Travelling back from Costa Rica and the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation meeting.

It has been a full on but just fantastic meeting. I think this annual meeting has become my favourite big meeting to attend. What I enjoy is that it is all focussed on what I love so much, which is tropical forests, but within that subject area I learn so much about subjects and disciplines I know so little about, from Geo-genomics to Seedling Competition to Trophic Cascades. I come away so much more educated than when I arrived, and so delighted with the new insights that emerge from every meeting. In addition, the participants have a common passion that bonds us, a shared appreciation of how wonderful it is to work and walk in a tropical rainforest.