussions on (1) species limits in the haemosporidians and (2) malaria databasing.

All food, lodging and meeting events will take place at the US Fish & Wildlife Service's National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, a site easily accessible through Washington, D.C. area airports.