Following three successful in-person meetings in 2013 (Fort Lauderdale, Florida), 2015 (München, Germany) and 2018 (Willemstad, Curaçao), the Fourth international meeting of the Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance will be held online due to the current pandemic. Presentations regarding all aspects of non-vertebrate genomics are welcome.

Presentations will be broadcast online over Zoom. They will be recorded and made available to registered participants for two months after the conference.

The meeting will be spread over three days (Tuesday 16 November to Thursday 18 November), for three hours per day: 7:00am-10:00am PST, 10:00am-1:00pm ET, 3:00pm-6:00pm GMT, 4:00pm-7:00pm CET, 10:00pm-1:00am ICT, 12:00am-3:00am KST&JST.

Each day will comprise two sessions with a 20-min coffee break inbetween.

Here is the detailed schedule:

Tuesday 16 November

PCI Genomics session (7:00am-8:00am PST, 10:00am-11:00am ET, 3:00pm-4:00pm GMT, 4:00pm-5:00pm CET, 10:00pm-11:00pm ICT, 12:00am-1:00am KST&JST)

This session is organized by Rosa Fernández and will showcase preprints recently submitted for evaluation to PCI Genomics (https://genomics.peercommunityin.org/).

Speakers:

• Jean-François Flot (Université libre de Bruxelles) - PCI Genomics & Peer Community Journal: empowering genomic research via free, open-access preprint recommendations and a new diamond access journal
  
• Nadège Guiglielmoni (University of Cologne) - A deep dive into genome assemblies of non-vertebrate animals
  
• Carlos Vargas-Chavez (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) - Uncovering transposable element variants and their potential adaptive impact in urban populations of the malaria vector Anopheles coluzzii

coffee break

IGNITE session (8:20am-10:20am PST, 11:20am-1:20pm ET, 4:20pm-6:20pm GMT, 5:20pm-7:20pm CET, 11:20pm-1:20am ICT, 1:20am-3:20am KST&JST)

This session is organized by Nadège Guiglielmoni and will showcase results from the Innovative Training Network (ITN) IGNITE (http://www.itn-ignite.eu/).

Speakers:

• Gert Wörheide (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) - The European Training Network "Comparative Genomics of Non-Model Invertebrates" (ITN IGNITE)
  
• Mattia Giacomelli (University of Bristol) - Amino acid recodings are powerful approaches to investigate tricky nodes in the tree of life
  
• Ferenc Kagan (University of Bergen) - The evolution of maternal genes: novel insights from priapulids, tardigrades and brachiopods
  
• Yihe Zhao (Universidade do Porto) - Opportunities and challenges in Conus omics researches
  
• Killian Smith (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) - Mixture models in phylogenetic inference: finite Bayesian mixtures
• Ben Bettisworth (Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies) - Predicting tournament results via phylogenetic methods
  
• Fabian Ruperti (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) - Functional proteomic profiling as a tool to study the whole-body coordination of a freshwater sponge
  
• Kenneth Sandoval (National University of Ireland Galway) - Exploring the pharmaceutical potential of Irish Sea sponges via next-generation sequencing
• Mariya Dimitrova - Dissemination of omics datasets as omics data papers
  

Wednesday 17 November

Genomics of Mollusca (7:00am-8:20am PST, 10:00am-11:20am ET, 3:00pm-4:20pm GMT, 4:00pm-5:20pm CET, 10:00pm-11:20pm ICT, 12:00am-1:20am KST&JST)

This session is organized by Alice Dennis.

Speakers:

• Zeyuan Chen (Zoologische Staatssammlung München) - The de novo genome of Arion vulgaris, a perspective of genetic forces driving water-to-land transition
  
• Kyle McElroy (Iowa State University) - Genomes gone wild: A tale of a(sex) and duplicity from the freshwater snail, Potamopyrgus antipodarum
• Rebekah Rogers (University of North Carolina Charlotte) - Gene family amplification facilitates adaptation in freshwater unionid bivalve Megalonaias nervosa
  
• Chase Smith (University of Texas at Austin) - Establishing genomic resources to facilitate future research studies in freshwater mussels

coffee break

Genomics of little-known groups of animals (8:40am-10:00am PST, 11:40am-1:00pm ET, 4:40pm-6:00pm GMT, 5:40pm-7:00pm CET, 11:40pm-1:00am ICT, 1:40am-3:00am KST&JST)

This session is organized by Gonzalo Giribet.

Speakers:

• José M. Martín-Durán (Queen Mary University of London) - A genomic view on annelid ecological and morphological diversification
• Christopher Laumer (The Natural History Museum, London) - Nose to tail genomics: sample preparation techniques to make the most of small-bodied & precious invertebrate specimens
• Shoyo Sato (Harvard University) - The final frontier of panarthropodian genomics: the genome of the onychophoran Epiperipatus broadwayi (Onychophora: Peripatidae)
• Danielle E. Khost (Harvard University) - Assembling the underrepresented parts of the Tree of Life

Thursday 18 November

Contributed talks (7:00am-8:20am PST, 10:00am-11:20am ET, 3:00pm-4:20pm GMT, 4:00pm-5:20pm CET, 10:00pm-11:20pm ICT, 12:00am-1:20am KST&JST)

This session is organized by Jean-François Flot

Speakers:

• Arianna Lord (Harvard University) - Camels in Bermuda? Misadventures in assembling a priapulan genome
  
• Claude Power (Université de Moncton) - Identifying stress markers to predict mortality in snow crabs (Chionoecetes opilio)
• Mathilde Salamon (Université du Quebec à Montréal) - Population genomics of copepods and gastropods reveal adaptive responses to anthropogenic impacts at the base of aquatic food web
• Juan Antonio Baeza (Clemson University) - A formal test on the utility of low coverage nanopore long-read sequencing for phylogenomics and barcoding research in the Caribbean spiny lobster

coffee break

GIGA general assembly (8:40am-10:00am PST, 11:40am-1:00pm ET, 4:40pm-6:00pm GMT, 5:40pm-7:00pm CET, 11:40pm-1:00am ICT, 1:40am-3:00am KST&JST)
The results of the new GIGA governing board election will be announced during this meeting. At the beginning of the general assembly, a group picture will be taken via Zoom.

Attendees of GIGA IV are required to be GIGA members. The GIGA member registration form can be found here. Registration to attend GIGA IV is USD $20 for professional members who are able to pay. Attendance is free for students and any professionals who are unable to pay the registration fee.

Click here to pay the registration fee via PayPal.

Click here to register for GIGA IV (and optionally submit an abstract).

The Zoom link for the meeting will be send by email to all registered participants on the eve of the first day of the conference.

• Alice Dennis - University of Potsdam, Germany
• Rosa Fernández - Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
• Jean-François Flot - Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium
• Fabrizio Ghiselli - University of Bologna, Italy
• Gonzalo Giribet - Harvard University, USA
• Nadège Guiglielmoni - University of Cologne, Germany    
• Kevin Kocot - University of Alabama, USA
• Jose Lopez - Nova Southeastern University, USA
• Adelaide Rhodes - National Center for Biotechnology Information, USA  
• Jeffrey Robinson - University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA