BULLETIN of the
Ecological Society of America

Volume 84, Number 2       April 2003

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Director of Science

Clifford Duke joined ESA’s staff as the Director of Science in January 2003. He has a Ph.D in Botany and a Master’s in Public Policy Sciences from Duke University, and an undergraduate degree in Biology and Environmental Studies from the University of Vermont. We look forward to the expertise he will bring ESA from his employment background in environmental consulting and as a research scientist.

Frontiers is launched!

The celebration to launch Frontiers, which took place in February at the National Academy of Sciences, was delightful and very exciting. The ceremony, attended by about 80 guests, was a wonderful occasion. I had the pleasure of welcoming everyone to the reception, Ann Bartuska spoke about ESA’s vision for the publication, and Sue Silver thanked the several boards and committees involved with Frontiers and introduced her staff. Governing Board members Jill Baron and Carol Brewer were also able to attend.

Long-range planning grants

Thanks to Board Members Jim Clark, Norm Christensen, and Sharon Collinge for serving on the subcommittee to award the long-range planning grants. The following awards were made:

• Aquatic Ecology Section to support the development of a long-range plan for the Section.

• Education Section and the Education and Human Resources Committee to develop a five-year strategic plan.

• Mid-Atlantic Chapter to support the planning of a regional scientific meeting.

• Paleoecology Section to support web site development for the purpose of stimulating thinking for a workshop on the future of Paleoecology.

• Rangeland Ecology Section to develop an Internet-based system of rangeland ecology data and to increase cooperation with the Society for Range Management.

• Public Affairs Committee to support a pilot project to bring two senior congressional staff to the ESA Annual Meeting.

Library subscriptions

Many libraries purchase their journal subscriptions through subscription agents. It has recently come to the attention of those of us in the scientific publishing community that one of the subscription agencies collected money from libraries for subscription orders that were never placed with publishers. The funds collected were used for another purpose and the libraries have lost their money and the publishers have never been paid. ESA, along with many other publishers, have agreed to “grace” the libraries for one year and provide the subscriptions without payment. By doing so, ESA will become a creditor in the legal actions that are already underway and may recover some of the income in the future. Fortunately, this subscription agency (Rowecom) was not one of our biggest. Director of Finance Liz Biggs and I have conferred with the Vice President for Finance Norm Christensen, and we all agree that since the loss of revenue is unavoidable, this course of action is appropriate and will hopefully result in the same subscriptions being renewed in 2004.

Meeting of the Americas

Invitations to attend a meeting of the ecological societies of the Americas, to be held prior to the ESA Annual Meeting in Savannah, have been sent to society presidents from Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil, and the presidents of the Royal Society of Canada and the National Academy of Sciences in Mexico.

Executive Director meetings

Liz Biggs and I attended a seminar on employment law conducted by the law firm that does legal work for ESA.

Nadine Lymn and I met with the new Executive Director of the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program (ALLP), Cynthia Robinson. She is clearly looking for ways to collaborate more closely with ESA, and we had a very productive discussion. Cynthia will be based in Boston and will work closely with ALLP co-chairs Jane Lubchenco and Diana Wall.

J. Bush of J. Bush and Co. is evidently meeting with all of the clients of the firm. Mr. Bush visited our office and reviewed ESA’s investment portfolio and his projections for future performance.

Several of us attended AAAS in Denver and spent time at the ESA booth promoting the launch of Frontiers. Reaction to the new publication was uniformly positive, and a good deal of excitement was generated from the postcard sent to all attendees prior to the meeting, the press efforts on site, and by several session speakers, who encouraged others to check out our booth and Frontiers.

I attended the Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives (CESSE) meeting in Savannah, Georgia. As co-program chair, I was pleased that our theme of “Managing in Tough Times” provided useful information to participants. I was elected a member of the CESSE Board of Directors and will begin serving in that role after their summer meeting.

While in Savannah, I was able to discuss some of our Annual Meeting issues with the head of the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and tour the venue we are considering for the Annual Fund for the Millennium reception.

I attended a seminar on “Emerging Trends in Scientific and Technical Publishing” sponsored by the Allen Press.

SCIENCE PROGRAMS

Ecological Visions Committee

The Ecological Visions Committee’s inaugural meeting was held 6–8 January in Washington, D.C. Thirteen Visions Committee members attended the meeting, which was chaired by Margaret Palmer. SBI staff members Clifford Duke and Rhonda Kranz participated in the meeting, along with the University of Maryland postdoc and research assistant working with Palmer on this project. The next meeting is 31 March–2 April at NCEAS.

Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable

The first meeting of the Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable was held 10–11 December 2002 in Virginia. Rhonda Kranz was on the planning committee and chaired a panel on indicators of the nation’s water resources. Agency, business, NGO, and academic representatives at the meeting have committed to being part of the ongoing Roundtable and its development. ESA member Al Steinman attended and will continue to be involved. Kranz will continue as a member of the Roundtable steering committee.

Sustainable Rangelands Roundtable

Lori Hidinger attended a strategic planning meeting for the Sustainable Rangelands Roundtable in Phoenix, 16–19 December. The group identified goals and objectives for the next phase of the SRR. Hidinger participated in drafting a communications plan for the SRR and its first approximation report of criteria and indicators of sustainable rangelands, to be released in May 2003.

Great Lakes Climate Change Report

The final draft of the Great Lakes Climate Change Report was signed off by the steering committee and authors and is now with the Union of Concerned Scientists for the production phase. ESA will continue to work with UCS on developing outreach opportunities for the report, which is scheduled for release in April.

Society for Range Management meeting

Hidinger attended the Society for Range Managementís Annual Meeting, 1–6 February in Casper, Wyoming, at which she co-organized a symposium on “Managing Towards the Past: Using Historic Range of Variability in Managing Rangelands.” ESA had an exhibit at the meeting that showcased ESA’s Rangeland Ecology Section and Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Vegetation meetings

Hidinger supported a Joint Vegetation Meeting, held 19–20 February in Reston, Virginia, which brought together members of ESAís Panel on Vegetation Classification, the Federal Geographic Data Subcommittee’s Vegetation Subcommittee, and ecologists from NatureServe. Following the Joint Vegetation Meeting, Hidinger supported a business meeting of the ESA Panel on Vegetation Classification. The Panel discussed its “Proposed Standards for Associations and Alliances in the U.S. Vegetation Classification,” the plots database VegBank, the Panel’s workshop for the 2003 ESA Annual Meeting, and other activities.

Invasive Weeds Awareness Week

On 24–27 February, Hidinger participated in the Fourth Annual National Invasive Weeds Awareness Week. Over 100 participants from around the country came to Washington, D.C. to learn about on-going weed initiatives and to promote greater awareness of weed issues in the agencies and in Congress.

AAAS

Kranz attended the AAAS meeting in Denver to support the SBI-sponsored symposium, “Meeting The Nitrogen Management Challenge: Arresting The Nitrogen Cascade.” The symposium was a follow-up activity from the 2001 International Nitrogen Conference. The Environmental News Service carried an article on the symposium at http://www.ens-news.com/ens/feb2003/2003-02-17-09.asp.

Harmful algal blooms proposal

Duke and Kranz met with NOAA staff to discuss a proposal for ESA assistance with a workshop and plan for addressing harmful algal blooms. The proposal has been submitted and a decision is expected in April.

Forest Service diversity options

Duke attended the Forest Service Diversity Options Workshop, 19–20 February 2003, where he participated in breakout sessions to develop comments on the Service’s proposed rule-making on forest plan development.

Other

Duke attended a January meeting at the Council on Environmental Quality on environmental indicators. CEQ is planning to develop some white papers and possibly workshops to guide development of environmental indicators by federal agencies, following the lead of the Heinz report. There may be some opportunities for ESA involvement in this effort, which Duke will monitor. Duke and Kranz attended the National Council for Science and the Environment’s conference “Education for a Sustainable and Secure Future.” NCSE’s John H. Chafee Memorial Lecture on Science and the Environment was presented by NSF Director Rita Colwell.

Duke attended NSF’s Mini-Symposium on LTER research in February.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS

New staff

Maggie Smith joined ESA’s Public Affairs Office in late January as Policy Analyst/Project Manager. A Master’s graduate of Stanford University’s Earth Systems Program, Maggie has previously worked at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the California Governor’s Office. She will be managing the JSTOR biology/ecology cluster and will work on environmental policy-related issues.

BESC Coalition

ESA hosted two meetings of the Biological Ecological Sciences Coalition (BESC). The first meeting featured Don Scavia, NOS Chief Scientist, discussing extramural research at NOA; the second featured an official from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy discussing the President’s budget. BESC was jointly organized by ESA and AIBS to support funding for nonmedical life sciences.

Congressional contacts

Nadine Lymn coordinated development of a one-pager on NSF’s Biology Directorate, which will go to all Members of Congress and the Administration as part of the Coalition for National Science Funding’s brochure, showcasing the research accomplishments and opportunities provided by this agency.

Lymn participated in a congressional breakfast featuring Representative Vernon Ehlers (R-MI). Ehlers is sponsoring invasive species legislation (together with Representative Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD). Ehlers’ staffer told Lymn that there may be an opportunity for ESA members to comment on the bill.

Maggie Smith worked with several ESA members to prepare materials that will be delivered to Senator Olympia Snowe’s (R-ME) office. Snowe is interested in sponsoring legislation that would create a freshwater commission, and she had requested background materials that her office can use in preparing the legislation.

Nadine Lymn met with several House Science Committee staff to discuss the outlook and issues surrounding the National Science Foundation’s proposed NEON project. Lymn also met with a senior appropriations staffer to learn more about the coming year’s budget outlook.

Appropriations action alert

An action alert requesting a final push for this fiscal year’s NSF appropriations went to all Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellows who have a Member of Congress on an appropriations committee.

ESA comments

ESA President Ann Bartuska provided written comments www.esa.org/pao/statements/esacomments.htm to the National Science Board on its draft Infrastructure Report, “Science and Engineering Infrastructure for the 21st Century: the Role of the National Science Foundation.”

At the request of AIBS, ESA’s Research and SBI Committee members provided AIBS with comments on the National Science Foundation’s proposed National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). Jim Clark and Ann Bartuska coordinated the comments, which the AIBS committee will use in preparing a white paper on the subject of infrastructure at regional and continental scales.

ESA members were alerted to several opportunities to provide public comment on the Bush Administration’s proposed rule changes dealing with the Forest Service and with the Clean Water Act’s jurisdiction.

Maggie Smith has been working with House Science Committee staff regarding anticipated new bills related to the Endangered Species Act. Smith has been in contact with several ESA members to collect feedback on last year’s Endangered Species Act’s “Sound Science” amendments.

Smith has also been preparing draft comments on the proposed EPA wetlands rule that is the result of a Supreme Court ruling prohibiting the use of the migratory bird rule in asserting jurisdiction over intrastate wetlands. The EPA regulations would significantly decrease Clean Water Act oversight of wetlands.

ESA’s Congressional Fellow

A good set of candidates applied for ESA’s 2003–2004 Congressional Science Fellowship, and the finalists were interviewed in February. ESA President Ann Bartuska, former ESA Congressional Fellow Richard Pouyat, ESA Science Director Cliff Duke, and Nadine Lymn conducted the interviews and will make the final selection.

JSTOR journal collection

In Maggie Smith’s other capacity as Project Manager of JSTOR, she has been working closely with Rob Colwell. Rob has now formed the JSTOR committee, which is poised to begin further journal selections.

Media relations

Media inquiries continued to flow into the Public Affairs Office as its press releases on reconstructing salmon historical populations and allele movement in sunflowers generated interest from KVMR in Nevada City, California; Nature; and writers in Germany. Also covered was the “Symposium on Effects of Fishing Activities on Benthic Habitats,” which received a full-page story in the 13 December 2002 issue of Science. Annie Drinkard also fielded inquiries from Nature-London, the Oregonian, the Associated Press, and the Boston Globe about research from previous ESA journal issues, as well as requests for ecological experts.

Drinkard’s media work for January focused on updating press contacts, including an invitation for members of the press to subscribe on-line to ESA’s journals or renew their subscriptions. Press releases highlighting native and invasive species in riparian corridors and the new Frontiers publication received moderate attention, and encouraged some new interest in ESA’s journals among current and new media contacts. Showing how access to the journals can help to generate even more stories on ecological research, the Associated Press, Congressional Greensheets, and several major media outlets including NBC, CBS, and CNN picked up a story on deer overpopulation, based on research presented in the December issue of Ecological Applications.

In February, Drinkard attended the National Association of Science Writers meeting in Denver, Colorado, making new contacts and informing the press about ESA’s upcoming Annual Meeting in Savannah. As the AAAS meeting immediately followed, she also attended scientific sessions, press briefings, and investigated other aspects of the AAAS media shop.

Drinkard also created a new service for the media to further help science reporters cover stories on research published in ESA’s suite of journals: ESA updates. Both on-line and through e-mail, the key press in ESA’s database receive a monthly list of “hot topics” featuring article titles, short summaries, and a direct link to the journals.

Media inquiries in February came from ScienceNow and the Baltimore Sun, and new reporters were added to ESA’s database from VOA News, the Naples (Florida) Daily News, Helsinki Sanomat (Finland), and freelance writers.

Final issue of ESA’s NewSource

Drinkard and Lymn completed the final edition of ESA’s NewSource, which included highlights from past issues as well as an article about the Public Affairs Office, which is 20 years old this year.

EDUCATION

SEEDS

Working together, ESA and the United Negro College Fund selected five schools for Activity grants from the SEEDS (Strategies for Education in Ecology, Development, and Sustainability) program. These schools will receive funds over the next two years to implement ecology into their curriculum. Two former recipients (Tuskegee University and Oakwood College) and three new schools (Dillard University, Wiley College, and Johnson C. Smith University) were selected for the awards. An RFP, with a February 2003 deadline, was sent to over 40 Minority Serving institutions with information on applying for SEEDS ecology chapters.

The SEEDS advisory board met in early February to assist staff in planning for the implementation of the SEEDS program. The meeting focused on student fellowships, assessment, development of a Native American strategic plan, and visioning for the future. The selection committee reviewed SEEDS chapter applications and approved 18 chapters (eight at Tribal Colleges and 10 at Historically Black Colleges). This is three more than the original Mellon grant provided for, thanks to support from the Louis Stokes All Nations Science–Math Partnership, based at Salish Kootenai College in Montana.

A new SEEDS intern, Talia Chalew, started at ESA’s Silver Spring, Maryland office on 1 March.

TIEE

The Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology site officially has been launched at http://www.ecoed.net/tiee/. An announcement sent to the ecolog-L listserve resulted in an amount of positive feedback from faculty interested in the project.

Dara Zycherman started a second 3-month education internship. She will continue to help with the BEN and TIEE projects, as well as answer public requests for education material. Zycherman prepared and submitted an issue on biotechnology to TIEE.

Education meetings

Taylor attended the Third Annual National Council for Science and the Environment conference, “Education for a Sustainable and Secure Future,” which addressed issues relating to science, environmental, and sustainability education.

Taylor visited the Institute for Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York http://www.ecostudies.org/index.html to continue working with Alan Berkowitz on a paper addressing the pathways and barriers to minority recruitment in the field of ecology.

Taylor also attended an executive meeting of the BEN collaborative and worked with AAAS to incorporate more ecology education material in the library. Taylor attended “Meeting the Challenges: Education Across the Biological, Mathematical, and Computer Sciences,” a workshop organized by the Mathematical Association of America.

FRONTIERS

Inaugural February issue

The first issue of Frontiers went to press in January for distribution in February. The contents included a house editorial introducing the journal, a guest editorial by Don Kennedy, news stories from Spain, France, Germany, the Arctic, India, Brazil, Australia, the Congo, and the United States, a primary research paper and four synthetic reviews, a Forum on the role of ecologists in policy making, our legal columnist, writing on the courtroom battles over wetlands, a web site review on ecological risk assessment, and the journal’s regular back-page columnist, Kathy Ellison.

Advertisers in the first issue included Duke and Princeton Universities, equipment and software manufacturers, and an eco-friendly travel company.

ESA’s Public Affairs Office coordinated a story in the recent issue of SPARC e-news (sent to all research libraries), which can be seen at http://www.arl.org/sparc/core/index.asp?page=g27#3.

Silver has received extremely positive feedback from members regarding the new journal. So far, there have been no negative responses.

Frontiers launch at National Academy of Sciences

The Frontiers launch reception at NAS was a great success; despite the threat of heavy snow that evening, about 80 people attended. Refreshments were served, to the accompaniment of gentle harp music. Ann Bartuska, Katherine McCarter, and Sue Silver each gave a short speech and Ann Bartuska led a champagne toast while McCarter and Silver raised a curtain to reveal a large poster of the February cover. Guests were presented with a copy of the journal and a special key-ring flashlight bearing the ESA and Frontiers logos.

Frontiers AAAS activities

Silver, Assistant Editor Julian Smith, Marketing and Advertising Manager Jacqueline Byrd, and McCarter all attended the AAAS Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado. This proved to be a very successful trip. The ESA–Frontiers booth was visited by a large number of delegates, thanks, in part, to ESA’s participation in an AAAS marketing initiative in the form of an ongoing “treasure hunt” within the exhibition hall. All preregistrants had also received a postcard inviting them to visit ESA’s booth and pick up a copy of Frontiers. Silver and Smith attended a number of symposia and commissioned articles for Frontiers, while McCarter and Byrd manned the booth, answered questions, and gave away about 800 copies of the February issue to attendees. Frontiers also received extra publicity through being highlighted by three different speakers during the course of their talks.

March issue

The first issue of Frontiers was successfully completed and went to press on time. Bulk delivery of copies arrived at the D.C. and Spring Street offices at the end of the month. By this time, the Frontiers team was already well underway with the second (March) issue. This includes an editorial and Law column on the Endangered Species Act, articles on wetlands, marine reserves, the ecology of cholera, overfishing, deformed amphibians, and urban wildlife, as well as all the regular features.

PUBLICATIONS OFFICE

December issues

The past month saw the publication of the December 2002 issues of Ecology and Ecological Applications, along with the year-end indexes. The Applications issue featured cover clusters of articles on “Avian Conservation Ecology” and on “Forest Restoration.” The December Ecology contained a pair of Reports by William Fagan and Fagan et al. on extinction risk in fragmented habitats, focusing on desert fishes. The issue’s cover showcased five papers on “Demographic Matrix Models.”

The ESA Bulletin is online

The Bulletin’s transition to an online-only publication was accomplished with great success, thanks to the usual diligence of Associate Managing Editor David Gooding and especially Production Editor Margaret Shepard, who deserves special recognition for her efforts to make the change happen. The posted issue is a pdf version of a traditional Bulletin issue, but with the addition of many color photographs in lieu of the heretofore standard black and white images, thanks to freedom from the past budgetary restrictions on printing color pages. The reduced lead time needed to incorporate news allowed the publication of the minutes of the recent November Governing Board meeting. The January issue also contains two Technological Tools articles (“The Use of Data Loggers to Monitor Environmental State Changes” and “Open-source Software for Ecologists”), Part 8 of F. N. Egerton’s “History of the Ecological Sciences,” and much more. We expect the pdf version to be joined by a fully html version (for easier online perusal and with active links). Future issues of the ESA Bulletin will be posted in both pdf and html format.

January Ecology

The January Ecology featured two Concepts papers by Katherine Nash Suding et al. (“Relationships among species traits: separating levels of response and identifying linkages to abundance”) and by James S. Clark et al. (“Coexistence: how to identify trophic trade-offs”), along with three Reports by Rebecca L. Brown and Robert K. Peet (“Diversity and invasibility of southern Appalachian plant communities”); Hannah L. Dugdale et al. (“Offspring sex ratio variation in the European badger, Meles meles”); and Jeffrey S. Shima and Craig W. Osenberg (“Cryptic density dependence: effects of covariation between density and site quality in reef fish”). The paper by Brown and Peet was the focus of a press release by ESA’s Public Affairs Office.

February issues

The past month witnessed the publication of five journal issuesóan all-time record for ESA. In addition to the inaugural issue of Frontiers, produced at ESA’s Silver Spring office, there were regular issues of Ecological Monographs, Ecology, and Ecological Applications, as well as the long-awaited Marine Reserves supplement to Ecological Applications. Getting these issues out posed a major challenge in the absence of our Production Editor, Jill Leichter, who was recovering from serious injuries related to a car accident in December. With the help of freelancers and ESA staff David Gooding, Jane Bain, and Heather Somerville, the issues are on track. Leichter is now back working half-time, and we are renewing our efforts to catch up with the production schedule.

The February issue of Ecological Monographs featured a lead article by Robert Parmenter et al. on “Small-mammal density estimationÖ.” ESA Past-President Pam Matson was coauthor of another paper in the issue: Hall and Matson, “Nutrient status of tropical rain forests influences soil N dynamics after N additions.”

The February issue of Ecological Applications featured articles on “Fisheries Management” and “Changes in Forest Landscapes” on the cover, and also contained an editorial by EIC David Schimel outlining journal trends. Subscribers also received the bonus supplement on “The Science of Marine Reserves,” organized by Jane Lubchenco, Stephen Palumbi, Steven Gaines, and Sandy Andelman, which has been long anticipated and should be of great interest beyond the traditional readership of our journals. The 228-page supplement features articles by leading scientists and practitioners, and we hope it will help to “plug a hole in the ocean.”

The February issue of Ecology contains three Reports for which the average time from submission to publication was less than one year. This is a significant accomplishment, thanks to the relentless efforts of EIC Don Strong, the Ecology Editorial Board, and our entire Publications Office staff. The issue also featured a cluster of papers on the timely topic of “Fire Ecology” on the cover.

Ithaca Publications Office move

Babcock Hall, where ESA has its Publications Office in Ithaca, NY, has been gutted as the landlord prepares to convert the building to apartments. Staff is now occupying office space in the middle of a high-decibel, dust-filled, poorly heated hardhat zone. Only one other tenant remains in the building. We are currently investigating leases with the help of a local attorney for what we hope will be an imminent move to a new office near our present location.

Online manuscript tracking system

Work on the online submissions/peer review software continues. The site is up and we are ironing out unforeseen details involving the site’s ability to generate automated e-mail responses (necessitating resolution of some DNS issues that required changes on the part of our Internet Service Provider).

FINANCE AND MEMBERSHIP

Liz Biggs is keeping track of the daily developments in the Rowcom bankruptcy through an informational listserve. We have also contacted the lawyers involved in the bankruptcy to insure that we will be included as creditors when the appropriate time arrives. We have identified all of our subscriptions that will be affected, and have contacted each institution to confirm its orders.

The new ESA web site was inaugurated, complete with the new “Members Only” section. This Members Only section contains the online Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, the membership directory, classified ads, and funding opportunities, among other items. Members were sent an e-mail announcing the Members Only site and were given their user name and password. We have received positive feedback on the Members Only section of the ESA web site and have had no problems keeping up with member requests for IDs and passwords for the site.

MEETINGS

Annual Meeting 2003—Savannah

Twenty-four symposia have been selected for the Savannah meeting, and include several themed symposia relating to the ecology of the Southeast region and to global change, as well as a number of innovative, synthetic, multidisciplinary sessions. Program Chair Tom Swetnam is communicating with each symposium organizer, working to strengthen the sessions based on the comments received during the reviews.

The deadline for Abstract Submission for the 2003 Annual Meeting was 1 March 2003.

Submitted abstracts include 983 contributed papers and 95 organized oral session papers (total combined, 1,078 oral abstracts), 596 poster abstracts, and 234 symposium talk abstracts, for a total of 1,908 abstracts.

The Exhibitor Prospectus was sent out in mid-February to approximately 190 exhibitors.

Considerable analysis and preplanning is being devoted to shuttle bussing in Savannah, because all meeting attendees will require transportation by shuttles or private vehicles to travel to and from the Savannah International Trade and Convention Center on Hutchinson Island. Water ferries connecting downtown hotels to the Convention Center by crossing the Savannah River are inadequate to transport the volume of attendees at peak periods, although the water ferries can serve as supplemental transportation.

There will be an exciting new format for the Opening Plenary Session in Savannah to facilitate the transition between the old-style Past President’s Address and Awards Ceremony, and a more visible transfer of leadership and keynote talks. The format includes a Welcome by the President, introductions and acknowledgments, short remarks by the Immediate Past President (in 2003 only), a ìState of the Societyî report by the President, the Awards Ceremony, the Introduction of the incoming President, and in odd-numbered years (i.e., 2003), the MacArthur Awards Lecture. In even-numbered years (i.e., 2004), the Keynote slot will be filled by a prestigious scientist or ecologist, much in the manner of E. O. Wilson’s talk last year in Tucson.

The Public Plenary will include Marlane Smalls and the Hallelujah Singers, who perform Gullah Gospels from the Sea Islands of the Georgia and Carolina coasts (African music preserved and performed by former black slave communities sequestered on these remote islands). The group performs for audiences including the White House. Marlane Smalls was in Forrest Gump, which was filmed in Savannah, and the group was on the sound track.

Ron Carroll has lined up 15 field trips: 12 prior to the Annual Meeting, 1 on Wednesday, and 2 following the Meeting, associated with the Friday morning Organized Oral Sessions.

Ellen Cardwell was in Savannah on 15–17 December, meeting with Tom Swetnam, Dave Mauriello, and Ron Carroll, as well as a number of local individuals and groups. Organizers were very impressed by the Savannah College of Art and Design dormitories, facilities, and computer laboratories. The Savannah meeting preplanning tasks are on schedule.

Future meetings

In December, Cardwell and Steve Chaplin made site visits to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to look at convention centers, hotels, dormitories, and local features. Meetings were held in both locations with ESA members affiliated with local colleges and universities to determine their views on those cities as Annual Meeting sites. Both meetings were extremely well attended and lively. Cardwell and Chaplin also visited San José, California this month, where a similar meeting has been scheduled.

Invasive Plants Meeting—Fort Lauderdale, Florida

This meeting, co-organized by the Weed Society, is expected to attract between 600 and 700 attendees to the Wyndham Bonaventure Hotel in Fort Lauderdale from 3 to 7 November 2003. The Nature Conservancy’s Science Section will be holding a pre-meeting for approximately 200 on the Saturday afternoon and Monday prior to the main meeting.

ESA Annual Meeting 2005—Montreal, Canada

Rebecca Sharitz, the prospective INTECOL (International Association for Ecology) Program Chair for this Annual Meeting, met with Cardwell at ESA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., to develop plans for this joint meeting. Dr. Paul Ringold is ESA’s Program Chair for the meeting. Currently, the two co-chairs and the Meetings Co-Chair, Steve Chaplin, are reviewing lists of members of the two societies to identify potential Local Host Chairs.

     ANNOUNCEMENTS Table of Contents
     (links to each article)

    DEPARTMENTS Table of Contents
     (links to each article)