Background

Our symposium focuses on the long-term research carried out at Makerere University Biological Field Station, a premier tropical research station in Kibale National Park, Uganda.  The field station has been a site for multidisciplinary research for over fifty years by both local and international researchers. There are numerous benefits of such long-term research. First, by monitoring ecosystems and their wildlife over decades, researchers can detect patterns and rare events that may not be apparent in shorter term studies. Second, animals can be studied over their entire lifetimes, from birth to death under close observation. Third, long-term studies facilitate interactions with local communities, which are essential to protecting the ecosystems that researchers strive to study and protect. Fifth, long term studies provide an opportunity for field courses, educational opportunities and are rich training sites. Lastly, findings from long term studies are more easily translated into policy recommendations because of the nature of the ecological research conducted within them as well as the relationships with policy makers.



Scope

Our symposium brings together scholars from many different wildlife research projects who have dedicated their careers to long-term ecological and conservation research.

Goal

To share knowledge on the benefits of long-term collaborative research in Tropical ecology and conservation through presentations that span and explain ecological and social dynamics that have been observed over fifty years, processes and outcomes of various multi-stakeholder collaborations in training, research, and community outreach as well as the conservation and policy implications of these.