ECR Report of the IDS

by Andrea Burfeid-Castellanos |

This year´s IDS started with the first workshop, kindly given by the Early Career Researcher and Keynote, Dr. Kálmán Tapolczai from the Hungarian Bálaton Limnological Institute. After a thorough explanation of the workings of Environmental and DNA metabarcoding, we delved into the DADA2 pipeline, with Kálmán trying to make this pipeline as accessible as possible. The workshop was well attended (ca. 20 people) and an overall success. (Thanks to Kálmán).

Metabarcoding workshop at the IDS Venue.

During the later ice breaker, we tried to “label” the ECRs with Young ISDR buttons, to make it easier for the coming week to recognise possible winners for the best poster and oral presentation prizes. The food at the ice breaker was delicious, sharing some local foods, fruits (exquisite watermelon) and drinks.

During the meeting a total of 25 ECRs presented their science in a fantastic way. The poster sessions were divided into 3 (one at the Tuesday, one on Thursday coinciding with the second workshop, and one of Friday).

Thursday was the most “ECR-activity heavy” day. We had a ECR-organized workshop on digital diatomology (shared by Dr. Michael Kloster and myself), which was well attended, around 30 participants. Later we had our ECR meeting in which the summary of the ECR activities from the last years were explained to the audience, including the presentation of the new Diatom of the Month leader, Hirak Parikh. We finnished the session with a rather fun networking game that got the audience talking. To crown the evening, and with the help of Dr. Kenta Abe and Dr. Luca Pellegrino, who reserved the space in one of the rare restaurants big enough to host up to 25 people (which later transpired to be 15). I want to apologize that the accessibility of the restaurant was not up to par, although the quality of the food was very good and sponsored by ISDR.

On Friday we had the ECR speed-talks. We started with a flash talk of Prof. Dr. Youssef Ouballouk, followed by extraordinary talks by

  • Eldrin Arguelles with his Momo story (how fish became fed up with Cymbella janischii)
  • Kana Mugikura with Recipies on Cymbella janischii
  • Motoki Kayama talking about his life
  • Chisato Nakaji talking about her favourite things
  • Daichi Mikami talking about his favourite movie
  • Xuan Liu presenting herself
  • Liangfan Li adding images to his presentation
  • Naiwen Hsiao talking about the Flow Cam and Russia

These eight amazing people had only one day to prepare and did incredibly well. The crowning participation was Caroline McKenzies “Diatom Exposé” (well worth a visit on the previous youtube link), which explained the pyrenoid question within the most perfect song.

Finally, at the end of the conference, the prizes were given. This time, the Speed talks were sponsored by Sogensha with the “The Amazing world of Diatoms” book, signed by all the authors. The three best prizes, going to Chisato Nakaji (3rd), Eldrin Arguelles (2nd) and Caroline McKenzie (1st) were also added to some further books coming from the sponsors. Further, we got three best poster and three best oral presentation awards gifted by Koeltz Botanical books, Seibundo books and a token of appreciation in the form of a “diatom design” bottle. The winners were:

Oral presentations:

  1. Luca Pellegrino
  2. Thomas Kiran Marella
  3. Kotaro Hoshi

Poster presentations:

  1. Caroline McKenzie
  2. Kazuki Sugawara
  3. Shinra Yoshinaga

I want to thank all of the participants for their bravery in sharing their research in the community for the first time and everyone for coming.

Last, but not least, we would like to thank Ric Jordan, his students and the Local Organizing Committee for all the hours and efforts spent in order to make the meeting the sucess it has been. See you in South Africa!