Non-Plenary oral presentations may not exceed 15 minutes, with 5 additional minutes for questions. Posters may not exceed 46" x 46" (120 cm x 120 cm ). Submission of abstracts for all sessions of AMS/WSM 2005 will be received by e-mail only as attached MS Word files.

1. The abstract may not exceed 250 words or contain figures or literature citations.
2. Compose your abstract in MS Word using the Times New Roman 10 pt. font. Employ a 1 inch (2.5 cm) margin on the left and a 3 inch (7.5 cm) margin on t he right. The title should be in bold, and scientific names should be italicized. The title, authors, and affiliations should be centered, and the body of the abstract fully justified. Do not indent anywhere. In cases of multiple authorship, include an e-mail address for the corresponding author only. The file name should be the surname of the submitting author. An example is given below.
3. Compose an e-mail to wsm@calacademy.org and cc it to padilla@life.bio.sunysb.edu. If you wish to be considered for the student competition (see below for details), you should also cc the message to Roland.Anderson@Seattle.Gov. If your paper is intended for one of the symposia or special sessions, please cc the message to the appropriate organizer. In the text of the e-mail message, please answer these following questions:
   • - Which type of presentation (oral or poster)?
   • - Would you be willing to chair a session?
   • - Do you wish to be considered for a student award (see restrictions below)?
   • - If so, are you an undergraduate, M.S. student or Ph.D. student?
   Oral Presentations Only
   • - Is this a contributed (general session) paper or a symposium/special session paper?
   • - What audio-visual resources will you require?
4. Attach the MS Word file of your abstract to the e-mail message.
5. Send the e-mail prior to the March 31^st deadline. You will receive a confirmatory response within 1-2 days.

To be eligible for a student award, you must be the sole author or your paper or poster. If this issue is problematic, contact one of the organizers (proopnarine@calacademy.org or padilla@life.bio.sunysb.edu) and we will be glad to discuss this prerequisite at length with your academic advisor. You must be an AMS or WSM student member in good standing, and either currently enrolled in a degree-granting academic program, or be a 2005 graduate.

SAMPLE ABSTRACT

Inducible Offenses in Marine Grazers

Dianna K. Padilla

Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245, USA, padilla@life.bio.sunysb.edu

Several species of marine molluscan grazers have been demonstrated to express morphological plasticity in their radula. The adaptive value of these inducible offenses (traits that enhance the abilities of consumers or competitors) can be limited because of long lag times between when an individual receives environmental cues and the new morphologies can be used. Behavioral plasticity associated with dispersal potential and food preference could work to minimize this adaptive limitation if individuals disperse less from food substrates/habitats they have been exposed to most recently, and disperse readily from alternate habitats. This type of behavioral response could increase the amount of time an individual resides in a given habitat, minimizing the consequences of morphology-habitat mismatches due to a long lag time. Detection and response to local predation risk could also enhance the adaptive value of such plasticities. Two sympatric species of littorinids in the genus Lacuna have radular morphologies that are inducible by food and environmental cues, and relatively long lag times (20-28 d) between when they sense a new environment and new teeth are ready to use. In experiments, snails disperse less frequently from food/environments in which they have been reared, and more frequently from alternate foods they have not recently experienced. Although these two species co-occur and are closely related, they show differences in dispersal behavior with one species dispersing much more readily than the other. Dispersal is also enhanced by chemical detection of predators, especially visual predators.