Nan Xiang
Report of GLOMAR PhD student Nan Xiang about her participation in the ICRS Conference 2021 – Virtual Symposium from 19 - 23 July 2021
International Coral Reef Society (ICRS) conference is the world's leading conference on coral reef science, management and conservation, awarded every 4 years by ICRS. The 14th ICRS 2021, which I attended from 19-23 July, was the first virtual symposium in the 50+ year history of ICRS. There are 15 overarching themes, ranging from "Microbial ecology, holobionts and model organisms", "Organismal physiology, adaptation and acclimation", to "Conservation and management", etc., covering a wide range of topics that will be of interest to coral-related researchers. About 1308 scientists from 80 countries presented their researches in pre-recorded oral presentations and e-posters.
I have presented an e-poster with a speed-talk in the session “What are the roles of nutrients in coral reef survival?” under the theme “Ecosystem functions and services”. The poster is entitled "Contrast microbiome dynamics of putative denitrifying bacteria in two octocoral species under dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and warming". As one of the important chapters of my PhD thesis, it is a great opportunity to present it at this conference. Faced with scientific questions and suggestions from researchers all over the world, I have gained a lot of inspiration to further improve my current work.
Although the conference was conducted virtually, there was an interactive window of live chat after each oral presentation. I have seen a lot of famous scientists and an active and enthusiastic dialog box over there. This gave me a deep sense of how fascinating scientific research could be. One week to get to know all of the presentations and posters may be challenging for most people. This conference brought another good news that 95 % of oral and poster presentations of the 14th ICRS are available in the archive on the platform until July 2022.
Finally, I would like to sincerely thank GLOMAR for the financial support that allows me to have a valuable international conference experience. I would also like to thank my supervisors for supporting me and making my PhD research career one more unforgettable memory.
