Wissenschaftliche Vorbereitung: Horst Bleckmann ML (Bonn)

Flow is an important stimulus in the everyday life of aquatic organisms, including marine mammals, fish, and invertebrates, and many  terrestrial animals, including especially insects, spiders and birds. Flow  fields are used for communicating, navigating, seeking out prey and avoiding predators. Animals must also monitor ambient wind and water currents in order to stabilize their movements in unstable flow fields. Previous meetings on flow sensing were held in 1966 (New York) and 1987 (Bielefeld). At these meetings, the focus was on flow sensing with the lateral line. Due to the development of many new techniques, research on the lateral line and other flow sensing systems has progressed on all fronts, including neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, biomechanics, neuronal modelling, and genetics. Moreover, commonalities and differences between flow sensing systems in aquatic and terrestric animals have begun to emerge. We therefore want to bring together in our meeting researchers studying the sensing of flow, whether air or water. The meeting will consist of plenary lectures, short talks, posters, discussions, and enough time for informal interaction among colleagues with an interest in flow sensing. 
 
The main goals of this congress are

• to draw together new knowledge on the importance of flow fields to  animals and how  they use and process flow information
• to define the current state of knowledge on flow sensing by invertebrates and vertebrates in both air and water in order to identify common themes and operational principles across systems 
• to bring together researchers studying flow sensing in a wide  variety of aquatic and terrestrial animals 
• to bring together scientists interested in flow from several  different perspectives like sensory biology,neuroethology,  computational neurobiology and biomechanical engineering.