Bio
Akihiro Nakamura, PhD Supervisor, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Research interests include community ecology, entomology, biodiversity conservation

Talk
Monitoring Insects in Rainforests

Bio
Dr. Yves Basset is a Swiss citizen with permanent residency in Panama. He completed an MSc at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland and then received a scholarship to perform his PhD at the University of Griffith in Australia, under the supervision of Prof. Roger Kitching, where he studied the distribution of canopy insects in rainforests. Following this, he continued to live in the Tropics and study insects, particularly in rainforests. He then worked at the Bishop Museum (Hawaii) and in the field in Papua New Guinea until 1995, when he joined the International Institute of Entomology under Prof. Val Brown to work in Guyana. Since 1998, Dr. Yves Basset has been working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. He first explored the vertical gradients of insect diversity in tropical rain forests with canopy cranes. His research with canopy cranes led him, in 2003, to be contracted as a Scientific Coordinator for the Tropical Canopy Biology Program. In 2008, he was contracted to lead the ForestGEO Arthropod Initiative, an insect monitoring program conducted at tropical ForestGEO sites, which now focuses on the site of Barro Colorado Island in Panama. He has published 208 scientific publications so far, including six in Nature and Science. Dr. Yves Basset is also regularly invited to national and international meetings. In 2022, he organized the session “3.4. Insect decline” at the INTECOL 2022 Meeting of the International Association for Ecology in Geneva, Switzerland. His track record of grant income includes $2.7 million as a PI and $3.4 million as a Co-PI. His website details his current research activities, including insect monitoring, DNA metabarcoding, the automated monitoring of insects with AI, plant–insect interactions, etc. He has served as the Senior Editor for Insect Conservation and Diversity since its inception (2008) and, since 2024, as the Editor-in-Chief with his colleagues, Raphael Didham and Manu Saunders.

Talk
Measuring Ecological Change Using Moths: Experiences from Australia and Beyond

Bio
Roger Kitching is an Emeritus Professor of Ecology at Griffith University, Brisbane. He is a rainforest ecologist with special expertise in using insect diversity to tackle questions regarding ecosystem dynamics and biogeography. A graduate of the Imperial College, London, with a DPhil from Oxford University and a DSc from Griffith, Kitching has authored, edited, or co-authored almost 300 papers and 12 books. He received the Gregor Mendel Medal from the Czech Academy of Sciences in 2017 and was made a member of the Order of Australia in 2010. His next book, Moths of Australia: A Natural History will be published in 2026.