Program

Planned symposia:

  • Graduate Student Showcase
  • Apocalypse Plowed: field crop battlefields with insects at war with each other, growers and nature – Tyler Wist
  • Arthropods and the cultural imagination – Ang Thompson / Kateryn Rochon
  • Arthropods and Vector-borne diseases – David Wade / Heather Coatsworth
  • Biological Survey of Canada – Morgan Jackson
  • Born to be wild: the unforgotten pollinators – Jason Gibbs
  • Managed pollinator health decline: causes, effects, and the way forward – Nuria Morfin
  • Extension Apiculture Symposium – Derek Micholson
  • Structural Pest Management Symposium – Taz Stuart

Plenary Speakers

We are pleased to welcome Dr. May Berenbaum, University of Illinois School of Integrative Biology, and Dr. David L. Wagner, University of Connecticut, as plenary speakers.

Call for Submitted Talks & Posters **Submission deadline: 01 September, 2026**

In order to submit an abstract, you will first need to register for the JAM HERE. After registering you will receive an email with a link to the abstract submission site. You do not have to submit an abstract immediately; the link will work until the submission deadline has passed. You can submit only a single abstract in which you are the presenter; however, you can be an author on additional contributions if you are not presenting them yourself.

Please have the title, abstract (maximum of 170 words) and list of authors and their affiliations ready before beginning the online submission process. Please submit your abstract as a Word document formatted as per the example at the end of this document. Abstracts can be in either official language and will be included in the conference program in that language. On the abstract upload page, you will be asked whether the abstract is for a talk or a poster, and to identify keywords for the subject matter of the contribution. If you are submitting an abstract for a talk, you will also have the opportunity to indicate whether you feel your presentation would be suitable for inclusion in a contributed-papers session associated with one of the symposia. Descriptions for the symposia are listed above

For invited symposium speakers: If you are an invited symposium speaker, you will still need to register but your abstract can either be submitted online or sent to the organizers of your symposium. If you submit online please also send your abstract to the organizers as it will help them determine the order of presentations in their symposium.

For graduate students: Graduate students are invited to apply for an Excellence in Graduate Research Award (previously titled “Graduate Student Showcase”). The purpose of the this award is to provide a high-profile opportunity for graduate students near the completion of their degrees to present a more in-depth overview of their thesis research. In addition to having more time to give an oral presentation, recipients of the award will receive $500 plus an Ed Becker JAM Participation award to help cover travel expenses. Graduate students who wish to be considered for the award should select “Excellence in Graduate Research Award” from the drop-down menu on the abstract submission site.

Applicants for the Excellence in Graduate Research Award must:
1. Have defended or plan to defend their thesis at a Canadian University within one year of the meeting
2. Be the principal investigator and principal author of the presented work

Eligible candidates who wish to be considered for this award must submit an application before 7 August 2026 to the ESC Student & Early Professional Affairs Committee (students@esc-sec.ca), following the instructions below:
1. Submit a longer abstract (up to 250-words) describing the proposed presentation highlighting their work,
2. Submit a 1-page (single-spaced, 12 point) outline of their research, including the rationale/significance, methodology, and results to date,
3. Arrange to have the principal supervisor email a letter of support that confirms the anticipated or actual date of graduation and comments on the proposed presentation and the applicant’s presentation and research abilities,
4. Submit a CV of the applicant with a list of previous conference presentations and other presentation experience
More information about this will be provided in a subsequent announcement. Presentations not selected for the Excellence in Graduate Research Award will be automatically included in the President’s Prize competition if applicants are eligible (see below).
Students who do not wish to be considered for the Excellence in Graduate Research Award can select whether they wish to compete for a President's Prize when uploading their abstract. These prizes are awarded to the best oral and poster presentations at the ESC-ESAB JAM 2026.

To be eligible for the President’s Prize, a presenter must:
1. Be enrolled in a degree program or have graduated from the program within the previous six months.
2. Be the principal investigator and principal author of the presented work.

Notification of acceptance for contributed talks and posters: The Scientific Program Committee will assess submitted abstracts approximately every two weeks until the submission deadline of 01 September 2026 and will email contributors with regard to acceptance. If you need documentation of acceptance in order to attend the JAM, it would be wise to submit your abstract as early as possible! Should all slots in oral presentation sessions be filled at the time the Committee receives an abstract for a talk, the contributor may be offered the opportunity to do a poster presentation instead.

Details about formatting of presentations (e.g., poster dimensions) will be provided in early summer.

Sample abstract: The presenting author’s name should be in bold, and the email address of at least the presenting author must be included.

I’ve got you under my skin: Morphologically reduced subdermal mites (Astigmata: Hypoderatidae) infesting gannets in Atlantic Canada.

Heather Proctor (1), Pierre-Yves Daoust (2), Nicolas Decelles (3).

1. University of Alberta, hproctor@ualberta.ca, 2. University of Prince Edward Island, 3. McGill University

Deutonymphs of the mite family Hypoderatidae are subdermal parasites of vertebrates, primarily birds. They are highly morphologically reduced and resemble grains of rice. When known, adults and other juvenile stages (larva, tritonymph) of hypoderatids occupy the nests of their hosts. Here we report the presence of deutonymphs of Neottialges caparti Fain in the subcuticular tissues of the Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus (L.)) from Atlantic Canadian waters. We observed mites in 39% of 90 birds whose skin samples were examined microscopically. Our observations represent both the first record of N. caparti in Northern Gannets from the western North Atlantic region and the second report of N. caparti since its initial description in 1967 from two Northern Gannets in Belgium. Adults and juvenile stages other than deutonymphs are yet to be observed.