
Volume
85, Number 4, October 2004
Cover Photo: Summer of 2003 saw an abnormal number of large crown fires in the mountains of western North America, an apparent shift in fire regime with far-reaching consequences to forest ecosystems there. If global climate change predictions come true, increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires are likely to follow, both because of increasing drought and of increasing woody fuel accumulation during a century of fire suppression. Here, on the border between Canada and the United States in Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks, 16 large wildfires burned 145,000 acres within Glacier NP boundaries, compared with 14 fires and 5000 acres burned per year that the park has averaged since 1988. The view is from the west side of Logan Pass, on Going To The Sun Road, looking down into the MacDonald Creek Canyon, with smoke emanating from the Trapper Fire (right) and Robert Fire (left), 27 August 2003. Photo by Allen M. Solomon, Corvallis, Oregon.Click on the photofor a larger view.
Table of Contents
(click on a title to view that section)
Governing
Board
ANNOUNCEMENTS
From the Editor
Society Notices
Call for Nominations: ESA Awards
Student Awards for Excellence in Ecology
2004 Student Award Judges
Society Section and Chapter News
Southeastern Chapter Newsletter
Other Notices
Garden Club of America: Fellowship in Ecological Restoration
SOCIETY ACTIONS
ESA Awards for 2004
MacArthur AwardMay Berenbaum
Eminent Ecologist AwardSam McNaughton
Distinguished Service CitationJim Reichman
George Mercer AwardJohn J. Stachowicz, Heather Fried, Richard
W. Osman, and Robert B. Whitlatch
William S. Cooper AwardJohn W. Williams, Bryan N. Shuman,
and Thompson Webb III
Eugene P. Odum AwardRichard B. Root
Corporate AwardTaylor Guitar Company
Sustainability Science AwardMartin Scheffer, Steve Carpenter,
Jonathan Foley, Carl Folke, and Brian Walker
Murray F. Buell AwardCynthia Hays
E. Lucy Braun AwardPedro Flombaum
Minutes of the 2425 May Governing Board Meeting
ANNUAL REPORTS
Reports of the Executive Director and Staff
Executive Director
Finances/Membership/Subscriber Services
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
Office of Science Programs
Public Affairs Office
Education Office
Publications Office
Meetings
Reports of Officers
Vice President for Education and Human Resources
Vice President for Public Affairs
Vice President for Science
Reports of Editors-in-Chief
The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America
Ecological Applications
Reports of Standing Committees
Awards Committee
Board of Professional Certification
Grants and Fellowship Committee
Meetings Committee
Professional Ethics and Appeals Committee
Publications Committee
Public Affairs Committee (see Report of the Vice President for
Public Affairs)
Research Committee (see Report of the Vice President for Science)
Sustainable Biosphere Initiative Committee
Reports of Sections
Applied Ecology Section
Asian Section
Biogeosciences Section
International Affairs Section
Long Term Studies Section
Paleoecology Section
Physiological Ecology Section
Plant Population Ecology Section
Rangeland Ecology Section
Soil Ecology Section
Statistical Ecology Section
Student Section
Traditional Ecological Knowledge Section
Urban Ecosystem Ecology Section
Vegetation Section
Reports of Chapters
Mexico Chapter
Rocky Mountain Chapter
Southeastern Chapter
DEPARTMENTS
Ecology 101
Misconceptions About PlantHerbivore Interactions, Especially Plant Defenses.
N. Stamp
MEETINGS
Meeting Calendar
Mesopotamian Marshes and Modern Development: Restoring
Ecological and Cultural
Landscapes
13th Southern Silvicultural Research Conference
ESAs 90th Annual Meeting
CONTRIBUTIONS
Commentary
A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 14: Plant Growth Studies in the 1600s.
F. N. Egerton
The BULLETIN OF THE ECOLOGICAL
SOCIETY OF AMERICA (ISSN 0012-9623)
is published quarterly by the
Ecological Society of America, 1707 H Street, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC
20006.
It is available online only, free of charge, at http://www.esapubs.org/bulletin/current/current.htm.
Issues published prior to January 2004 are available through
http://www.esapubs.org/esapubs/journals/bulletin_main.htm
Bulletin
of the Ecological Society of America, 1707 H Street, NW, Washington DC 20006
For January 2005 and later issues, contact
Ed Johnson. Phone (403) 220-7635, Fax (403) 289-9311,
E-mail: bulletin@esa.org
| Associate
Editor David A. Gooding ESA Publications Office, 127 W. State Street, Suite 301, Ithaca, NY 14850-5427 E-mail: dag25@cornell.edu Production Editor Regina Przygocki ESA Publications Office, 127 W. State Street, Suite 301, Ithaca, NY 14850-5427 E-mail: esa_journals@cornell.edu |
Section
Editor, Technological Tools D. W. Inouye Department of Zoology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 E-mail: di5@umail.umd.edu Section Editor, Ecology 101 H. Ornes College of Sciences, SB310A, Southern Utah University Cedar City, UT 84720 E-mail: ornes@ssu.edu Section Editor, Public Affairs Perspective N. Lymn Director for Public Affairs, ESA Headquarters, 1707 H Street, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20036 E-mail: nadine@esa.org |
The
Ecological Society of America
GOVERNING BOARD FOR 20042005
President: Jerry
M. Melillo, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 02543
President-Elect: Nancy B. Grimm,
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-4501
Past-President: William H. Schlesinger,
School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, Durham,
NC 27708
Vice President for Science: Gus
R. Shaver, The Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods
Hole, MA 02543
Vice President for Finance: Norman
L. Christensen, School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University,
Durham, NC 27708
Vice President for Public Affairs: Alison
G. Power, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University,
Ithaca, NY 14853-2701
Vice President for Education and Human Resources: Carol
A. Brewer, Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula,
MT 59812-0001
Secretary: David W. Inouye, Department
of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-4415
Member-at-Large: Dee Boersma,
Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-1800
Member-at-Large: Shahid Naeem,
Department of Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027
Member-at-Large: Margaret A.
Palmer, Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park,
MD 20742-0001
AIMS
The Ecological Society of America was founded
in 1915 for the purpose of unifying the sciences of ecology, stimulating
research in all aspects of the discipline, encouraging communication among
ecologists, and promoting the responsible application of ecological data
and principles to the solution of environmental problems. Ecology is the
scientific discipline that is concerned with the relationships between
organisms and their past, present, and future environments. These relationships
include physiological responses of individuals, structure and dynamics
of populations, interactions among species, organization of biological
communities, and processing of energy and matter in ecosystems.
| Regular member: | Income level | Dues |
| <$40,000 | $50.00 | |
| $40,00060,000 | $75.00 | |
| >$60,000 | $95.00 | |
|
Student member:
|
$25.00 | |
| Emeritus member: | Free | |
|
Life
member:
|
Contact Member and Subscriber Services (see below) |
Ecological
Applications $50.00 $40.00
Frontiers in Ecology Free to members
Ecological Archives Free
ANNOUNCEMENTS|
This, the
last Bulletin issue I edit, calls for a few comments. The past
12 years in which I have played this role have provided me with a grand
experience. I thank you, the contributors and readers, for making it
so. You quickly taught me that I was not here to be a gatekeeper for
the Bulletin, but instead to serve as a facilitator. With that
attitude shift, I found the job soon became quite relaxing, as we always
seemed capable of finding a way to permit you to express your thoughts,
without resorting to emotionally charged or libelous verbiage. As the crossroads of the Society, the Bulletin and its editing has always seemed to me to be a fine place to observe the goings and comings of our distinguished colleagues who occupy the various offices of the Societys voluntary and paid bureaucracy. During my first few editing years, the activities of those officers looked like wonderful subjects for critiques, revelations, and even an occasional exposé. After trying a few editorials that were as uninteresting as they were diplomatically written (in my writing, the two properties definitely are related!), I came to understand that, like it or not, the Bulletin editor represents the Society AND its officers, and therefore cannot review their real or imagined foibles on the pages of the Bulletin without violating an implicit conflict of interest. It is probably a tribute to my increasing |
maturity
(or
decreasing mental acuity) that I have been able keep quiet,and to do
the editing the Society would prefer be done. That editing
has actually accomplished a fair amount, though the 48 issues it took
may hardly be considered a rapid pace. We (you and I) changed the mix
of content of the Bulletin, increasingly emphasizing contributions
by the readers over news and announcements. All of the contributions
provided worthy food for thought. Some of the ideas you expressed were
at the center of ongoing stormy ecological controversies, such as the
diversity = productivity question. Others were less weighty, and occasionally,
even lighthearted (a recent poem on the intertidal zone comes to mind).
More of both would be most welcome. Also changed is the Bulletin format, a feature that is probably least important and most amenable to producing a pleasant but false sense of accomplishment. Content locations were rearranged, coincidentally giving you the added challenge of finding your favorite sections. The Bulletin grew in size to fit only your taller bookshelves, but fitting more poorly in your wastebasket (a form of harassment for those of you who do not save your Bulletins!). The paper copies that dominate my bookshelves finally have given way to the
|
electrons
composing web sites and Acrobat© files, which fill but do not weight
down our cyber-media, as we shifted to an all-electronic form. Now, 3200+
pages later, no longer teetering on the brink of the electronic information
revolution, the Bulletin is ready for another editor who can
exploit the many new possibilities this medium offers, and a most suitable
candidate has stepped forward. Ed Johnson, Professor of Biology at the
University of Calgary, is greatly respected for the high quality of
his research on forest dynamics in the northern Rocky Mountains and
boreal regions, especially on the causes and roles of fire in forested
landscapes there. He is also well known for his hospitality toward visitors
to both the University and Kananasksis Biological Station. Perhaps most
important for the duties of Bulletin Editor-in-Chief, Ed is blessed
with a fine sense of humor and a relaxed but vigilant attitude toward
both the unexpected events of the day and their perpetrators. Thanks for the help, everyone, and the opportunity to servethis experience has been the EiC-ing on my cake! (I couldnt resist, and Im not really sorry for that terrible pun.) Allen M.
Solomon |
Society Notices
Call for Nominations: ESA Awards
The Awards Committee of the Ecological Society of America solicits and encourages nominations from members of the ESA for each of the awards listed below. In preparing a nomination, it would be helpful to consult with the Chair of the specific award subcommittee or the Awards Committee Chair. More information about the process is available on ESAs web page http://www.esa.org under ESA Awards.
Nomination
schedule
To be given full consideration, nominations for awards should be completed
by 30 November 2004. They should be submitted directly to Chairs of the specific
award subcommittees (e-mail addresses below) or to the Awards Committee Chair,
Judith L. Bronstein, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University
of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, (520) 621-3534, fax (520) 621-9190, judieb@email.arizona.edu.
A complete statement on policies and procedures for the ESA Awards may be
obtained by contacting the address above.
Eminent
Ecologist Award
The Eminent Ecologist Award is given to a senior ecologist in recognition
of an outstanding body of ecological work or of sustained ecological contributions
of extraordinary merit. Nominees may be from any country and need not be ESA
members. Recipients receive lifetime active membership in the Society. Recent
recipients include Paul Ehrlich, Charles Krebs, Richard B. Root, and Sam McNaughton.
To submit a nomination, contact Judith L. Bronstein, Chair, ESA Awards Committee
judieb@email.arizona.edu.
Odum
Education Award
The Eugene P. Odum Award recognizes an ecologist for outstanding work in ecology
education. Through teaching, outreach, and mentoring activities, recipients
of this award have demonstrated their ability to relate basic ecological principles
to human affairs. This award was generously endowed by, and named for, the
distinguished ecologist Eugene P. Odum. Recent recipients include Margaret
D. Lowman (2002), Alan R. Berkowitz (2003), and Richard B. Root (2004). To
submit a nomination, contact Linda Wallace, Chair, ESA Odum Education Award
Subcommittee lwallace@ou.edu.
Honorary Member Award
Honorary
Membership in the Society is given to a distinguished ecologist who has made
exceptional contributions to ecology and whose principal residence and site
of ecological research are outside of North America. Up to three awards may
be made in any one year until a total of 20 is reached. Recent honorees include
Henri Decamps, John Robert Lewis, Norman Owen-Smith, Madhav Gadgil, and Carlos
Herrera. To submit a nomination, contact Sandra Tartowski, Chair, Honorary
Member Award Subcommittee slt2@cornell.edu.
George Mercer Award
The Mercer Award is given for an outstanding ecological research paper published by a younger researcher (the lead author must be 40 years of age or younger at the time of publication). If the award is given for a paper with multiple authors, all authors will receive a plaque, and those 40 years of age or younger at the time of publication will share the monetary prize. The paper must have been published in 2003 or 2004 to be eligible for the 2005 award. Nominees may be from any country and need not be ESA members. Recent recipients include Jonathan Levine, Jean L. Richardson, and John Stachowitz. Nominations should be sent to Stephen Heard, Chair, Mercer Award Subcommittee sheard@unb.ca.
W. S. Cooper Award
The W. S. Cooper Award is given to honor an outstanding contributor to the fields of geobotany and/or physiographic ecology, the fields in which W. S. Cooper worked. This award is for a single contribution in a scientific publication (single or multiple authored). Nominees need not be ESA members and can be of any nationality. Recent recipients include Nigel Pitman and coauthors; David Foster and coauthors; and Jack Williams and coauthors. Nominations should be sent to Steven Jackson, Chair, Cooper Award Subcommittee jackson@uwyo.edu.
Distinguished Service Citation
The Distinguished Service Citation is given to recognize long and distinguished service to the ESA, to the larger scientific community, and to the larger purpose of ecology in the public welfare. Recent recipients are Louis Pitelka, H. Ronald Pulliam, Allen M. Solomon, and Jim Reichman. To submit a nomination, contact Judith L. Bronstein, Chair, ESA Awards Committee judieb@email.arizona.edu.
Sustainability Science Award
The Sustainability Science Award is given to the authors of a scholarly work that makes the greatest contribution to the emerging science of ecosystem and regional sustainability through the integration of ecological and social sciences. One of the most pressing challenges facing humanity is the sustainability of important ecological, social, and cultural processes in the face of changes in the forces that shape ecosystems and regions. This ESA award is for a single scholarly contribution (book, book chapter, or peer-reviewed journal article) published in the last 5 years. Nominees need not be ESA members and can be of any age, nationality, or place of residence. This award was presented for the first time in 2004, to Marten Scheffer, Stephen R. Carpenter, Carl Folke, Brian Walker, and Jonathan Foley. To submit a nomination, please contact Terry Chapin, Chair of the Sustainability Science Award Subcommittee terry.chapin@uaf.edu.
Corporate Award
The
Corporate Award is given to recognize a corporation, business, division, program,
or an individual of a company for accomplishments in incorporating sound ecological
concepts, knowledge, and practices into planning and operating procedures.
This award was designed to encourage use of ecological concepts in business
and private industry and to enhance communication among ecologists in the
private sector. Educational institutions and government agencies are not eligible
for this award. Recent recipients of the Corporate Award include The Organization
for Tropical Studies, Weyerhaeuser Corporation British Columbia, Adam Davis
of EPRI Solutions, Cornell Universitys Department of Utilities and Energy
Management, Norm Thompson Outfitters, and Taylor Guitars.
The award can be made each year in any one of the following six categories:
A) Environmental Education: Organizations producing educational materials
in print, film, video, software, or multimedia formats; conducting workshops
or training sessions; or providing other types of educational products or
services that are primarily concerned with environmental education.
B) Stewardship of Land Resources: Organizations concerned with the use of
land resources, landuse planning, multiple use of land resources, resource
extraction, land development, and related activities.
C) Resource Recycling: Organizations concerned with the recovery, reclamation,
or recycling of natural resources such as wood and paper products, glass,
metals, waste water, and related residuals.
D) Amelioration of Risks from Hazardous and Toxic Substances: Organizations
concerned with the safe manufacturing, distribution, and use of hazardous
and toxic substances, those concerned with the identification and reduction
of risks, as well as those in mitigative and restorative activities.
E) Sustainability of Biological Resources in Terrestrial Environments: Organizations
concerned with forestry, wildlife management, range management, and agroecosystems,
including areas such as soil conservation, integrated pest management, fertilization,
irrigation, hybridization, and genetic engineering.
F) Sustainability of Biological Resources in Aquatic Environments: Organizations
concerned with aquaculture and commercial fishing, including shellfishing
and related industries; sports fishing, boating, and related recreational
uses; lake management and restoration; wetlands protection and restoration;
channelization; dredging; and related activities.
Nominations
for the Corporate award may be made by industrial representatives, government
officials, the general public, ESA members, or by members of the ESA Corporate
Award Subcommittee. A complete nomination should include:
· name, address, phone number, e-mail, and affiliation of the individual
making the nomination;
· name of the person, program or division, or the company being nominated;
· description of the activity being recognized by the nomination and
how it fits into one of the six categories listed above;
· name, address, phone number, e-mail, and affiliation of an impartial
individual who could corroborate the nomination. Nominees may be invited to
provide additional documentation.
To submit a nomination or to obtain more information about the nomination
procedure, please contact Kate Lajtha, Chair, Corporate Award Subcommittee,
at lajthak@science.oregonstate.edu
________________________________________________________________________
Back
to Table of Contents
Murray F. Buell Award and E. Lucy Braun Award
Murray
F. Buell had a long and distinguished record of service and accomplishment
in the Ecological Society of America. Among other things, he ascribed great
importance to the participation of students in meetings and to excellence
in the presentation of papers. To honor his selfless dedication to the younger
generation of ecologists, the Murray F. Buell Award for Excellence in Ecology
is given to a student for the outstanding oral paper presented at the ESA
Annual Meeting.
E.
Lucy Braun, an eminent plant ecologist and one of the charter members of the
Society, studied and mapped the deciduous forest regions of eastern North
America and described them in her classic book, The Deciduous Forests of
Eastern North America. To honor her, the E. Lucy Braun Award for Excellence
in Ecology is given to a student for the outstanding poster presentation at
the ESA Annual Meeting.
A
candidate for these awards must be an undergraduate, a graduate student, or
a recent doctorate not more than 9 months past graduation at the time of the
meeting. The paper or poster must be presented as part of the program sponsored
by the Ecological Society of America, but the student need not be an ESA member.
To be eligible for these awards the student must be the sole or senior author
of the oral paper (Note: symposium talks are ineligible) or poster. Papers
and posters will be judged on the significance of ideas, creativity, quality
of methodology, validity of conclusions drawn from results, and clarity of
presentation. While all students are encouraged to participate, winning papers
and posters typically describe fully completed projects. The students selected
for these awards will be announced in the ESA Bulletin following the
Annual Meeting. A certificate and a check for $500 will be presented to each
recipient at the next ESA Annual Meeting.
If
you wish to be considered for either of these awards at the 2004 Annual Meeting,
you must send the following to the Chair of the Student Awards Subcommittee:
(1) the application form below, (2) a copy of your abstract, and (3) a 250-word
or less description of why/how the research presented will advance the field
of ecology. Because of the large number of applications for the Buell and
Braun awards in recent years, applicants may be prescreened prior to the meeting,
based on the quality of the abstract and this description of the significance
of their research. The application form, abstract, and research justification
must be sent by mail, fax, or email (e-mail is preferred; send e-mail to sacchi@kutztown.edu)
to the Chair of the Student Awards Subcommittee: Dr. Christopher F. Sacchi,
Department of Biology, Kutztown University of PA, Kutztown, PA 19530 USA.
If you have questions, write, call (610) 683-4314, fax (610) 683-4854, or
email: sacchi@kutztown.edu. You
will be provided with suggestions for enhancing a paper or poster. The deadline
for submission of form and abstract is 1 March 2005; applications sent after
1 March 2005 will not be considered. This submission is in addition to the
regular abstract submission. Buell/Braun participants who fail to notify the
B/B Chair by 1 May of withdrawal from the meeting will be ineligible, barring
exceptional circumstances, for consideration in the future. Electronic versions
of the Application Form are available on the ESA web site, or you can send
an e-mail to sacchi@kutztown.edu and request that an
electronic version be sent to you as an attachment.
Application Form for Buell or Braun Award
Name __________________________________________________________________________________________
Current Mailing Address____________________________________________________________________________
Current Telephone ________________________________________________________________________________
Email __________________________________________________________________________________________
College/University Affiliation _______________________________________________________________________
Title of Presentation ______________________________________________________________________________
Presentation: Paper (Buell Award) ______ Poster (Braun Award) _______
At
the time of presentation I will be (check one):
______an undergraduate student ______a graduate student______a recent doctorate
not more than 9 months past graduation
I will be the sole ____ /senior ____ author (check one) of the paper/poster.
Signed (electronic signatures are OK)________________________________________________________________
Please attach a copy of your abstract and 250word or less description of why/how the research presented will advance the field of ecology.
2004 Student Award Judges
The 2004 Student Awards Selection Subcommittee, Christopher F. Sacchi (Chair), Nancy Eyster-Smith, Paul Marino, and J. Alan Yeakley, thank the following individuals for judging papers and posters at the ESA Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon.
|
Paul Alaback
|
Sarah
Goslee Peg Gronemeyer Kevin Gross Stephanie Hampton Erik Hobbie Claus Holzapfel David Hooper David Huff Chris Ivey James Jacobs Cynthia Jones Mike Kearsley Bruce Kendall Brian Kloeppel Jen Klug Alan Knapp Abby Kula John Kush Svata Louda Chris Luecke Ann Lynch Cathy Mabry John Maerz Paul Marino Deborah Marr Kelly McConnaughay David McNeely Brett Melbourne Don Miles Ben Miner Randall Mitchell |
Kyoko Miyanishi
|
Southeast
Chapter Newsletter
Issue 20043
Chapter Officers:
Chair: Paul James Luken (20042006) JoLuken@coastal.edu
Vice-Chair: Joan Walker (20032005) joanwalker@fs.fed.us
Secretary/Treasurer: Nicole Turrill Welch (20042006) nwelch@mtsu.edu
Web-Master: Mark Mackenzie mackenzi@forestry.auburn.edu
Chapter Homepage:http://www.auburn.edu/seesa/
| 2004
ESA Meeting, Portland, Oregon
The brown bag lunch meeting of the Southeastern Chapter was held on 3 August 2004 at the ESA Annual Meeting. Announcements made at this meeting are posted on the Chapter web site. Membership Renewal and Award Support Please remember to renew your membership in the SE Chapter when you renew your ESA membership. Your donations to the Eugene P. Odum Fund and the new Quarterman-Keever Fund support the best student paper and poster awards, respectively, at the Association of Southeastern Biologists Annual Meetings. Quarterman-Keever Award Funding The Quarterman-Keever Award for the best student poster will be awarded for the first time at the Association of Southeastern Biologists Meeting in 2005. The Chapter established this award in April 2004 to honor the achievements and contributions of Elsie Quarterman and Catherine Keever. ESA has requested that the award reach the sustainable level of $10,000 within two years, and Elsie Quarterman herself made the first contribution. Your contribution can be made by check payable to the Ecological Society of America (Quarterman-Keever Award), sent to Ecological Society of America, Elizabeth Biggs, CFO, 1707 H Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20006-3915.
|
Upcoming
Meetings
2005 ASB Meeting: The 2005 meeting of the Association of Southeastern
Biologists will be held 1316 April 2005 in Florence, Alabama,
hosted by the University of North Alabama. Abstracts are due 12 November
2004; the September 2004 issue of Southeastern Biologist and
http://www.asb.appstate.edu/Preliminary2005.htm
explain the submission process. Do note that abstracts are to be submitted
as an e-mail attachment, and all oral presentations must be made with
either overheads or Microsoft PowerPoint. Authors using Microsoft PowerPoint
must submit a CD containing their presentation by 1 April 2005. 2006 ESA Meeting: The 2006 ESA Meeting will be held in Memphis, Tennessee. This will be a great opportunity for symposia and organized paper sessions related to Southeastern ecosystems and ecological issues. Scott Franklin, University of Memphis and Chair of the Local Host Committee, requests ideas and leaders for field trips for this meeting. Keeping in Touch Check the Chapter home page: http://www.auburn.edu/seesa/ for updates and additional information. Join the Southeastern Chapter of ESA ListServer: To join the ListServer, send a message to majordomo@mail.auburn.edu with subscribe scesa in the body of the message. Please send news or announcements to scesa@mail.auburn.edu for distribution to the listserv, or to nwelch@mtsu.edu for inclusion in the next quarterly newsletter. Respectfully, |
The
Garden Club of America Fellowship in Ecological Restoration
| The
Garden Club of America announces a competition for its Fellowship
in Ecological Restoration. This GCA fellowship, established in 2000
with funds from the John B. Young Charitable Trust, as well as GCA
members and clubs, is awarded annually to an exceptional graduate
student to assist with study and research. The award carries a grant
of $8000 to support specialized study in ecological restoration at
a leading accredited university in the United States. The fellowship
is administered by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum and
may be renewed pending review. For the purposes of this scholarship, The Garden Club of America agrees to the following definition as stated by the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER): Ecological restoration is the process of assisting the recovery and management of ecological integrity. Ecological integrity includes a critical range of variability in biodiversity, ecological processes and structures, regional and historical context, and sustainable cultural practices. All applications will be reviewed by a selection panel of research scientists and approved by the GCA Scholarship Committee. Selection criteria will include the degree to which the proposed fellowship work addresses the objectives of the GCA, as well as the excellence of the students academic qualifications and person.
|
Applicants
must provide the following: 1) A cover letter 2) A written proposal for the research to be undertaken (limit 5 pages) 3) A 1-page budget for the proposed research 4) A current resume 5) A letter of endorsement from the applicants graduate faculty advisor, which also certifies enrollment, and 6) Two additional recommendations. Letters
of application, with all required materials, must be received by
the selection committee by 14 January 2005. Committee reviews will
be completed early in March and the recipient will be notified,
and the award made, by the GCA Scholarship Committee shortly thereafter. GCA Fellowship
in Ecological Restoration |
Society
Actions The
Robert H. MacArthur Award is given biannually to an established ecologist
in mid-career for meritorious contributions to ecology, in the expectation
of continued outstanding ecological research. Nominees may be
from any country and need not be ESA members. The recipient is invited
to prepare an address for presentation at the annual meeting of the
society and for publication in Ecology.After careful deliberation, the Subcommittee has enthusiastically chosen May Berenbaum for this years MacArthur Award. After receiving her Ph.D. from Cornell in 1980, May began her professorial career in the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), where she has remained ever since, serving as Department Head since 1992. May has received many high honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences (1994) at the rather young age of 41, and dozens of awards including the George Mercer Award (from ESA), the E. O. Wilson Naturalist Award (ASN), the Silverstein Simeone Award (International Society for Chemical Ecology), and the Founders Memorial Award (the top award of the Entomological Society of America). It is worth noting that May is one of only two women to win the Entomological Societys Founders award among the 45 recipients since 1958, and she is also the first female winner of the MacArthur Award.) May has made transformational research contributions to insect ecology, chemical ecology, and the study of coevolution, with the focal goal of understanding, at all levels, the role of plant chemistry in shaping the evolution and ecology of plants and their insect herbivores. As an example of the integrative nature of her research, May discovered early on that the leaf-rolling behavior of many herbivorous larvae served to protect them, not only by hiding them (the traditional explanation) but by keeping them in the dark, since many plant toxins are activated by UV light. May and her collaborators followed up on this discovery with multi-level investigations of phototoxic plant compounds and the ways that herbivores cope with them, including the genetics of inducible enzymes that detoxify plant defensive compounds. This work led to quantitative genetic studies by May and colleagues on both plants and their herbivores that showed heritable variation and biogeographically-pair adaptations in both coevolutionary antagonists. The study of coevolution came into being with Ehrlich and Ravens classic hypothesis of plant-herbivore arms race, but May Berenbaum was the first to provide a complete package of ecological, biogeographic, genetic, and chemical support for the hypothesis for a single system. Mays CV lists more than 150 peer-reviewed publications. Her research has been supported continuously by NSF, USDA, and many private foundations. May is renowned as a teacher and public lecturer, from major national and international venues to a long list of local preschools and elementary schools. Her non-majors course on insects at UI attracts hundreds of students, and she has directed the research of dozens of Ph.D. and M.S. students and introduced scores of undergraduates to research. Her famous annual Insect Fear Film Festival is just one facet of Mays indefatigable campaign to keep insects and arachnids in the public view. She has published four popular books (two of which have won national awards) and more than a hundred popular and semi-popular articles on insect ecology and evolution including regular contributions to American Entomologist, the membership magazine for the Entomological Society, which have entertained and enlightened professional entomologists for more than a decade. R.H. MacArthur Award Subcommittee: Rob Colwell (Chair), Steve Carpenter, Carla DAntonio, Ann Kinzig, Bill Murdoch, Judy Meyer, and Jim Reichman |
The
Eminent Ecologist Award is given to a senior ecologist in recognition
of an outstanding body of ecological work or of sustained ecological
contributions of extraordinary merit. The 2004 Eminent Ecologist is Dr. Sam McNaughton. Over his 40 year career, Sams research output has been prodigious; he has authored/co-authored over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals (more if you include book chapters and books!) and in 2003 was recognized as an ISI highly cited researcher. His work has ranged from theoretical to modeling to observational and empirical studies. Few ecologists have so effectively spanned population- community ecosystem- landscape ecology in their research and also managed to blend research in fundamental areas of ecology and evolutionary biology to their application in managed systems. Sam began his career by publishing an influential series of papers on ecotypes and geographical distributions of in Typha that demonstrating population differentiation at the biochemical level. In the late 1970s he switched his attention to plantherbivore interactions and the ecosystem-level consequences of herbivory and began what this year marks a 30 year adventure in exploring interactions between plant and grazing communities in the grasslands of the Serengeti. Many of his ideas were controversial (e.g., grazing facilitation), but his findings and hypotheses spurred further research and interest in the complexity of interactions and feedbacks between organisms and their resources and greater understanding of the roles of herbivores in the worlds ecosystems. His field observations and experiments in the Serengeti, led to a comprehensive understanding of the effects of grazers on nutrient cycling and plant competition, which he pursued by studying the physiological mechanisms by which grazing-induced changes in plant morphology, leaf- and plant-level photosynthesis, and the capacity to acquire nutrients. In this way he was able to make convincing links between evolutionary mechanisms at the population level to community dynamics to system-level properties. Similarly his work on diversity and stability took this debate from the level of correlation to the level of mechanism, beginning with his 1977 paper in American Naturalist. This work has been one of the most important spring-boards for the recent flood of interest in studies of the mechanistic basis by which biodiversity influences ecosystem function. To many, Sams career is the model of what ecologists should aspire to if they want to make a difference to ecology in terms of innovative research, development of theory, and the transfer of these concepts to younger generations of ecologists and managers. Sam has influenced the field of ecology through his own research and his mentorship of numerous graduate students and post-doctoral associates, many of whom were introduced to his wit, charm, drive and dedication to science while working with him on plantherbivore interactions in the Serengeti. Importantly, Sam is seen as a thoroughly nice person by his colleagues, former and current students and postdocs. To many he is the kind of professional that they seek to emulate his willingness to recognize and celebrate creativity has inspired generations of young scientists who have worked with him to continue to explore novel ideas and activities. Sam is clearly a true scholar with a gift for blending his love for natural history patterns to current and emerging issues in both theoretical and applied ecology and we are pleased to recognize his accomplishments by awarding him as the 2004 Eminent Ecologist Award. Eminent Ecologist Award Subcommittee: Kay Gross (Chair), Nelson Hairston, Jr., Bob Holt, Bea Van Horne, Paul Dayton, and Peter Groffman |
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Distinguished Service Citation Award Subcommittee: Kay Gross (Chair), Nelson Hairston, Jr., Bob Holt, Bea Van Horne, Paul Dayton, and Peter Groffman |




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The
Mercer Award recognizes an outstanding ecological research paper published
by one or more younger researchers (under 40 at the time
of publication). The 2004 Award is for the authors of Biodiversity,
Invasion Resistance, and Marine Ecosystem Function: Reconciling Pattern
and Process (John J. Stachowicz, Heather Fried, Richard W. Osman
and Robert B. Whitlatch; Ecology 83:2575-2590) Distinguished Service Citation Award Subcommittee: Steve Heard (Chair), Sally Holbrook, James Morris, Jean Richardson, Andy Sih, Ellen Simms, and Mike Willig |



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The William
S. Cooper Award is given by the Society in honor of one of the founders
of modern plant ecology. The Cooper Award is made annually for an
outstanding contribution in geobotany, physiographic ecology, plant
succession, or the distribution of organisms along environmental gradients.
The 2004 recipients are Drs. John W. Williams, Bryan N. Shuman, and
Thompson Webb III for their 2001 paper, Dissimilarity analyses
of Late-Quaternary vegetation and climate in eastern North America,
published in Ecology 82:3346-3362. The fossil
record of the Late Quaternary has yielded an important, yet enigmatic,
ecological observation: plant and animal communities have existed
in the recent past that have no modern counterparts in terms of composition.
The underlying causes of these peculiar biotic assemblages have stimulated
debate in the ecological and paleoecological communities for the past
four decades. In their paper, Williams, Shuman, and Webb address the
problem using an elegant combination of numerical analyses, mapping
techniques, paleoclimate simulations, and the extensive North American
Pollen Database. They used the spatial and temporal patterns of vegetation
dissimilarity during the period to evaluate alternative hypotheses
concerning the underlying causes of the peculiar vegetation. Hypothesis-testing
of this kind is difficult, but the authors developed and applied an
ingenious approach, comparing maps of vegetation dissimilarities with
maps of climate dissimilarity from present (using simulated paleoclimates,
which are the only existing non-circular means for doing this). The
spatial and temporal patterns are revealing and provocative, indicating
that vegetation composition is contingent on climate, and that unique
biotic assemblages will arise when unique climatic combinations occur.
The study represents an important step forward in our understanding
of vegetational responses to environmental change at broad spatial
and temporal scales, and sets a new standard for paleoecological syntheses
in other regions and time periods. It is highly relevant to global
change concerns, because climatic gradients of the future may be very
different from those of the past few thousand years, and so we may
expect many existing biotic assemblages to disappear as new assemblages
emerge under new climates. The paper developed from research done while Williams and Shuman were graduate students in Webbs lab at Brown University, where Webb is Professor of Geological Sciences. Williams is currently an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin, and Shuman is an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota. W.S. Cooper Award Subcommittee: Judie Bronstein (chair), Laura Hyatt, Sara Hotchkiss, Miles Silman, Scott Collins, and David Peterson |
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Dicks
students know themselves as Rootlets. One former student
even wrote about his experience with Dick as being the Root
Cause for his enjoyment and success as an ecologist. Former
students confess that they were not even interested in ecology as
a discipline until they either met and worked with Dick or were in
his Field Ecology class at Cornell. Then, after as few as two lectures,
they found themselves hooked. Many of these students confess
to shamelessly copying Dicks model in the classroom and in the
field in terms of mentoring both graduate and undergraduate students.
With such an ever widening network of deeply devoted and enthusiastic
mentees, it is obvious that Dick Roots impacts on ecological
education are enormous. The deeply
personal and individual relationship that Dick built with each of
his students was vitally important to them. One former student wrote,
Almost as if we were his biological children, Dick doted on
us and, I am certain, lost sleep over our inevitable shortcomings,
wondering where he might have gone wrong. Today I find myself treating
my own students with similar regard. Another former student
writes, Believing I was a pretty good writer, I proudly presented
Dick with the first draft of my dissertation. He wrote just one comment
on the Introduction: Yech! That one word (and several
analogues later on in the draft) served me as a one-trial learning
experience in how to write ecology papers without either fluff or
excessive dryness. Dick Root
also shines as a classroom teacher. His course, Field Ecology, at
Cornell has received the highest student evaluation possible. The
teaching model for this course emphasizes a cooperative and relaxed
learning environment that still conveys the rigor of ecological inquiry.
One student wrote on their evaluation form I learned to think
critically about ecological questions, and I even learned important
life skills. Former students conveyed story after story about
how Dicks enthusiasm and joy would be evident in all lectures,
regardless of the subject. It is impossible
to enumerate the impact that Dick Root has had on the field of ecology
and ecological education. Countless former students and their students
and so on are being influenced by the model that he has laid out in
which he encourages students to first observe in the field and from
those observations commence further inquiry. His lab housed students
involved in a wide range of ecological work, and therefore inculcated
a curiosity and respect for ecology in the broadest possible terms. Eugene P. Odum Award Subcommittee: Linda Wallace (Chair), Charlene DAvanzo, Margaret Carreiro, Bruce Grant, Peter Feinsinger, and Kathy Winnett-Murray |
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The ESA Corporate Award Committee has awarded the 2004 corporate Award to the Taylor Guitar company in El Cajon, California, based on their innovative process of applying finishes to their guitars as well as their sustainable use of wood. The company has made significant efforts to reduce the amount of pollutants released into the air during the finishing process. Taylor Guitars is a leader in the acoustic guitar industry. The company is known for revolutionizing the design and manufacture of high-end acoustic guitars with significant innovations that produce superior instruments. These innovations are the brainchild of luthier/inventor/company president and co-owner, Bob Taylor, who pioneered the use of CNC (Computer Numerically Controlled) milling machines, Ultraviolet-cured finishes, laser cutters and various other high-tech procedures in the acoustic guitar building process. Their central innovation and demonstration of commitment to environmental responsibility was the groundbreaking development of a more environmentally friendly finish for guitars. Taylor was the first acoustic guitar manufacturer to develop a guitar finish curable with Ultraviolet-light. Prior to 1995, UV-curable finishes were available only for metal or plastic, not wood. Collaborating with a chemist, Taylor worked for years to develop a finish that was more resilient, more environmentally friendly, and more aesthetically pleasing than the lacquers commonly used on wooden instruments. The company also had to design and build its own curing ovens to accommodate the new, fume-reducing spray formula. In 1999, the San Diego Air Pollution Control District presented Taylor Guitars with an award for developing a system that greatly reduces the emission of volatile organic compounds into the air stream. Other examples of their commitment to environmental responsibility: A current project is developing a robotic spraying system that is much more efficient than hand spraying, to minimize waste of materials. Another new project in the development stages will allow them to procure an important wood Honduran Mahogany by purchasing large quantities of storm-felled trees under the auspices of the C.I.T.E.S. treaty. In the past, in order to get Hawaiian koa they have worked with landowners who have the blessings of Greenpeace, The Nature Conservancy, and The Hawaiian Island Forestry Association. Occasionally they buy African ebony when the African government auctions a load that was felled during the construction of a road or something similar. In 2001, they donated a portion of sales for the Limited Edition Liberty Tree Guitars to American Forests, the nations oldest conservation organization. Corporate Award Subcommittee: Kate Lajtha (Chair), Joan Ehrenfeld, Greg Aplet, Laura Huenneke and Scott Stoleson |
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The Sustainability
Science Award of the Ecological Society of America recognizes the
authors of the peer reviewed paper published in the past five years
that makes the greatest contribution to the emerging science of ecosystem
and regional sustainability through the integration of ecological
and social sciences. One of the most pressing challenges facing humanity
is the sustainability of important ecological, social and cultural
processes in the face of changes in the forces that shape ecosystems
and regions. Unprecedented directional changes in climate, human population, technology and social and economic institutions alter the structure and functioning of current ecological and social systems. The Sustainability Science Award recognizes the role that science can contribute to addressing these challenges. This is the first year that the award is being given, and it will continue to be given annually. The subcommittee
has selected Marten Scheffer, Steve Carpenter, Jonathan Foley, Carl
Folke, and Brian Walker as the 2004 Sustainability Science Award winners
for their paper: This review paper was selected because it clearly and succinctly presented the theoretical basis for conditions that would give rise to alternative steady states in ecosystems and evidence from multiple field studies that was consistent with this theory. For each of these studies the authors describe a range of factors that led to loss of resilience prior to the shift to a new state. By focusing on the determinants of resilience rather than the specific triggers that caused the change, it is likely that the results can be generalized more broadly.
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The
winner of the Murray F. Buell award in 2004 is Cynthia Hays for
her paper Ecological consequences of gene flow in an intertidal
alga, which is based on her doctoral research at the University
of California, Santa Cruz under the supervision of Ingrid Parker
and Pete Raimondi. The Buell judges noted that in her outstanding
presentation, Cynthia addressed ecological and evolutionary aspects
of gene flow and local adaptation to a strong environmental gradient
using an intertidal alga as a model system. Cynthia linked her
research appropriately to theory, developed novel methodologies
to address the idiosyncrasies of performing mating and transplant
manipulations on an alga, and addressed complicated questions
thoroughly in a data-rich presentation. Cynthia clearly explained
her work, which included a series of well-designed experiments
all designed to get at the question of whether there could be
local adaptation to tidal height in her system. Cynthia was able
to show strong evidence of local adaptation (e.g. significant
interactions between home and outplant
height for adults and embryos), and heritable differences in embryo
desiccation resistance, at some sites but not others. Cynthia
received her M.S. from Florida State University in 1998, and her
B.S. from Duke University in 1992. The Buell-Braun Award Selection Committee also selected three students for Honorable Mention for the Buell Award. This recognition was given to: Jennifer Lau of the University of California-Davis for her paper, What happens to native communities when exotic plants and their enemies invade together?, to Jason S. McLachlan of Duke University for his paper co-authored by J. S. Clark and P. S. Manos entitled, The importance of small populations in the postglacial dynamics of eastern forests and to Louie H. Yang of the University of California-Davis for his paper, Do resource pulses link aboveground and belowground communities? Some evidence from 17-year periodical cicadas. |
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The 2004 winner of the E. Lucy Braun Award is Pedro Flombaum for his poster The role of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning: a removal experiment in the Patagonian steppe, Argentina. This work is based on Pedros doctoral research at the University of Buenos Aires under the supervision of O. E. Sala. Pedro presented results from species removal experiments in natural ecosystems in the Patagonian Steppe that showed that the effects of biodiversity on aboveground net primary production in natural ecosystems are larger than reported using artificial communities. The Braun judges were impressed with Pedros poster in that it included new creative work, he described earlier reconstructive studies and departed from those earlier studies using plant removals from natural systems to understand the relationship between biodiversity and productivity, and the poster exhibited work based on a strong experimental design and included a sophisticated analysis. Judges commented that in discussing the poster with Pedro, he effectively guided them through the elements of the project as presented on the poster, explained the design and analysis clearly, and showed a strong grasp of prior related studies. Pedro received his B.Sc. in Biology from Buenos Aires University in 1997. 2004 Student Awards Selection Committee: Christopher F. Sacchi (Chair), Nancy Eyster-Smith, Paul Marino, J. Alan Yeakley |
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Members present: Members of the 20042005 Board present: Staff present: Monday, 24 May 2004 I. ROLL CALL II. DINNER MEETING Guest speaker: Jim Turner (Minority Counsel, House Science Committee) discussed the dynamics of science policy and funding in Congress. The current stalemate in appropriation bills is unprecedented in his (almost 30 years) experience. In response to questions he also discussed the politicization of science, how to move science into policy making, climate change, and the demise of the OTA. III. RATIFICATION OF VOTES TAKEN SINCE THE NOVEMBER, 2003 MEETING A. Minutes of the November, 2003 meeting: moved, seconded,
adopted unanimously. The nominees were: IV. REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT President Schlesinger reported that this has been a busy period,
including activities such as testimony before Congress. Schlesinger
signed a letter coordinated by the UCS on global warming. ESA weighed
in on the peer review issue through comments to OMB. ESA was not invited
to sign the letter about visa difficulties for international scientists
initiated by the National Academy of Sciences. However the Society
is aware of this issue. Information about this issue is available
at www7.nationalacademies.org/visas
and there is a link to this site on the ESA Portland meeting web site.
He wrote to Mary Clutter at NSF to support renewal of NCEAS. V. REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND STAFF. (Only three issues are discussed here; the full report was distributed in writing before the meeting.) A. Marketing Director of Finance Elizabeth Biggs noted that ESA needs to make
Frontiers self-sufficient over the next 810 years. ESA
has initiated a number of marketing efforts to promote sales and attract
advertising revenue. This spring a consultant was hired to help with
this. About 70 libraries subscribe to Frontiers (vs. about
2000 for other ESA journals). To help increase that percentage, there
is a form in each issue of Frontiers for subscribers to send to their
libraries. ESA is also trying some direct-mail initiatives, and working
with subscription agents. One goal of Frontiers is to increase ESA membership, and indeed, membership is still growing (will probably be up about 300 this year, and was up about 300 last year). The Society is doing advertising at other professional meetings, and contacting authors who are not members. B. NEON Schlesinger reported on a February meeting at NSF that McCarter, Duke, and Schlesinger attended to express ESAs interest in a partnership between ESA and NEON coordinators. Two groups have responded to a RFP for a NEON Coordinating Consortium. Schlesinger and staff met with a team developing a NEON proposal in connection with AIBS and conveyed ESAs interest in being involved. AIBS subsequently indicated that they did not see a role for ESA at this time in the process. National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) is the other group that put in a proposal, and they were enthusiastic about involving ESA; Cliff Duke worked with them to develop the community engagement aspect of the proposal. There was some discussion about the history of ESAs involvement in NEON. The Governing Board includes representatives of both groups submitting proposals to NSF, so discussion was limited in scope because of conflicts of interest.
Although Board members had committed to help increase the number of donors, it appears that there has been no success yet, so McCarter reminded Board members about their commitment. The fund currently contains $52,000. The fund generally receives contributions from the same group of traditional donors. She will send Board members a list of current donors and some cards to use to help solicit new ones. Tuesday, 25 May 2004 VI. FINANCIAL UPDATES McCarter presented the third-quarter financial report that shows a positive bottom line with some excess revenue over expense. A. ESA Long-term Investments Vice President for Finance Christensen reported that the endowment
is currently about $855,000; part is restricted, set up by individuals
for particular purposes (e.g., awards), part is Board-restricted (quasi-endowment,
principal could be spent by decision of the Governing Board), and
part is unrestricted. About $573,000 is invested in a value fund through
Townley, in a relatively conservative way. About 3 years ago the Board
voted to move about $500,000 to a growth fund with Riggs and Company;
what is left of this fund is now valued at about $270,000. Christensen
noted that it may be appropriate to move this money to Townley at
some point. Vice President for Finance Christensen wants guidance on spending
policy. A conservative policy might be to spend about 5% of the endowment/year
(about $40,000/yr). He suggests that a rolling 3-year average of 5%
would be better policy, allowing some adjustments for annual variation
in income. Another option suggested is that on 31 December we calculate
a moving 3-year 5% average of the endowment principal, which can be
considered available for the following year. The Board asked that
a recommendation be brought back in August. Christensen believes that
it is probably not appropriate to try and grow the endowment through
investments. Christensen raised the issue of the role of the Finance and Investments
Committee. The Board agreed that this group needed to continue its
oversight of investment policy. Additional discussion raised the need for a development committee
to work on increasing the endowment. It was suggested that the dormant
Fund Raising Committee could be reactivated, perhaps with new members,
to function as a development committee. We currently have a $163,000 rainy day fund (unrestricted reserves); target is $250,000. VII. PRESENTATION OF PROPOSED FY 20042005 BUDGET McCarter reviewed the budgeting process that begins in April with staff reviewing the income and expenses, consulting with the VP for Finance. A draft budget is presented to the Board in May. Any additions or changes are reviewed by the Board in August and then presented to the Council for approval. McCarter provided an overview of assumptions, calculations of revenues and expenses, adjustments to the previous years budget, program adjustments, and activities not funded. There was considerable discussion about the costs of library subscriptions since the office must provide price changes to libraries in June. Motion: That the print subscription rates for libraries be increased by 7%, with a similar consideration for online subscriptions. Seconded and approved unanimously. A. Discussion of proposed program budget adjustments Motion: That we spend up to $10,000 to provide printed copies of Frontiers to members in developing countries. Seconded and approved unanimously. The Board of Professional Certification has requested $3050 in addition to the funds provided each year for a meeting. This would make it possible, for example, to recruit at meetings of other societies. Motion: That the request from the Board of Professional Certification for a $3050 increase in their annual budget be approved for 2 years, during which time we would like some evaluation of the effectiveness of the Certification program. Seconded and approved unanimously. Carol Brewer brought a recommendation from the Women and Minorities in Ecology committee that the Society conduct a membership survey to update the 1992 survey. (M. M. Holland, D. M. Lawrence, D. J. Morin, C. Hunsaker, D. Inouye, A. Janetos, H. R. Pulliam, W. Robertson, and J. Wilson. 1992. Profiles of ecologists: results of a survey of the membership of the Ecological Society of America.) Motion: That up to $10,000 be provided to plan and conduct a survey of our membership. McCarter was asked to find the most appropriate place to find this funding, including using the Millennium Fund. Motion seconded and approved unanimously. IX. DISCUSSION OF FURTHER IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ECOLOGICAL VISIONS REPORT A. Development of the draft plan for a Rapid Response Team A plan to develop teams of ESA members who would be available to respond quickly to topical issues was reviewed. A suggested list of topics was presented. The Board proposed an additional area: Ecological implications of international conflicts and military activities (Duke has a long-standing interest in this area). It was also suggested that ESA institutionalize meetings of the rapid response teams during the annual meeting. Staff will proceed with implementation for the Rapid Response teams. B. Fostering international collaborations among societies President-Elect Melillo just returned from China, where he spoke
with the current and upcoming presidents of the Chinese Ecological
Society. They were enthusiastic about the idea of exchanging representatives
to annual meetings, and about translating of selected ESA publications
into Chinese. They have about 6000 members, and the Society is quite
active (e.g., 16 committees). There is also a newly formed East Asian
Federation of Ecological Societies (China, South Korea, Japan), that
will have its first meeting in Korea in November. There is potential
for ESA to link with this new organization. It was suggested that ESA seek funds to support the travel of international students from the developing world to the Montreal meeting. This might be easier to do for a Canadian meeting than for one in the United States, given the current problems with obtaining visas for foreign visitors. C. Translations of ESA publications David Baldwin suggested the idea of partnering with some international journals, as is already done by some medical journals. ESA would provide advance notice of the table of contents to the partners, who could then decide which (if any) papers they might want to republish in their own journals. The international journal would decide if they wished to translate the articles or publish them in English. D. Federation of the Americas Member-at-Large Sala was asked to continue his role in spearheading the Federation of the Americas even after he leaves the Board in August. E. Major public information campaign This would be a major undertaking, since ESA would need to raise millions of dollars to do it adequately. Motion: ESA should formalize implementation of a business plan for the public information campaign and this should be spearheaded by a subcommittee of ESA Vice Presidents and others. Motion approved unanimously. It was noted that this would be a good activity in which to involve a development committee. Discussion also involved suggesting other organizations that might like to partner with ESA. It was noted that several other societies expressed interest in collaborating with ESA after a February briefing about the Visions Report. It is anticipated that the business plan will be developed by next May, and that an update on progress will be provided at the November Board meeting. F. Emerging issues in ecological science Duke presented a plan to support implementation of visions priorities. He proposes to develop a set of tool kits organized around particular themes. The goal would be to produce for each issue a comprehensive, linked set of products for a diverse set of audiences. The resulting tool kits would provide an off the shelf science resource for the proposed rapid response and public education capabilities, and also would make ecological science information available to a wide array of users. No Governing Board action taken at this time. X. LUNCH SPEAKER Guest speakers were Dr. Kathie Olsen (Associate Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and Dr .Clifford Gabriel, Deputy to Dr. Olsen). Olsen and Gabriel described the organization and activities of OSTP and answered questions from the Governing Board. XI. POLICY ISSUES A. Proposed policy activity Vice President for Science Clark and Vice President for Public Affairs Power have been discussing a project involving ground truthing the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. This project could potentially be sponsored and funded by the Public Affairs Committee. Since this project would involve the collection of primary data, both Vice Presidents agreed that the concept needed careful Governing Board discussion before proceeding. The Board requested additional information at the August meeting before making a decision. B. Measuring effectiveness in public affairs Director of Public Affairs Lymn presented results of a survey conducted last fall about how other societies deal with measuring the effectiveness of public affairs activities. The survey shows that ESAs program is consistent with that of other similar societies and is well regarded in the policy community. It is difficult to quantify impact, but a process will be developed and implemented to clarify ESAs policy objectives and outcomes each year. XII. PUBLICATIONS ISSUES A. Review of Editor-in-Chief for Ecology and Ecological Monographs The Publications Committee is asked to provide a review of the volunteer Editors-in-Chief of ESA publications just prior to the end of the editors 3-year term. Editor-in-Chief Don Strong was reviewed and a report presented to the Governing Board. The Board noted its agreement with the very positive report. Motion: to approve reappointment of the Editor-in-Chief for Ecology and Ecological Monographs to a 3-year term beginning retroactively on 1 January 2004 and extending to 31 December 2006. Seconded and approved unanimously. The Board noted that it agreed with the review committee that there is a need to increase representation of women and members of other underrepresented groups on the Editorial Board and is ready to work with Strong to identify appropriate new members. The report raised several issues for additional discussion that will be considered in August.
Request the Publications Committee to set up a web site subcommittee to review web site content and to report in August. C. Blackwell Science textbook proposal The Board reviewed a proposal from Blackwell Science for a joint project to develop a series of textbooks. The Board voted not to pursue this project. D. Editor-in-Chief of the ESA Bulletin The current Editor-in-Chief of the ESA Bulletin, Allen Solomon, will retire from that position in December 2004. The Publications Committee was asked to nominate a successor. The Committee recommended and the Board strongly endorsed the recommendation that Edward Johnson be appointed to this role. Motion: To appoint Ed Johnson as Editor-in-Chief of the ESA Bulletin for a 3-year term (1 January 200531 December 2007). Seconded and approved unanimously. E. ESA journal impact factors The Board received a report on the rankings of ESA journals based on the ISI impact factors. Managing Editor Baldwin presented data on 3 years of rankings. ESA journals continue to be among the top group of cited journals. XIII. NOMINATIONS FOR ESA OFFICES The Nominations Committee, chaired by Past President Bartuska, has a preliminary list, which is still being refined. The Board can expect a slate to vote on in mid-June, and the final list of nominees will be advertised in the next issue of the ESA Bulletin. XIV. NOMINATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE AWARD Motion: to approve the nomination of Marten Scheffer, Steve Carpenter, Jonathan Foley, Carl Folke, and Brian Walker as the 2004 Sustainability Science Award winners. Seconded and approved unanimously. XV. AMICUS BRIEFFAULKNER V. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY ESA has been asked by JSTOR to sign on to an amicus curiae brief they intend to submit on behalf of the NGS. This issue may have bearing on copyright law issues affecting JSTOR and other projects involving the retrospective digitization of print versions of scholarly materials. Motion: To sign on to the amicus curiae brief after seeking advice from ESA corporate counsel. Seconded and approved unanimously. XVI. MEETING ISSUES A. Program Chairs for 2007 and 2008 ESA Annual Meetings The Board reviewed a list of recommendations for persons to serve as Program Chair for the 2007 (San Jose) and 2008 (Minneapolis) Annual Meetings. The list was narrowed down and President Schlesinger will begin to contact the potential chairs. B. Local Host for 2007 Annual Meeting Motion: To appoint Rachel OMalley as local host for the 2007 Annual Meeting. Seconded and approved unanimously. XVII. NEW BUSINESS A. San Jose: ESA and SER partnership Motion: To accept the request by the Society for Restoration Ecology to hold a joint annual meeting in San Jose in 2007. Seconded and approved unanimously. XVIII. ADJOURNMENT
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2004
Annual Reports
I. REPORTS OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND STAFF
|
| Statistic | 2002 | 2003 | Percentage change, 20022003 |
| MSS submitted, Ecology/Monographs |
1,081
|
1,189
|
+9.9
|
| MSS submitted, Applications |
418
|
432
|
+3.3
|
| Total MSS submitted |
1,499
|
1,621
|
+8.1
|
| Acceptance rate (%), Ecology/Monographs |
29.4
|
24.5
|
---
|
| Acceptance rate (%), Applications |
31.3
|
38.6
|
---
|
| Pages published, Ecology |
3,552
|
3,430
|
-3.4
|
| Pages published, Monographs |
618
|
664
|
+7.4
|
| Pages published, Applications |
1,886
|
1,838
|
-2.5
|
| Pages published, Supplement |
0
|
2280
|
---
|
| Total pages published, journals |
6,056
|
6,160
|
+1.7
|
| Pages published, Bulletin |
274
|
274
|
-22.6
|
Table 1. Summary statistics for ESA publications.
Back
to Table of Contents
The continuity
and consistency of those staff undertaking ESA meeting functions,
combined with greater coordination and efficiency with other HQ staff
using a team approach to planning, enables our Society
to execute increasingly large and complex meetings skillfully, economically
and innovatively. Our string of successful meetings is emulated by
other organizations. During the past year, several nationwide publications
for meeting professionals have given prominent coverage to aspects
of ESA meetings, especially activities that promote energy conservation
and greening, interface with local ecologists, and make imaginative
use of natural and historic sites.
HQ meeting
planning is coordinated closely and regularly with the work of ESAs
Meetings Committee, the Program Chair and Local Host Committee, the
staff expertise of the local Convention and Visitors Bureau and Convention
Center, as well as a number of individuals and organizations in the
destination location. Due to this synergy of energy, knowledge and
skill, ESA is able to accomplish a great deal, without the expense
of outsourcing meeting functions to destination management or consulting
firms.
This summer,
the Societys Meetings Manager is running her eighth Annual Meeting,
and the Registrar her sixth Annual Meeting. Familiarity with the attendees
preferences and patterns enables us to better plan, anticipate, and
innovate. Being able to track registration and session statistics
over a number of years allows ESA HQ to examine patterns and trends
and better advise Program Chairs and Local Hosts.
In addition,
with the benefit of the high degree of honest feedback from postmeeting
evaluations, and continued improvements in technology, we are able
institute changes and experiment with new ways to provide a quality
meeting experience.
With every year and every meeting we run, we discover things that we can do to make the experience better for the attendees, the volunteer leadership, and the staff. The constant evolution of ESAs meeting functions are a work in progress.
88th ESA Annual Meeting (held with ISEM-NA Chapter),Savannah, Georgia, 38 August 2003
ESA had
not held an annual meeting in the southeast region in a very long
time. The descriptive and evocative theme for this meeting Uplands
to Lowlands: Coastal Processes in a time of Global Change, appeared
to stimulate more than the usual number of themed symposium proposals,
contributed papers, and posters. There was also a good turnout from
the University of Georgia.
Overall,
however, the registration for the Savannah meeting turned out to be
less than the previous year. There are probably numerous reasons for
the somewhat lower than average turnout.
Despite
concerns that Savannah would be a less than ideal environment in which
to hold an annual meeting, many of those who did attend expressed
surprise at the charm of the location and 75% of respondents in the
postmeeting evaluation felt that they would like to see the Society
consider holding another meeting in Savannah.
The final number of accepted abstracts for posters, oral contributed, and organized sessions, and symposia: 1783
Number of sessions
| Symposia
|
24 |
| Contributed Orals | 99 |
| Organized Orals | 5 |
| Poster Sessions | 15 |
| Late Breaking and Newsworthy Abstracts | 66 |
| Special Sessions | 7 |
| Discussions | 3 |
| Workshops | 19 |
| Evening Sessions | 22 |
| Ticketed Events | 12 |
| Field Trips | 13 |
| SEEDS | 7 |
Invasive Plants Conference, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, 37 November 2003
The full
title of this meeting was Invasive Plants in Natural and Managed
Systems: Linking Science and Management, and the Seventh International
Conference on Ecology and Management of Alien Plant Invasions.
(IPINAMS-EMAPI7) The conference was co-organized by ESA and the Weed
Science Society of America. Carla DAntonio was the ESA Program
Chair and Nelroy Jackson was the WSSA Program Chair. ESA Science staff
member Lori Hidinger and WSSA Executive Director Rob Hedberg were
the Conference Program Coordinators, and Ellen Cardwell was the Conference
Manager. Conference financial sponsors included the Bureau of Land
Management, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Geological
Survey, the Department of Defense Legacy Program, the National Park
Service, Animal and Plant Inspection Service, The Nature Conservancy,
and the Center for Invasive Plant Management.
The conference
consisted of four plenaries, 13 symposia, 13 workshops, 6 round tables,
over 300 posters, exhibits, 11 scientific field trips, and social
functions. There was also a premeeting one and one-half day conference
on Sunday and Monday morning organized by The Nature Conservancy.
This conference was budgeted for 350 attendees but nearly 800 registrants
participated.
ESA now has established a proven track record partnering with companion scientific organizations to hold these specialized meetings. Our science staff continues to investigate future opportunities for this type of collaboration.
89th ESA Annual Meeting, Portland, Oregon, 26 August 2004
The Portland
Meetings theme is Lessons of Lewis and Clark: Ecological
Exploration of Inhabited Landscapes.
The selection
of keynote speakers for the Public Plenary and the Opening Plenary
as well as several of the symposia and evening sessions, and at least
one Field Trip reflect this theme, and there has been a focused effort,
as there was in Tucson, to incorporate First Nations and Traditional
Ecological Knowledge aspects in this meeting.
This year
also has provided a large concentration and involvement by Federal
scientists and land managers, in part due to Past-President Bartuska,
and the Co-Chairs of the local Host Committee, and in part because
of the presence of field offices for Federal Agencies in Oregon and
Washington. The Federal Land Management Plenary on Wednesday is a
unique feature of this meeting.
This meeting has proved to generate the single largest preregistration
in the Societys history. Fortuitously, the size and configuration
of the Oregon Convention Center has enabled ESA to schedule the entire
scientific program under one roofone of our long-standing goals.
The Annual
Report of the Meetings Committee submitted by Tom Swetnam, Steve Chaplin,
and Ellen Cardwell describes new programmatic aspects of the 2004
Portland meeting in detail. Several of these changes were instituted
because of comments made in the postmeeting evaluation from the Savannah
meeting.
This year,
for the first time, ESA, working with the Portland Oregon Visitors
Association (POVA) Housing Bureau, was able to use a real-time, electronic
housing reservations system that included not only hotels but also
dormitories.
By the 90th Annual Meeting in Montreal, ESA HQ will be using a real-time system for meeting registrations (including workshops, field trips, and ticketed events) as well.
90th ESA Annual Meeting, held jointly with INTECOL, Montreal, Canada, 7-12 August 2005
The theme
for this meeting is Ecology at Multiple Scales.
The Program
Chair for ESA for this meeting is Paul Ringold; for INTECOL it is
Rebecca Sharitz. Dave Grow has been retained by ESA to serve as their
assistant for the scientific program, having served in this capacity
for the past two years for Tom Swetnam. This group holds a weekly
conference call to coordinate planning for the scientific program.
Currently
Calls for Symposium Proposals and Organized Oral Session Proposals
are live and posted on the ESA and INTECOL web sites, and the Calls
for Workshops and Supplementary Program Proposals (Evening Sessions,
Discussions and Special Sessions) are posted and will be activated
in mid-September.
The two
Local Hosts are Catherine Potvin of McGill University and Christian
Messier of University of Quebec, Montreal. They have created a 10-member
local host committee to help organize field trips, plan local activities,
and recruit student volunteers.
ESA HQ is contracting with Mendlesohn Ltd., a Canadian firm, to assist the Society and our Annual Meeting Exhibitors with customs and transborder shipments.
ESA themed meeting in Mexico in 2006
In order
to build on the cooperative relationships established at the Ecologists
of the Americas Meeting held in Savannah last summer, and in keeping
with the Governing Boards interest in holding a meeting in Mexico
that could be attended by ecologists from Mexico and Central and South
America, as well as the United States, ESA is working on the scientific
and logistic plans to hold a 300500 person meeting in Mexico
in January 2006.
A possible
theme that has been explored to date is: Ecological impacts
of globalization (or trade) in the Americas: challenges and opportunities
for environmental scientists. Program Chairs Jeff Herrick and
Jose Sarukhan have been developing the format and content, and potential
speakers for this meeting.
Prospective
locations for the meeting include: Merida in the Yucatan, Morelia,
the capital of Michoacan, and Oaxaca. Information has been obtained
from each of these destinations concerning convention/meeting facilities,
lodging costs and availability, travel costs, and field trip potential.
The Mexico meeting planning team will be meeting in Portland for further work.
91st ESA Annual Meeting, Memphis, Tennessee, 611 August 2006
The program chair for this meeting is Kiyoko Miyanishi and the local host chair is Scott Franklin. No theme has been selected yet and no planning for the scientific program has commenced. Hotel contracts and arrangements with the Cook Convention Center are, however, well underway. The Cook Convention Center has recently undergone expansion adding several meeting rooms and a fine new concert hall seating 2700. Arrangements for dormitory lodging at the University of Memphis cannot be made until a year prior to the actual meeting dates.
92nd ESA Annual Meeting held jointly with the Society for Ecological Restoration, San Jose, California, 510 August 2007
Kerry Woods has agreed to serve as the Program Chair for this Annual Meeting, and the Governing Board has approved Rachel OMalley of San Jose State as the Local Host Chair. Because of the strong interest in restoration at both San Jose State, and in the Santa Clara Water District, this seemed like an ideal meeting at which to again meet jointly with the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) as ESA did with SER in Tucson in 2002. Both Boards have approved holding this meeting jointly. Work has started on review and approval of hotel contracts and a contract with the McEnery Convention Center.
93rd ESA Annual Meeting, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 38 August 2007
Lou Gross
has agreed to serve as the Program Chair for this Annual Meeting,
and Gretchen Meyer has agreed to serve as the Local Host Chair, pending
Board approval. One of the extremely attractive features of Milwaukee
as a meeting destination is that the Midwest Express Convention Center,
the hotels and dorms, and the location for the proposed ESA Social
in the wonderful Public Museum are all in a compact area and easily
walkable distances. Lake Michigan, a network of running and cycling
trails, and the new Milwaukee Art Museum make this a very appealing
location for this meeting.
HQ Meetings Staff continue to make arrangements for all Board, Committee, and special meeting that occur throughout the year in the Washington DC area.
Meetings
staff:
Ellen R. Cardwell, Meetings Manager
A. Patricia Crocker, Meetings Associate/Registrar
Awards Committee
The ESA Awards subcommittees met virtually during the fall and winter to select a slate of awardees to be recognized at the 2004 Annual Meeting in Portland. Dr. Judith L. Bronstein and her committees did an outstanding job this year. The following individuals were recommended and approved for ESA awards:
Eminent
Ecologist Award: Sam McNaughton
Distinguished Service Citation: Jim Reichman
Corporate Award: Taylor Guitars
Mercer Award: John Stachowicz and colleagues
Cooper Award: Jack Williams and colleagues
Odum Education Award: Richard Root
MacArthur Award: May Berenbaum
Sustainability Science Award: Marten Scheffer and colleagues
Profiles of Ecologists Project
Following in the tradition established in 2002, about 20 ecologists plus the 2004 award winners have been invited to contribute biographical sketches for the Profiles of Ecologists Project. The posters will be on display throughout the duration of the Annual Meeting. Each features the story of how an ecologist entered his/her career in ecology, and presents their views on communicating ecology to diverse audiences. The posters will be added to the Profiles link on the ESA web site at http://www.esa.org/education/whatdoecologistsdo.htm to inspire and motivate both current and future ecologists to excel in the field.
Education and Human Resources at the Annual Meeting
Education and Human Resources are well represented at the Annual Meeting in Portland in 2004. Four workshops, four discussions, three contributed paper sessions, and one poster session were scheduled featuring education and environmental justice topics.
Education Mosaic Mixer: The SEEDS (Strategies for Ecology Education, Development and Sustainability) program will have high visibility at the Portland meeting. The theme for the mixer at the Portland meeting is SEEDS Highlights. The SEEDS Program has celebrated many accomplishments since the program received renewed funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in July 2002. The goal of SEEDS is to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in the ecology profession by promoting ecology opportunities for students and their faculty. Probably the most significant accomplishment is the number of student contacts SEEDS has made in the past two years. Over 700 students have become aware of SEEDS through a variety of means, including becoming a member of one of the 18 SEEDS Chapters at minority-serving institutions across the country, through meeting SEEDS staff at minority-serving conferences, or simply through word of mouth. The expansion of SEEDS has been successful. SEEDS is flourishing as the interest of talented students has continued to grow every year. This year, the academic excellence of the pools for SEEDS awards (Undergraduate Research Fellowship, student field trip, Annual Meeting travel) has been especially high.
Diversity Luncheon: Dr. Carlos Robles is the featured speaker at the Diversity Luncheon this year. The title of his presentation will be Recognized and Unrecognized Merits of Diversity. His talk will consider the challenges and opportunities of promoting diversity in science, as reflected in the developing identification of aspiring minority students. Dr. Robles is a community ecologist and has been a member of ESA for nearly 30 years. His experimental work with predatorprey dynamics on rocky shores of California and British Columbia was featured in recent issues of Ecology. He founded in 1998, and now directs, the Center for Environmental Analysis (CEA-CREST) at California State University at Los Angeles.
Education and Human Resources Committee Meeting: Representatives of the EHRC met in Washington, D.C., on 2123 May 2004. This year, EHRC has led two important initiatives for the ESA. First, we have taken a retrospective look to document the progress of the ESA on issues related to recruitment and participation of groups who are underrepresented in the field of ecology. A subcommittee led by Dr. Sonia Ortega has looked at the recommendations that were made in the 1993 report on Women and Minorities in Ecology, and has gathered evidence on the ESAs progress on their implementation. The results of the committees work will be available in fall 2004. Second, we are about to launch a survey to evaluate the Status of Ecology in the Undergraduate Curriculum. The work of the UG Curriculum sub-committee has been led by Dr. Saran Twombly. Participants will be asked to complete the web-based survey beginning in August 2004. Results should be available by the end of the year. Finally, the committee has continued activities begun last year to develop leaders in ecological education within the membership of the ESA. Moreover, the EHRC continues to plan for new ways to involve members in education and diversity initiatives within the society.
Education Newsletter: In late spring, education leaders in the ESA completed the annual Education Newsletter. The newsletter features highlights of member-led programs such as TIEE (Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology, led by Charlene DAvanzo and Bruce Grant) and FIRST (Faculty Institutes for Reforming Science Teaching led by Jan Hodder and Diane Ebert-May), and news about on-going ESA education and human resources initiatives. The newsletter can be found online at http://www.esa.org/education/resources_teachers/generalEdu/educationSection.php
Carol BrewerThe Vice President for Public Affairs has three primary areas of oversight: the Public Affairs Committee (PAC), the International Relations Committee (IRC), and liaisons to related societies, such as AAAS, AIBS, AWCI, and NASULGC (National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges). The PAC works with the Public Affairs Office (PAO) to coordinate all aspects of communication with and outreach to the public. The PAC and PAO have worked to increase ESAs visibility in Washington and outreach to other audiences during the year.
Public Affairs Committee
A primary
role of the PAC is to provide assistance and guidance to the PAO in
representing ecological science to various public entities, including
legislators and their staffs, governmental and nongovernmental agencies,
and news media. In addition, the PAC reviews and makes recommendations
about ESA Position Papers to the Governing Board. This year the PAC
also assisted the PAO in developing ESAs Environmental Policy
Priorities for FY 2004, which were subsequently approved by the Governing
Board.
The PAC
met during the Annual Meeting in Savannah in 2003. We also communicated
by conference calls to provide interim progress reports and coordination
of PAC projects. As part of Congressional Visits Day activities, PAC
and PAO members visited several House and Senate staffers, as well
as individual Congressional delegates, to urge support for increasing
agency research budgets, particularly NSF, USDA, and USGS.
Our Public
Plenary speaker in Portland is Dr. Patricia Limerick, Professor of
History and Environmental Studies and Director of the Center of the
American West at the University of Colorado. Consistent with the theme
of the meeting, Patty will give a talk titled, Naturalists,
National Mission, and the Wonders of the West: The Lewis and Clark
Expedition as a Parable. To enhance communication between ecologists
and policy makers, the PAC applied for and was awarded funds by ESAs
Long Range Planning program to bring key members of the Congressional
staff as visitors to the 2004 ESA Annual Meeting, as we did for the
first time in 2003. In 2003, we brought Susannah Foster, Staff Member
of the House ScienceCommittee, to the Annual Meeting in Savannah.
The program in Savannah was a resounding success, and Susannah expressed
great satisfaction with the visit. She participated in a field trip,
attended the Public Plenary and opening mixer, and met with a number
of ESA members in individual meetings. As a Congressional Science
Committee staffer, we believe that Susannah has the potential to serve
as a very useful contact for issues that are important to ESA members.
At the 2004 Annual Meeting in Portland, the PAC and PAO will be hosting
one or two congressional staffers who are in a position to influence
science funding policy and/or environmental policy.
Position papers: Several ESA position papers are currently in progress. The position paper on GMOs with Allison Snow as lead author was approved during the year and is now submitted for publication in Ecological Applications. Jon Keeley is chairing a committee to develop a paper on fire management and policy. In addition, with PACs assistance and review, the PAO issued an ESA Position Statement on Scientific Peer Review.
International Relations Committee
A primary role of the IRC is to consider ways in which we can encourage foreign ecologists to participate in ESA. The IRC evaluates and makes recommendations to the Board for reduced fees for international library subscriptions and international memberships.
Public Affairs Committee members are: Alison Power (Chair), Ed Johnson, and Christy Johnson; ex officio James LaBaugh, Chair, Metro D.C. Chapter
In view
of the new directions anticipated from the Visions Report, the Research
Committee and, to some extent, SBI had a limited range of activities
this year. Principal activities were the Summer Institute on Statistical
Computation, planned through Research Committee discussions during
the previous two years, Congressional Testimony by the VP for Science
on the NSF budget, and a draft statement on the federal peer review
process.
Summer School on Ecological Inference and Forecasting. Organizers:
James S. Clark, Alan Gelfand, Carol A. Brewer, and Barbara V. Braatz
The NSF-funded
summer institute attracted over 100 graduate student and postdoc applications
for 24 slots. The institute was designed to address the challenges
of complex and obscure processes in ecology. Ecological inference
and forecasting are limited by large and diverse sources of variability
that operate at a range of scales. Hierarchical Bayes and Markov chain
Monte Carlo simulation provide powerful tools for analyzing processes
characterized by multiple sources of uncertainty and variability.
The Institute took place at Duke University in June of this year. The 2-week, graduate/post-graduate level summer school introduced ecologists and earth scientists to modern statistical computation techniques. Leading statisticians and ecologists provided day-long presentations and hands-on training with computation techniques. Students organized in working groups, completed a hierarchical Bayes analysis on their own data, and are preparing reports. Lecture notes will be published as a book together with approximately four student group chapters. Instructors were drawn from the environmental statistics community with expertise in hierarchical Bayes, including Brad Carlin, Jim Clark, Montse Fuentes, Alan Gelfand, Kent Holsinger, Doug Nychka, and Chris Wikle. VP for Education Carol Brewer conducted assessment activities and is preparing a report.
Position Statement on Scientific Peer Review
The Position Statement on Scientific Peer Review was prepared by the ESA, led by Maggie Smith and including Tom Sisk (NAU), Dave Wilcove (Princeton), and VP for Science Jim Clark. In light of pending changes in peer review of documents by the federal government, the ESA felt the need to provide input on the role of peer review and to comment on aspects of the scientific peer review process. The position statement can be found on the ESA web site under Public Affairs.
Congressional testimony in support of the NSF Budget
The VP for Science presented to the Subcommittee on VA and HUD the following testimony prepared by the ESA in support of the NSF Budget:
Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies Appropriations
Mr.
Chairman and members of the committee, I am Jim Clark, Vice President
for Science for the Ecological Society of America. ESA has been the
nations premier professional society of ecological scientists
for nearly 90 years, with a current membership of 8,000. I appreciate
the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the National Science
Foundation.
I would
first like to thank the committee for its strong commitment to the
NSF over the last several years. Investment in this agency is very
much in the public interest and your vision will pay extraordinary
dividends in the years to come. I am also grateful to the 107th Congress
for passing the NSF Authorization Act, which laid out a plan to boost
the nations investment in this agency.
We believe
that NSFs fiscal health is critical to maintaining the nations
international scientific leadership. Dividends from past investments
in the NSF are manifested in the individual scientific disciplines,
as well as in the groundwork that has been laid for interdisciplinary
research needed to meet present and future scientific challenges.
Research supported through the NSF has led not only to major advancements
in all of the sciences, mathematics, and engineering, but has repeatedly
underpinned new technologies such as the use of bar codes for inventory
control and bioengineering microbes to clean up toxic waste, as well
as new techniques, for example improving a buildings resistance
to damage during an earthquake.
Important
accomplishments have resulted through NSF-funded research and the
potential for future opportunities is immense. Biological research
will improve our ability to assess and predict the status of ecosystems,
which provide the United States with goods such as fish, and services,
such as water purification. Research efforts in the social sciences
will enhance our understanding of large-scale transformations such
as globalization and democratization, while work in the ocean sciences
holds the potential to reveal previously unimaginable images of even
the deepest oceans. Advances in NSF-supported chemistry may lead to
cleaner industrial technology and address problems of carbon sequestration.
Research in the mathematical sciences has led to advances in cryptography
and improved internet security.
In a time
where we find more and more federally funded research directed by
a particular agency mission, I want to highlight that one of NSFs
greatest strengths is its support of the best research, regardless
of its potential use. The NSF peer review system has an excellent
track record of choosing the best science and the best investigators
to perform the research, as the significant number of Nobel Prize
winners who received support from NSF demonstrates.
I wish
to particularly thank the committee for its past support in recognizing
that NSF is responsible for the majority of all nonmedical biological
research, ranging from the molecular level to the study of entire
ecosystems. Approximately 65 percent of all academic, nonmedical,
biological research is supported through the National Science Foundation.
As a Professor
of Biology and Director of Graduate Studies for Duke Universitys
Program in Ecology I have first-hand knowledge of the positive impact
NSF has on a scientific discipline. Our own NSF-funded research on
the Central Plains has shown us that historic experience, including
the 1930s Dust Bowl, is unremarkable in light of climate swings
of the last few centuries. Weve learned many species cannot
migrate fast enough to track a shifting 21st Century climate and will
be left behind, with large consequences for biodiversity. This has
significant implications for agriculture in the Great Plains region.
Continued
advancement in ecological science depends upon healthy NSF budgets.
Many ecologists whose grant proposals are deemed of very high quality
are either not funded or go under-funded due to inadequate NSF grant
funds. Eventually this funding situation is likely to affect the choices
of U.S. students as to whether or not they choose to enter the field
of ecology, a science that is crucial to meeting emerging environmental
challenges ranging from the ecology of disease to the likely consequences
of human alteration of the nitrogen cycle.
Other science,
mathematics, and engineering fields experience many of the same tensions
exhibited in the ecological sciences. These disciplines share our
concern that not enough U.S. students are interested in science- and
engineering-related careers. Many of us in the scientific community
are worried that the U.S. may lose its preeminent position in science.
All science, math, and engineering disciplines depend upon a strong
National Science Foundation.
As the only federal agency to support science and education across all disciplines, and as the principal supporter of environmental biology, NSFs contributions have been extremely valuable to the U.S. research enterprise. We hope that the committee will do its best to ensure that the agency continues on this path. Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership and your and the committees concern for the National Science Foundation.
Research
committee members:
James S. Clark (chair), Lisa Curran, Nancy Grimm, Mark Hay, Anne Kinzig,
Mathew Leibold, Mary Power, Phil Robertson, Alan Townsend
In this
first online volume, four issues of the Bulletin were published
in 2003 as Volume 84, Numbers 14, which totaled 212 pages. This
compares with 274 pages in Volume 83 (2002), and 250 pages in Volume
82 (2001). Of the 207 pages in Volume 84 exclusive of advertisements,
creative contributions accounted for 76 pages (vs. 114 pages in 2002),
or 37% of the volume. These include Commentaries (39 pages), Meeting
Reviews (8 pages), Technological Tools (22 pages), and Focus on Field
Stations (7 pages). The remaining 131 pages, or 63% of the volume,
represent news and archival material. They were divided among Notices
and Announcements (37 pages), Society Actions (38 pages), Chapter
and Section News (7 pages), Meeting Calendar (15 pages), and Annual
Reports to Council (34 pages, vs. 70 pages in Volume 83).
The difference
in pages published in 2003 (212) from 2002 (274) is primarily attributable
to steep declines in Commentaries (38 pages) and in Annual Reports
to Council (36 pages). The latter is not surprising as it included
reports to two separate Annual Meetings in 2002, and only one Annual
Meeting in 2003. I suspect the decline in Commentary contributions
reflects a smaller readership due to the reduced prominence of the
Bulletin as an online publication, compared to its previous
delivery to each member as a hard copy.
The 2003
volume marked the beginning of online publication of the Bulletin.
At this point, the potential for success of the transition from the
hard copy print medium is unknown, but we can be optimistic if the
first two years of pages published are an indicator. The first three
issues of 2004 are now in print and include 141 pages,
while the same issues in 2003 included 139 pages. The issues began
with the cover and individual sections available in pdf format, but
during this second year of online publication, a pdf of the whole
issue has been added, as have individual pages in html format. These
changes should permit the Bulletin readers to fit its content
more easily to their needs. However, I must admit that we know very
little about readers of the Bulletin. Perhaps a start in gauging
the value to readers of the Bulletin and its components would
be to install hit counters on the Bulletin web pages for each
issue, and for separate sections of each issue.
The continuing
quality and readability of the Bulletin is, as usual, attributable
essentially to the ESA Journal Production Office in Ithaca. Associate
Editor David Gooding is invaluable at finding both glaring and subtle
errors that I have missed in English usage and more frequently, in
substance. Regina Przygocki has proven to be both skillful and meticulous
in assembling the Bulletin after she stepped into the Production
Editor shoes vacated after 2003 by the equally able Margaret Shepard.
In addition to the production staff, editors and interested contributors continue to provide diverse, well-written, and interesting manuscripts. I repeat here that David Inouye is responsible for Technological Tools, where many readers first turn upon arrival of the latest Bulletin edition. Harold Ornes has edited the highly regarded column Ecology 101 and we look forward to additional stimulating manuscripts from both of them. I thank them for their long service, and thank all those who contributed to the Bulletin in the years 2003 and 2004. I note with deep sincerity my great pleasure and satisfaction over the past 12 years in acting as facilitator (a.k.a. Editor-in-Chief) for both the thoughtful contributors and the production staff who work so hard and so well to publish the contributions. It has been a grand experience for which I thank you all.
Allen M.
Solomon, Editor-in-Chief
Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America
Ecological
Applications is healthy and increasingly popular as an outlet
for research on the interface of ecology and its applications. The
journals citation rankings remain high and submissions are significantly
up as reported by the Managing Editor. In fact, submissions are up
so much that the board will be expanded by 56 members in order
to control editorial workloads. During 20032004 several editors
in key areas handled upwards of 25 papers, with a target of 10-12
papers per editor per year. While submissions remain high in traditional
areas for the journal, such as landscape management, avian ecology
(which remains at ~20% of total submissions), biogeochemistry and
conservation biology, submissions in aquatic and marine ecology, disease
ecology, and innovative quantitative methodology are increasing rapidly.
The increase in submissions in marine ecology followed the landmark
Marine Reserves special issue.
The number
of proposals for special issues, invited features, and forums is increasing
after a lull. The board has accepted a number of proposals and has
several exciting features in progress. The Special Issue for the Large-Scale
Biosphere Experiment in the Amazon is in final stages and contains
a number of superb papers, and brings a strong group of young Brazilian
scientists to the journal. [This Special Issue appeared as a Supplement
to Ecological Applications Vol. 14, No. 4, August 2004. Ed.]
A group of papers on the New Statistics in Ecology represents
a landmark synthesis of statistical thinking and techniques to address
the emerging universe of ecological questions that for time or space
scale reasons are not readily addressed using traditional manipulative
experiments, or where estimation of parameters is more central than
hypothesis testing per se. The issue was a collaboration between the
statistical editors of Ecology and Applications, and
will be a seminal reference for our field on both the basic and applied
sides. Other features and forums address a range of issues ranging
from reviews of methods and approaches to in-depth regional assessments.
Submissions to the journal are up significantly but, if anything, so is overall quality. As a result, in addition to the Managing Editors contingency planning for increasing the size of the journal, the board has been giving considerable thought to the mission of the journal and tightening standards for appropriateness. While each Associate Editor has slightly different standards for their specialty, we agree that (1) papers with a site or regional focus must have some larger message, (2) papers must be written to a fairly broad audience, including the potential users of the information, and not narrowly to a small colleague group, and (3) the link to the application of the knowledge must be a real and tangible aspect of the paper and not a distant hope. Based on discussions of criterion 2, above, I will be developing the 2005 editorial message to encourage authors to consider the audience of stakeholders and managers who might be able to take advantage of the work reported, and to include hooks to this community in, especially, the introductions and abstracts of paper. Of course, we continue to work with the D.C. office and Frontiers when we identify a paper of particular significance in this area, but in my view it is even more important that users of ecological information regard the average Ecological Applications issue as both a scholarly journal and a reference handbook on new approaches. Needless to say, given the writing habits of most of us, and the challenge of compromising between the requirements of scholarship and usability, this is an uphill battle, but we are making progress. Anecdotally, I have written to a number of authors rejecting papers without review on the grounds of inappropriateness for the journal and have received passionate and eloquent letters defending the work. These letters frequently make exactly the case required and form the basis for the introductions to successful submissions.
David Schimel, Editor-in-Chief
The Awards Committee consists of the Chairs of nine active subcommittees. Each subcommittee is responsible for making recommendations for its own award(s). The compositions of the subcommittees and the recipients of the respective awards for 20032004 were:
Student Awards (Murray F. Buell and E. Lucy Braun Awards) Subcommittee
Christopher Sacchi (Chair), J. Alan Yeakley, Paul Marino, and Anita Davelos.
Recipients
in 2003: Buell (best student presentation): James Vonesh, University
of Florida.
Braun (best student poster): Sean Michaletz, University of Calgary.
Cooper Award Subcommittee
Stephen T. Jackson (Chair), Laura Hyatt, Sara Hotchkiss, Miles Silman, Scott Collins, and David Peterson. Judith Bronstein (Chair, ESA Awards Committee) acted as chair of the committee for the deliberations, due to a perceived conflict of interest between Jackson and one of this years award winners.
Recipients: Drs. John W. Williams, Bryan N. Shuman, and Thompson Webb III for their 2001 paper, Dissimilarity analyses of Late-Quaternary vegetation and climate in eastern North America, published in Ecology 82:3346-3362.
Corporate Award Subcommittee
Kate Lajtha
(Chair), Gregory Aplet, Joan Ehrenfeld, Laura Foster Huenneke, and
Scott Stoleson.
Recipient: The Taylor Guitar Company.
Eminent Ecologist Award and Distinguished Service Citation Subcommittee
Katherine L. Gross (Chair), Robert Holt, Nelson Hairston, Jr., Beatrice VanHorne, Paul Dayton, and Peter Groffman.
Recipients: Eminent Ecologist: Sam McNaughton, Syracuse University. Distingushed Service Citation: O.J. (Jim) Reichman, NCEAS.
Honorary Member Award Subcommittee
Sandra Tartowski (Chair), Edith Allen, Denise Dearing, Richard Ostfeld, Michael Auerbach, and Denise Breitberg.
Recipient: No award made in 2004.
MacArthur Award Subcommittee
Robert K. Colwell (Chair), Carla DAntonio, Judy Meyer, Ann Kinzig, James Reichman, William Murdoch, and Steve Carpenter
Recipient: May Berenbaum, University of Illinois.
Mercer Award Subcommittee
Steve Heard (Chair), Sally Holbrook, James Morris, Jean Richardson, Andy Sih, Ellen Simms, and Mike Willig.
Recipients: John J. Stachowicz, Heather Fried, Richard W. Osman, and Robert B. Whitlatch, for their article, Biodiversity, invasion resistance, and marine ecosystem function: reconciling pattern and process, published in Ecology 83:25752590.
Odum Education Award Subcommitee
Linda Wallace (Chair), Charlene DAvanzo, Margaret Carreiro, Bruce Grant, Peter Feinsinger, and Kathy Winnett-Murray.
Recipient: Richard B. Root, Cornell University
Sustainability Science Award Subcommitee
Terry Chapin (Chair), Kathryn Cottingham, Erika Zavaleta, Garry Peterson, Gary Kofinas, and Roz Naylor.
Recipients: Marten Scheffer, Steve Carpenter, Jonathan Foley, Carl Folke, and Brian Walker for their 2001 paper, Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems. Nature 413:591596.
Judith
L. Bronstein
ESA Awards Chair
The Board
of Professional Certification (BPC) feels that it is very important
to become a more visible part of the Society and the scientific community
in order to increase the awareness and membership of ESAs Professional
Certification Program. Earlier this year we requested and received
an amendment to our current annual travel budget of $5600, and an
approval for an additional $3050 to support several of our program
activities.
Our Evening
Session held at last years Annual Meeting, Certification
and the Workplace, was very successful and sparked quite a bit
of interest in the Certification Program. This years evening
session at the Portland meeting focuses on Ethics and Ecologists,
and promises to be a lively evening, with three panelists including
Paul Ehrlich.
The BPC
should have available funds for annual travel for the BPC Review Meetings
and for other modest program activities. The BPC plans to hold an
Evening Session during each Annual Meeting and hopes to have the funds
available to invite one or more guest speakers, covering their hotel
costs for one night and their one-day registration to the meeting.
The BPC
received a $1,000 Long-Term Planning Grant last fall for a portable
booth as a display at a number of scientific meetings throughout 2004
and years to come. The BPC hopes that the visibility of a Certification
booth at other scientific meetings will draw individuals with different
ecological backgrounds, which in turn may invite ecologists with different
disciplines to become members of ESA. We are grateful that we now
have enough in our yearly budget to accommodate the expenses that
exhibiting at meetings will require. We plan on purchasing the portable
display after the Portland meeting.
The BPC
completed its review of applications for certification and recertification
in June. We have not received the final numbers yet, but those should
be available by the time we meet in Portland.
The Board of Professional Certification and ESA staff have been very
active the past year instituting a number of new initiatives to better
serve our Certified Ecologists and the Society. Please take a moment
to review these current and future improvements to the Certification
Program:
Adopted 2003
Adopted 2004
On behalf of all of our certified ecologists and the Board of Professional Certification I thank you for supporting the certification program and considering our report. We look forward to seeing you this August in Portland.
Professional
Certification Program
February 2004 Newsletter
The Board
of Professional Certification (BPC) is proud to launch the first Newsletter
for Certified Ecologists. You can expect to receive this Newsletter
during the months of February, June, and September for as long as
you are certified. This newsletter will include information regarding
changes to the Certification process, updates on various BPC activities,
events hosted by the BPC, and other interesting and informative topics!
Please be advised that you are invited and encouraged as certified ecologists to provide suggestions or comments regarding any topic discussed in this Newsletter.
BPC Meeting
The BPC Annual Review Meeting will be held Friday, 4 June 2004 at ESA headquarters. This purpose of this meeting will be to review each application received or postdated before 31 March, and to determine the certification status of each applicant. This time will also be used to discuss our progress on new initiatives and our plans to achieve the following long-term goals:
Updates to certification process (since 1999)
Certification events
Our Evening
Session held at last years Annual Meeting, Certification
and the Workplace, was very successful and sparked quite a bit
of interest in the Certification Program. Another Evening Session
titled Ethics and Ecologists, is scheduled to be held
during this years ESA Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon (look
for more information in June 2004 Newsletter and on the ESA web site
www.esa.org).
We plan
to invite three speakers, representing academia, government, and the
private sector. The speakers will discuss the role of ethics in establishing
an ethically fair, reasonable, and technically sound basis for the
practice of ecology. The panel will cite specific examples and future
challenges facing ecologists.
Suggestions
for speakers will be collected until 31 May. When providing suggestions
please be sure to include contact information and reasons why this
person should be a speaker during this event. In addition, those who
participated in last years Evening Session, please feel free
to contact us with suggestions on how to make this years Evening
Session an even bigger success.
While certification is not the central focus of this session, the BPC is sure that there will be ample opportunity to discuss certifications role in maintaining ethical standards within the ESA and the professional workplace.
A look ahead
The BPC is working on a number of topics intended to bring us closer to achieving our long-term goals. Listed below are a few projects now in the preliminary stage of development:
We hope that many of you will have thoughts and suggestions on these projects and will email them to us at: esahq@esa.org. We look forward to hearing from you.
ESA Certification Program Calendar of Upcoming Events and Deadlines
February/
March:
Late Fee ($25) applied to all applications received after this date.
All applications post-marked between the dates of 2 February and 31
March should include the Late Fee in the payment. If this payment
was not included in the certification fee by the applicant, he/she
will be invoiced.
April:
Final deadline 31 March. ANY applications/ payments/ recommendation
letters postmarked after this date may cause the application to be
held for next years review.
May:
ESA Headquarters Staff Prepares Applications for Review. Register
for the Annual Meeting and sign up for the BPC Evening Session Ethics
in Ecology.
June:
In early June The Board of Professional Certification Review takes
place. The Board will determine if applications are accepted, denied,
accepted at lower level, accepted at higher level, or if additional
information is needed. Notification of Certification Status will be
mailed and questions regarding the results may be sent in response.
Deadline for Additional Information is 15 July. ANY documents postmarked
after this date will be held for next years review.
July/August:
ESA Annual Meeting, Portland, Oregon.
BPC Evening Session Ethics in Ecology
The Board of Professional Certification will hold its Final Review.
Notification of Certification Status will be mailed and questions
regarding the results and/or appeal requests may be sent in response.
August:
Certification Process Ends - for Current Year ApplicantsAppeals and
General Inquiries ONLY
Members:
Wendy Anderson, Chair; Deborah Goldberg, Nat Holland, Douglas Kelt,
Clive Jones, Sharon Lawler, Walt Whitford
1) Revolving membership
Upon reviewing
the membership of this committee and in response to suggestions by
the ESA staff, we will begin enforcing a 3-year revolving membership
for the committee.
Term expiring in 2004: Sharon Lawler and Deborah Goldberg
Term expiring in 2005: Wendy Anderson and Douglas Kelt
Term expiring in 2006: Clive Jones, Walt Whitford, Nat Holland
We recommend
Jonathan Chase (Washington University) and Michael Peek (currently
at Utah State University but moving to William Paterson University)
to replace Sharon and Deborah for the upcoming year. Jon and Mike
have agreed to serve on the committee upon approval of the board.
Wendy Anderson will remain as chair for one more year.
2) Forrest Shreve Desert Research Award
Charles Price from the University of Arizona was the 2004 recipient of the Forrest Shreve Desert Research Award. His proposed project, Scaling mass and morphology in Sonoran Desert Plants through space and time, was ambitious, well planned, feasible, and was ranked highly by most of the members of the committee. Only $1300 was available for funding for this year, which was only 60% of the applicants request.
3) Robert H. Whittaker Travel Fellowship
Dr. Lohengrin
Cavieres of the Unversidad de Concepcion in Chile was the 2004 recipient
of the Robert H. Whittaker Travel Fellowship. He proposed to collaborate
with Dr. Clive Jones of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies on Cushion
plant ecosystem engineering and the altitudinal range distribution
of species in the Chilean Andes. His proposal was ranked first
by all committee members. Only $650 was available for funding for
this year, which was only 50% of the applicants request.
4) Funding issues
After posting
the call for proposals, receiving and reviewing proposals, and trying
to determine how many proposals to fund and at what level, the committee
chair checked with the financial officer to see what funds were available
for this year. The funds available for both awards were significantly
lower than in years past and lower than we had posted as the range
for proposals. Several committee members thought this was embarrassing
and unfortunate, and offered suggestions for ways to improve the level
of funding in the future.
a) Inform Society members that these awards are not highly endowed,
and that contributions from members would benefit the students and
foreign scientists applying for them by enhancing the endowed fund.
b) The committee chair should be informed of (or check on) the funds
available for each years awards prior to the posting of the
announcement, so that applicants can create budgets that are within
the range of the funds available.
c) If the interest on each endowment for any given year is less than
$2000, or if no strong proposals are submitted in any given year,
funding for that year should be skipped.
d) The Society is large enough and financially stable enough to subsidize
from a general fund the funding for either award, when the interest
on the endowment is not sufficient to meet the traditional amount
of $2000.
5) Meeting luncheon presentation and poster
Most of the committee members agreed that we should implement an annual luncheon at the ESA meeting for committee members and previous and current years award recipients. During this time, previous year recipients would give a 10-minute synopsis of the project for which they used their funds. This would help formalize our process, encourage participation in the meeting by committee members and award recipients, and increase the visibility, prestige, and accountability of the awards and their recipients. We would also like, beginning in 2005, to add a small poster and a synopsis of the projects for each recipient on the Awards board at the meeting.
Wendy B.
Anderson
Grants and Fellowship Committee Chair
Total Abstracts accepted as of 12 July: 2,722
Abstracts submitted by category:
Symposia 195
Organized Oral Session 298
Contributed Oral Session 1,326
Poster 915Number of sessions:
Symposia 24
Contributed Orals 142
Organized Orals 36
Special Sessions 5
Discussions 6
Workshops 21 (cancelled 2)
Evening Sessions 21
Ticketed Events 10 (includes 3 Special Ticketed Events, does not include Grab-n-Go Lunches)
Field Trips and Tours 25 (cancelled 7)
SEEDS 9
New programmatic aspects of the 2004 Portland meeting:
Various other operational changes and innovations for Portland:
Symposium proposal review process
We received
60 symposium proposals for the 2004 Portland meeting. This exceeds
the previous record of 52 proposals submitted for the Savanna meeting.
The increasing number of proposals probably reflects both a growing
interest in participation in the Annual Meeting, and enthusiasm for
the locations and themes of the meetings. However, with a cap of 24
symposia for the Annual Meeting (as directed by the Governing Board),
the increased number of proposals means that the competition for these
slots is increasingly intense. Hence, the review process needs to
be fair and balanced, and some provision for meeting the interests
of the rejected sessions needs to be considered.
A thorough
review process involving members of the Meetings Committee, the ESA
Section chairs, and several members of the Governing Board has been
implemented, and seems to be working fairly well. This is a time-consuming
process, however, and following through with all of the needed reviews
and selection usually means that final selection of symposia may not
occur until early January. An accelerated process for proposal submission
and review would be necessary for meeting earlier meeting deadlines.
Organized Oral Sessions (described below) seem to be a viable option for tapping into the interest of the membership in organizing their own sessions, as indicated by the large number of symposium proposals.
Organized Oral Sessions
In Savannah
we experimented with a set of five sessions that we called Organized
Oral Sessions (OOS). The format allowed session organizers to
assemble a set of related talks prior to the meeting that would not
necessarily rise to the expected level of broad importance for symposia,
but would offer a more coherent session than is usually the case with
the ad hoc collections of related talks in Oral Contributed Sessions.
The OOS were well received in Savannah, so we greatly expanded the
number of these to 36 at the Portland Meeting. These 36 were selected
from a combination of OOS proposals and rejected but highly ranked
symposium proposals. This strategy of offering OOS sessions to a selected
set of symposium proposers seems to have worked well. In some cases
symposium proposers declined the offer, but many accepted. This seems
to be a good outlet for their interest and enthusiasm for organizing
a session, as well as including sessions with good scientific merit.
We shall see what the postmeeting survey reveals about participants satisfaction with this format. At this point, it seems likely that the OOS have at least partly satisfied a need mentioned before in surveys and in discussions among the Meetings Committee members and othersthat the Annual Meeting should include more opportunity for sessions organized in advance. Advantages include better coherence and flow of these sessions than some Contributed paper sessions, which are assembled from contributed abstracts by topic in an ad hoc fashion by the Program Chair and Assistant. Also, these sessions may bring more midcareer and senior scientists to the Annual Meeting as invited speakers, because some of these people seem more likely to attend and present at the meeting if they are invited to participate in a session.
15 + 5 minute contributed and organized oral session schedule
In recent years contributed oral paper sessions have been criticized as being too hectic, too fast paced, and plagued by constant interruptions and noise during presentations by the coming/going of audiences. This year at Portland we are experimenting with a 15 + 5 minute schedule for all Contributed and Organized Oral Sessions. This is a change from the 12 + 3 minute schedule of past years (i.e., all oral contributed talks were up to 12 minutes in length, with 3 minutes between talks for questions and introduction of the next speaker). We believe the new 15 + 5 schedule will improve quality and depth of the talks, slow down the rather hectic pace of the oral sessions, and provide more opportunity for interaction between the speaker and audience.
2005 Annual Meeting in Montreal
Plans for
the joint ESA/INTECOL 2005 Montreal meeting are well underway. Program
Co-Chairs Paul Ringold and Rebecca Sharitz have issued the call for
Symposia and Organized Oral Session proposals. The web site is at:
http://www.esa.org/montreal/
Local Host Committee Chairs
Dr. Rachael OMalley of San Jose State University was chosen
to chair the Local Host Committee for the 2007 Annual Meeting in San
Jose, California. Dr. Gretchen Meyer of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
has agreed to serve as the local host for the 2008 Milwaukee Annual
Meeting.
Future
Annual Meeting sites
The process to choose locations for the 2009 Annual Meeting and beyond
has been put on hold while the Society decides whether to hold an
annual meeting in Mexico. The Meetings Committee along with ESAs
Meetings Coordinator are trying to locate a suitable site in Mexico
that has facilities with 16 or more meeting rooms each with a capacity
over 150 that are located in close proximity to each other, has inexpensive
lodging options (e.g., dormitories), and has adequate transportation
for 2000 or more attendees. We have not yet found the right site.
As we continue our search, we are planning for a smaller (400600
person) themed meeting for January of 2006 in Mexico to
test the feasibility of holding the larger Annual Meeting there.
Last fall, the Future Meetings chair along with ESA staff visited Calgary, Alberta as a possible meeting site once the Mexico meeting issue has been resolved. It is essential that ESA continue to schedule its Annual Meetings at least 5 years in advance to ensure that the best sites, facilities, and rates are available at the time we want them. In addition, choosing sites 5 years out gives the Society maximum leverage in negotiations to improve the green features of the meeting, transportation, and other important aspects of the meeting facilities. When we know what dates are available, we will bring Calgary to the Governing Board for consideration.
Concluding comments
The Meeting Committee is grateful to ESA staff for their terrific support, especially Ellen Cardwell. The Program Chairs assistant at the University of Arizona, Dr. Dave Grow, has been a key person, making sure the hard, detailed work gets done. His expertise and organizational skills have been essential, and we are fortunate that Dave will continue to work in this position through the 2005 meeting in Montreal.
Tom Swetnam,
Co-Chair
Steve Chaplin, Co-Chair
The Professional Ethics and Appeals Committee (PEAC) has been inactive for several years. Patricia Flebbe has agreed to chair the committee. She and vice president Carol Brewer are in the process of selecting members for the committee.
The Publications
Committee commissioned a review of the Editor-in-Chief of Ecology
and Ecological Monographs and passed on its recommendations
to the Governing Board. The Committee recently began a similar review
of the EiC for Ecological Applications, with the goal of having
the review completed by the November Governing Board meting.
The Committee
also recommended that Ed Johnson replace Al Solomon as Bulletin
Editor beginning January 2005. We thank Al for his tremendous contributions
to ESA and the Bulletin.
The Publications
Committee continued to monitor issues pertaining to data access, especially
as it relates to the journals of the Society. This continues to be
a rapidly changing phenomenon.
The Committee will be reviewing the ESA web site (at the request of
the Governing Board), and discussing the price structure of ESA publications.
Committee members: Emily Bernhardt, John Briggs, Aaron Ellison, Susan Harrison, Laura Huenneke, Nancy Huntly, Steve Jackson, Alan Knapp, Robert Peet, David Roberts, Sam Scheiner
SBI Steering
Committee activities were largely put on hold this year, pending the
release of the report from the Ecological Visions Committee, and due
to the fact that no funds were available for our annual spring meeting.
The Ecological Visions Committee Report has now been released. There has also been much conversation about the redundancy in existing ESA committees (e.g., specifically the Research Committee and the SBI Committee). We thus decided to have a joint committee meeting between the SBI Committee and the Research Committee at the annual ESA Meeting in Portland this August to discuss the recent VISIONS Report and Science paper and to enhance communication between these two committees.
Catherine Pringle, Chair
The Applied Ecology Section of ESA is the third oldest of the active sections within this Society. The Section was established in 1971, and has a twofold purpose: (1) to facilitate communication of the application of ecological principles to the solution of practical environmental problems, and (2) to encourage liaison with specialists in policy, administration, planning, health, agriculture, and natural resource management who use ecological principles in resolutions of their problems.
Mixer and Business Meeting ESA Annual Meeting, Portland, Oregon
The Applied Ecology, Agroecology, Rangeland Ecology, and Soil Ecology Sections once again held a joint mixer at the ESA 2004 meeting in Portland, Oregon. The mixer was on Wednesday, 4 August from 6:30 to 8:00 pm, at the Oregon Convention Center. The Applied Section held a business meeting at the end of the mixer to discuss the 2004 elections and introduce the new officers.
Elections
Results of the elections for officers for 20042006 were not available until late July. Candidates for the position of Chair were Deborah Potter dapotter@fs.fed.us and Martin Spetich mspetich@fs.fed.us; for Vice Chair, Becky Kay Kerns bkerns@fs.fed.us; and for Secretary, Neal Butt nbutt@cabq.gov, in addition to any write-in candidates. Election results and new officer biosketches will be posted at http://www.esa.org/applied/.
Student Travel Award
The Applied Ecology Section selected Justin Touchon, a Ph.D student in the Department of Biology at Boston University, to receive a $750 Student Travel Award to attend the 89th ESA Annual Meeting this summer. He presented his research on the interactions of biotic and abiotic risks affecting eggs and larvae of the neotropical tree frog Hyla ebraccata in the symposium Ecological Implications of Phenotypic Plasticity.
2004 Symposium
This year we sponsored the symposium Ecological Implications of Fuel Reduction Treatments to Reduce Fire Hazards in Forested Landscapes. The symposium was held Thursday, 5 August, from 1:30 to 5:00 pm, at the Oregon Convention Center, Oregon Ballroom 204. Many forests today are denser, contain fewer large trees, and have higher fuel loads and greater fuel continuity, increasing the probability of unnaturally severe wildfires. The symposium brought together researchers affiliated with several large multidisciplinary fuel reduction and stand structure manipulation experiments nationwide. Speakers presented findings from different study disciplines in order to provide the best current understanding of potential ecosystem-level impacts of fuel reduction treatments.
In 2004,
the Asian Ecology Section focuses on the issue of invasive species,
providing productive forums for discussing research, management, and
policy about biological invasions between eastern Asia and North America.
Our plan calls for organizing two international symposiums on the
subject.
The issue
of biological invasions by nonindigenous plants and animals is of
great ecological importance because such invasions may become major
global threats that alter landscapes, reduce biodiversity, and endanger
national economies. Eastern Asia and North America share a wide range
of similar environments and related biota, which may result in each
region being more susceptible to the immigrant species from the other
region than from many other parts of the world. Exchanges of alien
plants and animals across the Pacific Ocean are increasing markedly
as commerce between these two distant regions has soared in the past
few decades. As a result of this commerce, an unknown number of accidental
and deliberate immigrant species have and will arrive in both regions;
some of these alien species will form invasions. Thus, there is an
urgent need to promote effective international communication, collaboration,
and cooperation between ecologists, policy-makers, and quarantine
officers in both Eastern Asia and North America, so that the experience,
research results, and resources of investigators may be shared for
combating these common environmental and economic threats.
The Asian
Ecology Section cosponsored the Beijing International Symposium on
Biological Invasions, held 815 June 2004 in Beijing, China.
This symposium, entitled Species Exchanges between Eastern Asia
and North America: Threats to Environment and Economy, was a
great success. It had endorsement and financial support from the Chinese
Academy of Science (CAS) and the Sino-Ecologists Club Overseas (SINO-ECO).
The symposium had 107 participants, of which 62 were from within China
and 45 from overseas countries such as Japan, South Korea, India,
Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The symposium
had 48 oral presentations (including the keynote speeches by Dr. Harold
Mooney of Stanford University and Dr. Richard Mack of Washington State
University) and 37 poster presentations.
The Asian Ecology Section is also organizing a symposium in this years ESA Annual Meeting at Portland, Oregon. The symposium, entitled Inter-continental Invasions of Non-native Species between Eastern Asia and North America, will be held 8:0011:30 am on 2 August. This is going to be a regular ESA symposium because our efforts to obtain funding necessary to support participation of experts from Asian countries were unsuccessful. Eight talks are scheduled.
We believe that these symposia will increase research activities and influence policy-making on the subject in Asian countries, which constitute a critical link in the fight against biological invasions caused by exchanges of alien plants and animals across the Pacific Ocean.
The ESA
Biogeosciences Section was formed last year. This year, the Section
electronically elected Lars Hedin (Princeton University) as Chairperson,
and Christine Goodale (Cornell University) as Secretary.
The Section now has over 270 members.
At this years ESA meeting, the Section has sponsored the following
events:
Interactions with representatives from both the Division of Environmental Biology and the Division of Earth Sciences at the NSF, to participate in our annual Section meeting, and briefly engage us on directions and opportunities at the NSF.
Two symposia with biogeoscience themes
One symposium was organized by Alan Townsend and Jason Neff on Frontiers in the Biogeosciences: Ecology and the Earth Sciences; the other was organized by Pallaoor Sundareshwar with the subject, Rediscovering Earth from Land to Sea: a Biogeoscience Perspective. Both symposia involve speakers from the geosciences as well as ecological sciences.
Biogeosciences Graduate Student Breakfast
The breakfast was held between 7:00 and 8:00 am on Thursday, 5 August. This breakfast is an opportunity for graduate students to socialize and build connections across universities and programs. Bill Schlesinger, Jill Baron, and Lars Hedin will attend to help discuss any questions and/or concerns that might come up.
I. Recap of 2003 Business Meeting and Evening Session
During the 2003 ESA Annual Meeting, the International Affairs Section (IAS) held its business meeting on 6 August. Immediately following the business meeting, the IAS held an Evening Session entitled: Research in Less Developed Regions: A Lonely Planet for Researchers. This was an informal session lead by researchers who have had extensive experience in the trials and tribulations of international research. Topics covered included: (1) sources of useful information before you go; (2) medical issues that come up while in the bush; (3) how to find in-country collaborators; and (4) the cross-cultural problems that different views of gender roles may present. It was a lively conversation and was greatly aided by the presence of attendees from many of the regions that were being discussed. We even had a handout of web resources for international researchers. Between the business meeting and evening session we had approximately 40 participants last year. That is a recent record for our Section!
II. Plans for the 2004 Meeting in Portland
Because of the success of the joint Business Meeting and Evening Session last year, we are trying it again this year. The Business Meeting will be on Monday, 2 August 2004. Immediately following the business meeting we will hold the evening session.
1) Evening Session EV-6.
Researchers Without Borders: What You Should Know About Health Related Issues Before You Go! Session description.: An important concern for researchers working in remote locations and in less developed countries is their physical health. How do you avoid getting sick? What do you do when a medical emergency arises for you or somebody on your team? In this session we will provide materials, and have members of a panel discuss their experience and give advice. Some topics we expect to cover include: insurance, finding a doctor, what to have in your medical kit, what to know or do before you go, and how to avoid foreseeable problems. Our goal is to provide individuals interested in doing research in remote, less developed regions of the world with some of the tools they will need to prevent medical emergencies and to deal with them should they arise.
2) Sponsored symposium
This year
I am pleased to announce that the IAS will also be cosponsoring a
symposium.
Symposium 23. Ecological Theory and Rangeland Sustainability: Local Strategies, Global Solutions. This symposium is being organized by Elizabeth King and Jeffrey Herrick (with some assistance from the Chair). Every ecosystem on the planet is managed to some extent by humans, ranging from traditional stewardship by local indigenous inhabitants to broad policies by international agencies. Ecological knowledge is fundamental to understanding human impacts, but achieving more sustainable land use ultimately depends on linking and integrating ecological knowledge with the priorities, constraints, and attitudes of land users and policymakers. This symposium addresses the following questions: How do theoretical and empirical ecology research help us to define and evaluate sustainability? Can ecological concepts of sustainability be integrated with different social perspectives in order to improve land use practices? Is there adequate communication between ecologists and policymakers at various levels to effectively promote sustainability? Rangelands, which cover >50% of the earths land surface, will serve as a common context for speakers to discuss these issues, with examples from developing and industrialized countries on five continents. The symposium aims to identify common weak points in the ecologysociety interface, and offer strategies to counteract those weaknesses and promote sustainability worldwide. This looks to be a very good symposium so please attend.
III. Next Business Meeting
Currently the position of secretary for the IAS is unfilled. We will attempt to elect somebody to this position at our next business meeting. In addition to the secretary position, we will also look for somebody to be webmaster for the Section. The webmaster will be responsible for updating and then maintaining our Section pages at the ESA web site.
Jacoby
Carter, Chair
USGS National Wetlands Research Center
This year has been one of regrouping and reorganization. All of the Section leadership positions are open for election at the 2004 meeting.
Chair: Art McKee (resigned)
Vice Chair, and Acting Chair: Mark Stromberg
Secretary: Jennifer Jenkins
Councilor: David Coleman
Councilor: Laura F. Huenneke
Mark Stromberg, last-elected and acting Section Chairperson, obtained a list of e-mail addresses of ESA members paying dues in the LTSS. After several messages to the larger group, about 20 individual members have agreed to meet in Oregon to reorganize, define new Section priorities, and develop plans for 20042005. To aid this, John Porter developed an interactive web site for the Section http://www.esa.org/longterm. Several people have suggested that the LTSS investigate ways to support individual ESA members who have developed long-term ecological data sets, or to retrieve such data sets from faculty who are no longer actively adding to the data sets. Other topics of interest include:
A meeting of the LTSS is planned for the Oregon Meetings. The Long-term Studies Section Business Meeting and Brown Bag Lunch will be on Tuesday, 3 August, from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm.
The Paleoecology
Section held its annual business meeting during the 2003 ESA Annual
Meeting in Savanna, Georgia. Dan Gavin chaired the meeting; Beth Lynch
acted as secretary in Holly Ewings absence. Elections for the
20032004 officers were held and Bob Booth was elected vice-chair.
Bryan Shuman moved from vice-chair to chair. Holly Ewing continues
her position as secretary for a year and then will be replaced by
Beth Lynch. Jason Lynch continues as Deevey Award Committee chair.
Several possible symposium ideas were discussed, and the Section voted
to sponsor a 2004 symposium proposal on paleoecological records of
wildfire. We decided that the topic would be suitable for the 2004
meeting in the Pacific Northwest and could be linked to a local field
trip. Bryan Shuman subsequently proposed and organized the symposium
entitled, Cultural and Environmental Controls on Past Fire Regimes
in Inhabited Woodlands. Colin Long is organizing a related field
trip after the 2004 Annual Meeting.
In addition
to the well-attended Paleoecology oral and poster sessions, the Section
sponsored a symposium and an evening discussion at the Savanna meetings.
The symposium, Severe insect outbreaks in North American forests:
recent trends, long-term recurrence, and the role of climate,
organized by Dan Gavin and Matt Ayres, stimulated an exciting dialog
between paleoecologists and forest entomologists. Few conversations
have taken place between these communities before, and it was successful
and eye-opening. The discussion enabled an important exchange of ideas,
particularly regarding the mid-Holocene decline of Tsuga populations
across eastern North America.
The evening
discussion, Future Directions in Paleoecology, was organized
and moderated by Bryan Shuman. Steve Jackson and Dick Brugam spoke
on trends in terrestrial and aquatic paleoecology. The discussion
was attended by 40 people. We discussed the need to use numerous new
techniques to question and explore long-held assumptions and previously
intractable problems (the things we dont talk about in
polite company). We created a list of five broad themes for
the next five years: (1) Baseline studies on the range
of ecological and climatic variability (e.g., fire frequency). (2)
Multiple proxy studies to examine interactions among difference components
of the ecosystem (e.g., responses of plant communities to climate
change). (3) Studies of poorly understood long-term phenomena, such
as the consequence of changes in atmospheric CO2 levels, millennial-
and longer scale changes in within-species genetic variability. (4)
Rigorous tests of proxies and techniques. And (5) Development of new
interdisciplinary collaborations. We also discussed a list of classic
papers.
Don Falk
of the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research and the Department of Ecology
and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona was awarded
the 2003 Edward S. Deevey Award for an Outstanding Student Presentation
in Paleoecology. His presentation was entitled The eventarea
relationship: scale dependence in the fire regime of a New Mexico
ponderosa pine forest. Don used a novel statistical approach
to describe how parameters that describe the forest fire regime are
scale dependent.
Our e-mail newsletter continues to reach 230 participants.
New Secretary
Gretchen North took over as Secretary of the Section on 1 January 2004. Gretchen is Associate Professor of Biology at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Russ Monson continues as President of the Section until the end of this year. Announcement of an election for a new President will be made at the annual mixer in Portland.
Student awards
Last year Katherine McCulloh won the 2003 Billings Award for her talk, The application of Murrays law to Psilotum nudum, an analogue of an ancestral vascular plant, with John Sperry as coauthor. Kates work was conducted at the University of Utah. Patrick Herron won the 2003 Best Poster Award, for his poster Divining rods: Pseudomonas putida as a microbiosensor of fine-scale osmotic potentials in soil, with coauthors Daniel J. Gage and Zoe G. Cardon. Patricks work was conducted at the University of Connecticut.
Development of Section prize support
The Section has continued to foster support for its Billings Award in the form of a $500 contribution by the New Phytologist Trust. Additionally, we are working with representatives of the journal Plant, Cell and Environment to possibly contribute financial support for the Best Student Poster Award. Finally, Zoe Cardon, our past Section Secretary, arranged with Chuck Crumly of Academic Press (Elsevier) to make available a free book of the students choice (from AP list of books <$100) to the winners of the Best Poster and the Billings Awards, as well as to the students receiving Honorable Mention in these contests.
Booth at the Annual Meeting
The Section took the initiative to consolidate student awards programs at ESA. We now have a dedicated student awards booth each year, with winning posters shown from the previous year, and with boxes for ballots (and judging information). This helps us highlight the research that students are doing across ESA, and helps with judging confusion over Buell, Braun, Billings, and Best Poster.
Annual meeting symposia
In 2003,
the Section sponsored a symposium organized by Miquel Gonzalez-Meler
(University of Illinois, Chicago) and entitled Respiratory Control
of the Global C Cycle in a Changing Environment: A Search for New
Integrative Tools. The symposium included talks by Joe Berry,
Mike Ryan, Dave Bowling, Jim Raich, Sue Trumbore, Julie Jastrow, and
Evan DeLucia.
This summer (2004), the Section Symposium has been organized by Bill Bowman (University of Colorado, Boulder) and is entitled Functional Significance of Mountain Biodiversity. The symposium will bring together scientists working in a variety of ecological disciplines to present their research linking the role of biodiversity to the functioning of mountain ecosystems. The symposium is part of a series of thematic workshops supported by the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment http://www.unibasel.ch/gmba/index.html, a program within DIVERSITAS and GCTE. Contributors include Richard Bardgett (University of Lancaster), Steve Schmidt (University of Colorado), Christian Rixen (Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research), Christian Körner (University of Basel), Bill Bowman (University of Colorado), Molly Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and Rüdiger Kaufmann (University of Innsbruck).
Section concerns
Two principal
concerns continue to face the Section. (a) Finding the financial means
to maintain the Section web site, and (b) finding ways to enhance
interactions with other sections in ESA and in other scientific societies.
The Physiological Ecology web site is often offered as the premier
example of how an ESA Section web site should look and be maintained.
Unfortunately, the long-term status of this site is in question. The
site exists in its current state because of the good will of Rob Jackson,
the former Section president and developer of the site. Rob continues
to maintain the site without compensation. Rob is willing to continue
in volunteer mode for some time, but some financial resources
will need to be found for the longer term if the site is to be maintained
for the life of the Section. Upon becoming Section president in 2003,
Russ Monson developed this issue as a high priority. Monson made the
case to certain members of the ESA Board for financial assistance
to hire a student for 510 hours per week; unfortunately, funds
are not available to support this request. The issue remains a concern
of the Section without an identified solution. Below is a quotation
from one of Monsons messages to Norm Christensen (Board Treasurer)
on this issue:
On
January 1, I took over as President of the Physiological Ecology Section
in the ESA. I have been communicating with Rob Jackson, our past President,
about the issue of our Section web page. To date, the Section page
has been maintained by Rob on a voluntary basis. This takes an incredible
amount of time given the extensive listing of job opportunities and
meeting announcements that he has to organize and transmit. In my
opinion, the Section web site is the heart of our Section;
it is the site where we announce job opportunities, meetings, recent
funding agendas, and news about our Section awards. I noticed that
very few other sections have web sites; the Population Ecology Section
has a site maintained by Gordon Fox at the University of South Florida,
and the Statistical Ecology Section has a site maintained by John
Porter at the University of Virginia. I would like to make the case
that section web sites represent a crucial resource to the Society,
and one that facilitates the local connection to society
members. Section web pages have the potential to greatly enhance the
potential for the Society as a whole to reach its members, offer opportunities
to students, and strengthen the sense of connection between
members and the Society. In todays web-savvy society, and with
so many of our younger members turning to the web first for information,
I would make the case that web enhancement is critical to our ability
to serve our membership. It is my guess that the reason more sections
dont have web pages is because of the time required to keep
the site updated. I am wondering if there has been any discussion
at higher levels within the Society to support the development of
Section web pages. If not, I would like to know how I might get something
like this on the Societys agenda. I am starting this message
with you, since ultimately this is likely to be a financial issuemoney
is needed to develop and maintain web sites. (Sent to Norm Christensen,
February 2003.).
In January 2004, Russ Monson (President) and Gretchen North (Secretary) sent a questionnaire to the Section membership to better gauge current trends and opinions. Here is a summary of the questionnaire that we just submitted to Section members within the text of our annual newsletter:
Report on Physiological Ecology survey
Last winter Gretchen and Russ solicited comments from Section members in the form of a questionnaire. The aim of the questionnaire was to gain greater insight into the composition and opinions of the Section membership, and to lay the foundation for future initiatives within the Section. We received 55 completed questionnaires. It was difficult to collate all the varied responses into summary form. However, we have tried to capture some of the more obvious trends below:
1) The Section continues to be populated primarily by people who identify themselves as plant physiological ecologists. Of the respondents, 58% consider themselves plant physiological ecologists; 22% consider themselves animal physiological ecologists; 16% consider themselves ecosystem ecologists; 4% consider themselves a type of ecologist other than these three.
2) Most of the membership depends on the ESA Annual Meeting as their primary professional meeting venue. Of the respondents, 76% attend the ESA Annual Meeting as their primary meeting; 11% attend the SICB annual meeting as their primary meeting; 5% attend the AGU meeting as their primary meeting; 8% attend meetings other than these three as their primary meeting.
3) Most people think the field of physiological ecology will continue to diverge in two directions: down toward molecular connections, and up toward ecosystem and global connections. Of the respondents, 33% described this as the current trend and one that is likely to continue; 16% of the respondents expect evolutionary connections, particularly those involving phylogenetic analysis, to become more important in physiological ecology; 20% expect connections to molecular biology and genomics to become more important, including 90% of the animal physiological ecologists who responded.
4) Most of the respondents thought that the Section web site was the most critical component of the Section to maintain. Over 50% of the respondents mentioned the web site as one of the most valuable aspects of the Section; 22% of the respondents would like to see the web page enhanced to provide better interconnectedness among Section members; 20% of the respondents mentioned the possibility of using the web site to post information about courses (e.g., syllabi, reading lists, etc.) that could be used by others to enhance their physiological ecology courses. Several respondents mentioned the need to expand Section activities at the national meetings to include small Section-sponsored workshops on education topics or experimental techniques.
How do we use this information?
1) It was no surprise that most of the respondents recognized the trend in physiological ecology toward divergent directionsup and down in scale. Russ and Gretchen have identified two questions that should be asked concerning this recognition. Is the trend detrimental to Section cohesiveness? Is there anything we can do about the trend?
2) Clearly, one of the priorities for the Section should be to further develop and stabilize financial support for the web site. This will continue to be one of our priorities and one that Russ will pass on to the next Section president.
3) We still have members interested in animal physiological ecology (albeit a diminishing interest). We should identify a strategy to foster this part of the Section and rebuild it. This is most likely to come through continued efforts to strengthen the organismic core of the Section. Toward that end, we would like to encourage symposium proposals for next years meeting that will emphasize connections between animal and plant physiological ecology.
4) There
is a need for Section-sponsored workshops, especially those focused
on pedagogic issues and specialized research techniques and approaches.
We will initiate discussions with ESA Central to see if we can get
something scheduled for next years Annual Meeting in Montreal.
At the Section Mixer this year, we would like to take a few minutes to allow for some discussion of these issues. Furthermore, we would like to encourage the formation of a couple of committees to explore the issues further. In particular, it might be good to have a few people noodling about issue No. 1 above, and maybe a couple of volunteers to organize a workshop for the Montreal meeting. We will gather information before the mixer on the feasibility of adding at least one workshop to the Montreal agenda.
Over the past year, we have continued our efforts to provide Student Travel Awards, and we have opened discussions on how to update our web site. Below we summarize our activities and decisions:
Student travel awards to the 2004 ESA meetings
The Plant Population Biology Section was able to award three student travel awards to the 2004 ESA Meetings in Portland, Oregon ($300 each). Funds for the awards come, in part, from the success of our Sections Silent Crafts Auction at the ESA meetings each year. These students will be recognized for their achievements at the Sections Business and Social Mixer on 2 August at the ESA meetings in Portland, Oregon. The award recipients are:
Amy Blair, Colorado State University: How to be a successful invader: the importance of genetic change in the invasion of a perennial plant (Silene latifolia).
Beth Lawrence, Oregon State University: Fitness effects of inbreeding and outbreeding on golden paintbrush (Castilleja levisecta): implications for recovery and reintroduction.
Leah Dudley, University of Missouri: Jack Sprat revisited: ecological niche partitioning in Salix glauca.
Updating the Sections web site
The mission
of the Plant Population Biology Section is to encourage research,
to promote collaboration and communication among a community of international
plant population ecologists, and to sponsor meetings for the communication
of results in all phases of plant population biology. To help meet
these goals, our Section hosts a web site. The primary goal of the
web site is to promote communication among Section members. The web
site originated in the late 1990s, and was handwritten by Gordon Fox
(University of South Florida).
Since the
construction of the web site, the Section has grown and the current
web site does not meet our goals. In particular, the current web site
is fairly static and text-oriented. For example, the site does not
have automated tools for updating directory information (thus Section
members cannot keep in contact), for archiving relevant history for
the Section (i.e., previous newsletters, sponsored symposia, student
travel winners, etc.), and for posting news and events (i.e., jobs,
new grant opportunities, undergraduate research opportunities, etc.).
In November
of 2003, the Plant Population Biology and Statistics Sections jointly
applied for an ESA Long-Range Planning Grant for funds to update both
of our Sections web sites. Unfortunately, the grant was not
funded. From the feedback we obtained, the awards committee felt that
updating web sites was not an activity that was substantial enough
to warrant an ESA Long-Range Planning Grant.
At our Business Meeting in August, our Section will further discuss the needs of the Section and the ways the web site can be updated to help meet those needs. We will also discuss other avenues of funding. At this point, we have identified the following updates that need to be made to the web site:
1) Redesign the graphics of the web sites to make them user friendly.
2) Develop automated tools for updating the following archival information: officer lists, symposia sponsored by the Section, e-mails, newsletters, graduate student award recipients, directory updates, job postings at all academic levels (faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate students), and funding opportunities. These automated update tools are essential to keep the web sites up to date and informative for Section members.
3) Move
the host of the web site to ESA from the University of Southern Florida.
To implement these updates, we will need to hire a web designer to create a platform (the same platform could be used by the Plant Population Biology and Statistics Sections). We expect that we could hire someone for $100/hr, which is cheap by the standards of this area. The design of the web page is complex, including several automated or semiautomated features. Programming and testing will likely take 50 hours; thus the total cost of updating the web site will be $5,000.
Crafts Silent Auction at the 2004 (Portland) ESA Meetings
Once again, our Section will host a Crafts Silent Auction Booth at the ESA Meetings. The bulk of the proceeds from the Booth go to funding Student Travel Awards to the ESA Meetings. All items auctioned off are donated to the Section by Section members as well as other individuals interested in supporting the Section.
Call for symposium proposals for the 2005 ESA Meeting
Each year, the Plant Population Biology Section is allowed to sponsor one symposium proposal. The theme of the 2005 ESA meeting is: Ecology at multiple scales. At our Annual Business Meeting and Mixer, we will discuss ideas for symposium proposals. Because our Section is only allowed to endorse one proposal, if there are multiple Section members with ideas in mind, we will have an open discussion on the different topic ideas (although sponsorship is not necessary for inclusion in the final program).
Business Meeting agenda for Portland
The 2004 Business Meeting and Mixer of the Plant Population Biology Section will be held on Monday, 2 August from 6:30 to 8:00 pm. The agenda for the meeting is as follows:
Current officers of the Plant Population Biology Section
Chair (20032004)
Rebecca Irwin
Department of Biological Sciences
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755
E-mail: Rebecca.E.Irwin@dartmouth.eduVice-Chair (20032004)
Randall Mitchell
Department of Biology
University of Akron
Akron, OH 44325-3908
E-mail: Rjm2@uakron.edu
Rebecca
E. Irwin Chair
Plant Population Biology Section
Revisit 2003 activities at ESA
The Rangeland Section was active at the 2003 ESA meeting. We sponsored a symposium that was well attended and we had a workshop/discussion following our mixer/business meeting.
2003
Symposium. Biogeochemistry of Grassland and Shrubland Ecosystems:
Local to Regional Linkages and Impacts of Land Use. Co-organizers:
Bob Nowak and Sam Fuhlendorf.
The primary focus of this symposium was on the effects of land use and land use change on biogeochemical cycles of grasslands and shrublands. Biogeochemical cycles are central to many components of global change and land management, including increases in greenhouse gases, land conversion, and nitrogen deposition. The speaker list included prominent scientists from diverse backgrounds; the session was well attended by a broad group of ecologists. Topics covered included (1) the global role of rangelands in biogeochemical cycles, (2) cycles of urban and livestock wastes, (3) the role of disturbance and invasive species, (4) dust redistributions, (5) carbon sequestration and land management, and (6) the impacts of woody plant increases on biogeochemical cycles.
2003 Workshop/Discussion: Strategies for Increasing the Relevance of Rangeland Ecological Research. Co-organizers: Jeff Herrick and Sam Fuhlendorf. This workshop focused on: (1) exploring opportunities for increasing the relevance of ecology to the management of grassland, shrubland, and savanna ecosystems, (2) defining strategies for increasing the ability of managers to apply the results of both basic and applied research in these ecosystems, and (3) considering options for collaboratively addressing each of the first two options together with the Society for Range Management. A good discussion led to several objectives that we have worked toward over the past year, including: (1) increasing opportunities for international participation in U.S. professional societies, (2) conducting joint symposia with other societies, and (3) encouraging ESA members to collect/report management-relevant data. Some of the resulting interactions with other societies are reported below.
ESA Rangeland Section at the Society for Range Management Meetings, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2530 January 2004
The ESA Rangeland Section sponsored a symposium and a workshop at the Society for Range Management meeting.
2004 Symposium: The Big Stuff That Matters. Cosponsored by Lori Hidinger and Carolyn Hull Sieg, this symposium focused on defining the important issues facing rangeland ecosystems. Topics included climate change, biodiversity, human population, and landscape fragmentation. There was considerable discussion following the symposium on future directions and positions that the SRM should take on these topics.
2004 Symposium/workshop: Is Rangeland Ecology Relevant? Research Needs for Rangeland Management Research Needs in the 21st century
Cosponsors were Sam Fuhlendorf, Bob Budd, and Jeff Herrick. Ecological research often falls short of true application. It is clear that the large gap between science and application is driven by limitations in research, limited understanding of ecological science by managers, and perhaps most important a lack of communication between scientists and managers. This workshop focused on continuing the discussion from the ESA meeting to determine how ESA and the Society for Range Management can work together to help resolve these problems. Issues that have contributed to the lack of application of rangeland ecology research include (1) public perception of terms such as ecology and rangeland, (2) reduced funding from USDA for applied ecological work, (3) lack of political clout for rangeland ecology, (4) no mechanism to make research results understandable to the general public, and (5) a need to develop a solid and broad ecosystem management approach. At the completion of the program it was determined that this discussion was important and should continue.
Plans for ESA Rangeland Section at 2004 meeting in Portland
The Rangeland Section will again be busy at the ESA meeting in Portland. Activities that are sponsored by the Rangeland Section or organized by members that represent our Section are listed below.
Ongoing activities
Web site
development: Section web site http://www.ag.unr.edu/esa/.
Rangeland forum web site (informal forum to post, describe, and discuss observations, data, and results). Section role: sponsor; lead contact: Bob Nowak nowak@scs.unr.edu
Society for Range Management, Annual Meeting, Fort Worth, Texas, 511 February 2005. We are currently planning a symposium and workshop that will be sponsored by the Rangeland Section of ESA.
Requests for evening session and symposium proposals for the 2005 Meeting in Montreal, Canada.
The Ecological
Society of America and the International Association for Ecology will
be holding a joint Annual meeting and International Congress in Montreal,
Canada, 712 August 2005.
The Calls
for Symposium Proposals and Organized Oral Session Proposals, as well
as information about the joint meeting, the theme, the Palais des
Congres (the Montreal Convention Center), and the city of Montreal
are included on the ESA meeting web site http://www.esa.org/montreal
The deadline for submission of proposals for Symposia and Organized
Oral Sessions is Wednesday, 15 September 2004 at 5:00 pm Eastern Daylight
Time. Submissions will then be peer reviewed and ranked prior to selection
by the ESA Program Chair, Paul Ringold, and INTECOL Program Chair,
Rebecca Sharitz.
The Rangeland Section typically submits a proposal for a symposium, so the membership should be considering potential topics that would fit with the theme at the Montreal meeting. Multiple topics can be proposed but the Section can only sponsor one symposium.
Sam Fuhlendorf,
Chair
Rangeland Section
At the 2003 Savannah, Georgia meeting, we made a transition to new leadership. This election was conducted by e-mail, since we anticipated a low turnout of Section members at this Annual Meeting. This change from our usual ballot at the business meeting was successful in that more votes were cast. The elections were close, reflecting the strength of all candidates.
Elected officers are:
Many thanks to our outgoing Section officers, Jayne Belnap (Chair), Jim Baxter (Vice Chair), and Sina Adl (Secretary) for their work over the past few years.
2004 Annual Meeting Symposium
We are
glad that one of the symposium proposal ideas that arose from discussion
during our 2003 Section meeting, and which we endorsed (along with
the Urban Ecosystem Ecology Section), was selected for the 2004 Annual
Meeting. The symposium is Digging Deeper or Scratching the Surface?
Exploring Ecological Theories in Urban Soils, and has been organized
by Mitch Pavao-Zukerman and Loren Byrne.
Two other symposium proposal ideas were hatched during our 2003 Section discussion, and we plan to revisit these as we develop proposals for the 2005 meeting in Montreal.
Student presentation competition/evaluation
Eight students
competed for the ESA Soil Ecology Sections student presentation
award at the 2003 Annual Meeting in Savannah, Georgia. The high overall
quality of these presentations is one indication of the valuable contributions
contemporary students are making to soil ecology, and to ecology in
general. A couple of noticeable trends are a shift toward evaluating
ecological paradigms in the context of soil habitats, soil organisms,
and soil processes, and a surge of studies in human-managed ecosystems.
Congratulations to Evan Preisser, a graduate student at the University
of California, Davis, who won the Soil Section student presentation
award for his talk, Climate affects predator control of herbivore
outbreaks.
Many thanks
to the 11 Soil Section members who generously participated in evaluating
student presentations! We greatly appreciate your service and solicit
your suggestions for improving the evaluation process in future years.
We also seek to increase student participation in this competition,
or to initiate alternative efforts that will promote student research
in soil ecology and reward them for their achievements.
We are still struggling with low student awareness of the Soil Ecology Section award, and we discussed how to remedy this once again at our Section meeting. Suggestions included placing Section awards on the registration form, or scanning abstracts for possible student talks. Faculty are encouraged to remind their students to submit their presentation for judging.
Soil Ecology Section web site
Gary Rachel gcrachel@uga.edu developed a prototype web site for the Section over the winter; it is accessible at http://www.esa.org/soilecology/index.htm In addition to the home page and information on Section governance, the site contains notices of upcoming meetings of interest, blurbs on past Section student awards, and funding sources. Additional material to be added includes links to useful web sites of interest to soil ecologists, new publications by Section members, and a discussion forum. Many thanks to Gary for this work.
What can the Soil Ecology Section do for you? enterprise
We are soliciting feedback from Section members to learn how we can better serve member interests and needs throughout the year, as well as at Annual Meetings. This will be a focus of discussion at our 2004 Section meeting.
Section finances
June 2003
balance = $1100.68
August 2003 Annual Meeting expenditures = $850 ($250 for student award,
$600 for mixer)
Member dues (estimated at $1090)
Balance, 31 March 2004 balance = $1340.68
August 2004 Annual Meeting expenditures (anticipated) = $607.41 ($250
for Student Award, $357.41 for mixer)
This years Section meeting follows our mixer, which begins at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, 4 August.
The Statistical
Ecology Section seeks to encourage research in statistical theory
and methodology applied to ecological problems; to sponsor forums
for presentation of advances in statistical ecology; and to facilitate
communication between the disciplines of statistics and ecology so
as to enhance statistical design and analysis in ecological research.
At the
2003 Annual Meeting the Section sponsored a symposium jointly with
the ISEMNorth American Chapter: Structural Equations,
Path Analysis, and Other Causal Models. The symposium was organized
by Sam Scheiner and included seven talks across a range of topics
in ecology and evolutionary biology. The session was well attended.
As a follow-up
to that symposium, at the 2004 Annual Meeting the Section is sponsoring
a workshop on An Overview of Structural Equation Modeling and
Path Analysis. The workshop is being organized by Jim Grace.
The Section gives an award for best oral presentation by a student, the E. C. Pielou Award. The award consists of a cash prize of $200 plus a book by Dr. Pielou. The winner at the 2003 meeting was Katia V. Koelle for her paper, Disentangling the roles of extrinsic and intrinsic factors in nonlinear disease dynamics. Ms. Koelle is currently a graduate student at the University of Michigan; her advisor is Mercedes Pascual.
The Student Section was formed in 2000 with three key goals:
1) To facilitate communications among all student members of ESA.
2) To enhance
interactions between students and the Society as a whole.
3) To provide a more formal way for students to communicate their
needs to the Society.
The Sections primary activities are focused around the Annual Meeting, although we have developed more of a year-round presence through assisting in regional student ecology conferences (SEEC, MEEC, NEEC).
Annual Meeting activities
Careers in Ecology Workshop: The Careers in Ecology Workshop has been an annual event cosponsored with the Education Section and ESA Headquarters since 2000. The session includes a panel of ecologists from academia, consulting, education, government, industry, and other fields describing work in their respective fields. The 2003 Careers Workshop was well attended, with >200 participants. In 2004, the workshop has shifted a bit; we are sponsoring a panel entitled, How to Succeed in Ecology: Advice From Current and Aspiring Eminent Ecologists. The panel, chiefly organized by Alan Wilson, Liz Harp, and Deron Burkepile, will feature a number of top ecologists discussing their career paths.
Student lounge: The student lounge has become a centerpiece of the Annual Meeting, providing students with a place to meet and relax, and engage in informal discussions. In 2004, the lounge will also serve as a meeting place for SEEDS students and potential mentors.
Breakfast with the Board: The Breakfast with the Board at each meeting provides an opportunity for students to visit with the Governing Board of ESA. These meetings are a great chance for students to be heard in their views on the Annual Meeting, and also to visit with eminent ecologists.
Student Mixer and Section Meeting: The mixer is an informal chance to meet students from around the country in a very informal setting. The Section meeting is a chance to conduct business, select leadership, and lay out plans for the coming year.
Symposium: The Section has successfully endorsed a student-organized symposium for this meeting, entitled: Disease Ecology and Declining Populations: Analyzing and Predicting Disease in Sensitive Populations, principally organized by Liz Harp.
Web site: The Student Section has continued to maintain its web site, http://www.esa.org/students/
Regional student meetings
There are more regional student meetings, and the ESA Student Section is trying to become more involved in those meetings. These include the ongoing MEEC (Midwestern Ecology and Evolution Conference), NEEC (Northeastern Ecology and Evolution Conference), and the newly organized (by Section secretary Alan Wilson) SEEC (Southeastern Ecology and Evolution Conference).
Brochure
To help promote student membership in the Section (in spite of record student participation in Annual Meetings, relatively few join the Section and even fewer participate), the Section is developing a membership and outreach brochure for distribution at this Annual Meeting and in subsequent conferences.
Future goals
Although
the Section has grown considerably in membership and activity since
its inception in 2000, there are a number of opportunities to expand
our work. We hope to continue the activities of the Annual Meeting.
We are also working with students to set up regional meetings and
symposia for ecology students and post-docs to present their research
and interact in a more informal setting.
The Traditional
Ecological Knowledge Section of ESA has experienced a good year in
the development of our new Section. Section programs have been well
attended and lively sessions. We have received strong feedback that
the presence of the TEK Section within the ESA organization has had
a positive influence on diversifying the participation in ESA. A number
of meeting participants from a wide array of ecological fields, including
tribal colleges, have commented that the existence of the TEK Section
has encouraged them to join ESA and contribute their energies to our
shared mission. We feel that there is a good synergy with the successful
activities of the SEEDS program, which has brought new faces and interests
to the ESA meetings, who then find that the TEK Section engages their
interest. We are looking forward to continuing building our membership
and continuing to sponsor thought-provoking programs.
Notable activities for the year include:
Election of Section Officers
TEK Section officers were officially elected by the membership. They are:
Annual meeting activities in Savannah
Symposium
proposal submitted: A committee put considerable time and energy
into creating a symposium proposal for the Portland meeting, based
on the topic chosen at last years TEK Section meeting: Ethical
Practice and Intellectual Property Rights. The competition for
the few symposium slots available was intense. Our proposal made it
through the first cut, but unfortunately was not selected. Plans are
underway for a proposal for next years meeting in Montreal,
to build upon the excellent TEK work of our Canadian colleagues.
TEK will have a significant presence at the Portland meeting including:
1) Opening Ceremonies with members of the Chinook community
2) Special Sense of Place session on Monday afternoon. The Program description appears below.
Sense of Place Special Session: A Sense of Place: Indigenous Homelands of the Pacific Northwest: The 2004 ESA meeting convenes within the ancestral homelands of Oregons first inhabitants. Most of us are strangers to this place. To indigenous people, a sense of place goes beyond natural history to encompass a biocultural landscape rich in story and meaning. This very special session opens our meetings with a welcome by representatives of the indigenous people of the region. Representatives of the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest have been invited to provide an introduction to a sense of place through a Native American perspective. Drawing on diverse experiences with Oregons rivers, forests, mountains and coast speakers will share their multifaceted understanding of these ecosystems, and traditional land management practices. Presenters incorporate traditional ecological knowledge as a foundation for addressing traditional land management practices and current ecological pressures. This session is sponsored by the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Section.
Evening
session (Monday): Columbia River Natives Encounter Lewis and
Clark: Two-hour discussion/slide show/basketry as a medium
for discussion of environment and culture with Pat
Courtney Gold. The event is described below.
Columbia
River natives encounter Lewis and Clark: This evening session
will feature Pat Courtney Gold (Wasco), a lineal descendent of one
of the tribes that hosted the Corps of Discovery, and a Lewis and
Clark scholar. She begins from the observation that Native peoples
occupied the regions traveled by Lewis and Clark for millennia, living
with and from indigenous plant and animal communities whose characteristics
and interrelationships were well understood. Cultural patterns and
perhaps the very structure of languages were formed in response to
diverse local environments. The arrival of the Corps of Discovery
with their foreign ways and unusual perspectives was of variable significance
among the different cultures, and in many places was no more remarkable
than contact with any other tribe.
Pat holds
a B.A. in mathematics and spent 5 years engaged in mathematical modeling
of air and watersheds before turning her attention back to baskets,
basketry, and the ecology of plants important to basketry. In the
Native way, a basket weaver must understand the plants, their habits
and habitats, and their relationship to rivers, including (in the
Northwest) salmon as an important item of trade as well as a source
of sustenance. Further, the weaver must have a clear understanding
of how all of these factors intertwine with culture. In recent years,
Pat has lectured widely on Wasco basketry as a material expression
of Wasco heritage and culture, and how pollution problems have impacted
native basketry plants and Native basket weavers. This work culminated
in a 2003 publication on the subject published by Harvards Peabody
Museum.
Most recently,
Pat has reflected in some depth and detail on the Lewis and Clark
Expedition, augmenting her understanding as a lineal descendant of
one of the host tribes with a close reading of the original journals
of Lewis and Clark. This year she organized a symposium series at
Maryhill Museum of Art (Goldendale, Washington) entitled Reflecting
on Lewis and Clark: Contemporary American Indian Viewpoints,
which featured artists and speakers from numerous tribes.
This 2-hour evening event will be evenly balanced between Pats
remarks illustrated by slides and artifacts (including examples from
her own basketry collection), and audience discussion.
1) An evening with Pacific Northwest Writers. Native writer Craig Leslie has been chosen as one of the honored participants.
2) The Fire Symposium will include a presentation by Dennis Martinez incorporating indigenous views on burning and traditional resource management.
3) Field Trips. Proposed field trips include a preconference trip to the Warm Springs Reserve to observe a restoration project using traditional burning to restore the red huckleberry, a culturally significant plant. Another preconference trip, The Columbia River Gorge then and now, will include perspectives of Wasco/Chinook peoples. A postconference trip on fire is planned to include Dennis Martinez on traditional burning.
4) TEK Section meeting and luncheon.
5) There will also be an array of student-centered SEEDS activities, including students and mentors from Tribal Colleges.
6) With support from the U.S. Forest Service and leadership of Kheryn Klubnikan, the TEK Section will host a round table listening session to gather ideas concerning appropriate processes for including native peoples in the research plan for the Forest Service White waters to blue waters watershed management plan for the Mississippi River basin. A reception, funded by the Oregon Nature Conservancy, will follow the round table.
Strategic planning grant received
The TEK Section applied for and was successful in receiving a grant from the Ecological Society to engage in the process of long-range strategic planning for the future of the Section. A planning retreat will be held in advance of the ESA meeting, 3031 July 2004, to more clearly define our shared goals and strategies for implementation. Eight Section members will participate. We appreciate the support for this opportunity to envision the activities on which we collectively want to spend our energies, including symposium planning, education, advocacy, outreach, workshops, and publications.
The Urban Ecosystem Ecology Section is now a year old, with 176 members. A meeting was held last year, but many of the ideas discussed involving Section business had to be deferred until the official Section membership and budget could be determined and given time to accrue. We will meet in Portland this year to elect officers, determine the content for a web site, and discuss ideas for Section initiatives. Together with the Soil Ecology Section we sponsored a successful symposium proposal, Digging Deeper or Scratching the Surface? Exploring Ecological Theories in Urban Soils, for the 2004 meeting of ESA in Portland. We congratulate and thank Mitch Pavao-Zuckerman (University of Arizona) and Loren Byrne (Pennsylvania State University) who organized this symposium.
Business
Meeting, Annual Meeting, Savannah, Georgia
The annual Business Meeting of the Vegetation Section was held Monday,
4 August 2003 during the 88th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society
of America in Savannah, Georgia. At that meeting Scott Collins became
Past Section Chair and Beverly Collins became Section Chair. Approximately
60 individuals attended the business meeting and mixer.
Issues before the Section: One issue was presented for discussion at the business meeting. This issue was whether or not the Section should change its bylaws to allow the Chair and Chair-Elect to serve for two years, rather than one year. To change the term of service would require a change in the Section Bylaws, which would require a vote of the Section membership. Discussion centered around procedures for voting on a change in Section Bylaws. It was decided that, in accordance with the Bylaws, the proposed change would be presented to the membership at least 60 days before the 2004 business meeting, and the issue would be voted on during the annual Business Meeting in Portland. The proposed change is presented briefly below.
Term limits: It was proposed that the term of Chair-Elect and Chair be changed from one year to two years. The purposes of changing the term of service of the Chair and Chair-Elect would be to (1) provide additional continuity for Section business from one year to the next, (2) provide the Chair and Chair-Elect an extended opportunity to discuss and potentially enact changes, if voted on by the members, (3) afford a longer period of time to promote Section activities, and (4) provide greater continuity of representation on the ESA Council. Some sections (e.g., Aquatic Section, Applied Ecology Section) currently elect officers for 2-year terms.
The Ton Damman Award in Vegetation Science
Thanks to the kindness and generosity of Loretta Johnson, an ecologist at Kansas State University, in 2003 the Vegetation Section of ESA announced the Ton Damman Award in Vegetation Science. This award will be given to a graduate student or very recent postgraduate scientist for the best oral presentation in Vegetation Science at the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America. Students competing for the Damman Award must meet all the criteria for ESAs Buell Award. The Ton Damman Award recognizes the lifetime dedication of Ton Damman to the advancement of Vegetation Science. A candidate for this award need not be a member of the Vegetation Section, but does need to be senior author of the abstract and give the oral presentation at the Annual Meeting. Rachel Collins was the first recipient of the Ton Damman award for her presentation, co-authored by Walter Carson, Do succession models predict the right pattern for the wrong reason: shade vs. herbivore tolerance? at the ESA Meeting in Savannah. The award will be presented to her at the annual business meeting in Portland.
Vegetation Section web site
A web site http://www.uga.edu/srel/esavegsec/ has been established for the Vegetation Section. The web site has information on the Sections mission, news and announcements, and activities. Students interested in the Ton Damman award can find information on eligibility requirements and application procedures.
The Mexico Chapter of the Ecological Society of America was established in April 2003. It held its first meeting on 6 August 2003. At this first gathering, the members agreed to pursue several activities before the 2004 Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon. Advances on these activities are described below.
An ESA Symposium for the 2004 Annual Meeting
Marisa Martínez, Patricia Balvanera, and Robert Manson organized the symposium entitled The Evolution of Ecology in Mexico: Research Challenges and the Role of MexicoU.S. Collaboration for the 2004 Annual Meeting. The Mexico Chapter sponsors this symposium. This symposium will cover the history of ecology as a science in Mexico, research collaboration in projects located both in the United States and Mexico, as well as future environmental challenges of ecology in Mexico. The organizers have confirmed all the speakers. The symposium will take place on Wednesday, 4 August, from 1:30 to 5:00 pm. The symposium will include some of the most prominent ecologists of Mexico (e.g., Jose Sarukhán, Gonzalo Halffter), who will be presenting their views on the history of Mexican ecology as well as their perspectives regarding some of the promising future directions of this field, with a particular emphasis on the possibilities for cooperation between Mexican and U.S. ecologists. In addition, the Chapter plans the symposium as an introduction to future activities. We take this opportunity to thank The Instituto de Ecología AC and its director, Daniel Piñero, for providing support for this symposium by covering the registration expenses of all the Mexican speakers. Member Marisa Martínez is to be thanked also for taking this initiative and making it happen.
Development of the directory of ESA´s Mexican Chapter
The Chapter Secretary, Renée González-Montagut, prepared a questionnaire for all members, which included their contact data and research interests. Members were also asked to recommend new people to be incorporated in the Chapter. These persons were contacted and asked to join our Chapter. The directory is posted in the Mexico Chapter web page and currently includes 49 members.
Development of a web site
Erick De la Barrera is the webmaster for the Chapter. The web page includes the minutes of the first meeting, the directory of the members, and the description of the symposium sponsored by the Chapter. The Mexico Chapter web page includes links to the ESA web site and other sites. It also posts job opportunities in Mexico. Erick, who has volunteered to continue doing this job, regularly updates the web site.
A cosponsored symposium (ESA Mexican ChapterBotanical Society of Mexico)
In this years annual meeting of the Botanical Society of Mexico (1822 October, in Oaxaca) one symposium, organized by Miguel Martínez-Ramos, is presented as a cosponsored activity of the Mexican Chapter. The symposium on tropical ecology will include a substantial participation of prominent ecologists from both Mexico and the U.S. All of the participants are members of both the Botanical Society and ESA. We hope to use this opportunity to promote the Chapter; we expect this symposium will be instrumental in triggering similar joint activities between both communities of ecologists. It is worth noting that there is not an ecological society in Mexico, and the Mexican Botanical Society is the best representation of Mexican (though largely botanically oriented) ecologists.
A thematic ESA Mexican Chapter Symposium in Mexico
Rodolfo Dirzo proposed to think about a possible theme for a symposium, which could attract a group of ecologists to meet next year in Mexico. Such a symposium would not require considerable funding if institutional support is available. It would be a good experience to eventually prepare for a future ESA Annual Meeting in Mexico. Themes and venue are being discussed, but the symposium is planned to take place in one of UNAM´s field stations; this should make it attractive for participants and also very inexpensive if a discount on station fees can be obtained. Rodolfo Dirzo has approached the directors of both stations to work out the possibilities for this.
A PowerPoint presentation on ESA and its Mexican Chapter
A PP presentation
is being developed, in Spanish, for members to use for whatever opportunities
they have, in order to promote ESA and its Mexican Chapter. It is
planned to have it ready for use during the Mexican Botanical Congress
in October.
Rodolfo Dirzo and Renee González
The Rocky
Mountain Chapter is still working to revitalize and diversify our
activities. The objectives of the Chapter are to encourage education
and research and to sponsor meetings for the communication of ecological
education and research activities of special interest to ecologists
in the Rocky Mountain Region of North America. To that end, the Chapter
continues to sponsor the Annual Front Range Student Ecology Symposium
at Colorado State University. The 10th symposium was held on 67
April 2004, and our chapter provided $500 of support. A full description
and schedule of events can be found at: http://lamar.colostate.edu/~ecosym/_Home.html
This year,
five colleges and universities from Colorado and four Colorado high
schools produced 31 oral presentations and 41 posters. Student, faculty,
and Federal scientist members of the ESA participate each year, and
are thus on hand to recruit and to learn from our next
generation of leaders in the field. Geneva Chong (Vice-Chair, 20012003)
agreed to serve as Chair (20032005) and Thomas J. Stohlgren
(Chair, 20012003) will serve as the Vice-Chair (20032005).
The positions of Secretary, currently Anna Schoettle (20022004),
and webmaster, currently Richard L. Boyce, (20022003), need
to be filled this year. We will have our annual meeting on Thursday,
5 August 2004 from 7:00 to 8:00 am in the Oregon Convention Center.
Continental breakfast will be served, and we will continue to explore
our revitalization efforts and opportunities.
For more information on the chapter: http://www.nku.edu/%7Eboycer/rmesa.html
The Chapter
held an informal brown bag lunch meeting at the ESA Annual Meeting
in Savannah, Georgia. Discussion at the lunch meeting focused on the
proposal to establish a student poster award for the best ecological
poster presented at the Association of Southeastern Biologists (ASB)
meeting. There was also discussion of potential symposia at the 2004
ASB and ESA meetings. The symposium: Ecological Forces and Land
Management Challenges for the Southeastern Landscape, organized
by Diane De Steven and Beverly Collins and endorsed by the Chapter,
was presented at the Savannah ESA meeting.
The Southeastern
Chapter held its annual meeting with the ASB in April in Memphis,
Tennessee. The Chapter cosponsored a symposium organized by Pat Parr
and Jack Ranney: Invasive Plant Awareness and Research: Priority
Status. The symposium was cosponsored by the Tennessee Exotic
Pest Plant Council. The Chapters Odum Award for 2004 was presented
to two recipients: Nicole M. Hughes of Appalachian State University
for her paper, Functional role of anthocyanins in high light
winter leaves of the evergreen herb, Galax urceolata
co-authored with Howard S. Neufeld; and Christopher Winne of Savannah
River Ecology Laboratory for his paper, Daily activity patterns
of whiptail lizards (Squamata: Teiidae: Aspidoscelis): a proximate
response to environmental conditions or an endogenous rhythm?
co-authored with Michael Keck.
The Chapter
held its annual business meeting in April. Elections were held for
the Chair and Secretary/Treasurer (20042006). Candidates were
James Luken (Coastal Carolina University) for Chair and Nicole Turrill
Welch (Middle Tennessee State University) for Secretary/Treasurer;
both were elected and will assume office in August. We voted on and
passed a bylaws amendment to establish the Quarterman-Keever award
for the best student poster in ecology presented at the annual ASB
meeting. The award honors Elsie Quarterman and Catherine Keever for
their contributions to ecology. Vice Chair Joan Walker will be leading
the fund-raising effort for this new award.
The Chapter
contributed $200 to the First Annual Southeastern Ecology and Evolution
Conference in March at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
Chapter newsletters have been published on the Chapters web site http://www.auburn.edu/seesa/ and in the ESA Bulletin. Announcements, meeting minutes, notes, and other information for the Chapter have been added periodically to our web site.
Paul A. Schmalzer, Chair
Departments|
Note: Harold
Ornes is the editor of Ecology 101. Anyone wishing to contribute articles
or reviews to this section should contact him at the Office of the
Dean, College of Science, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT
84720; (435) 586-7921; fax (435) 865-8550;
E-mail: ornes@suu.edu The following article was submitted by Nancy Stamp, Professor of Biology at Binghamton University, SUNY. Although every ecology course mentions plantanimal interactions, I think you will find Professor Stamps information especially timely and informative. Warning: Consumption of information in this article may result in students becoming excited about plants! MISCONCEPTIONS
ABOUT PLANTHERBIVORE INTERACTIONS, ESPECIALLY PLANT DEFENSES
Many people have some fundamental misconceptions about plants and
herbivores. This is not surprising given that for most people their
experience is limited to eating domesticated plants, which are far
more edible than the wild relatives (i.e., cultivars are bred for
good taste and digestibility, and so have far lower levels
of toxins [Johns 1996, Schoonhoven et al. 1998]). Here is a typical
example of a misconception about plants and herbivores. During a supper
conversation with five renowned faculty in languages and culture from
universities in North America, I discovered that none of these scholars
realized that spices reflected plants defending themselves against
herbivores. They thought spices were just substances that plants produced,
perhaps with a function or not. The idea that plants might defend
themselves was surprising to them. After all, we humans like spices
in our food and certainly arent deterred by spices. And that
is why this is a misconception; peoples personal experience
runs counter to the concept, and so they tend to retain the misconception.
The term misconception in science education refers to
people thinking that they understand a concept, i.e., they have a
prior, intuitive, or alternative explanation for a phenomenon, but
their understanding is fundamentally incorrect (CUSE 1997, DAvanzo
2003). Many studies have been done with people of all ages to assess
their misconceptions about one of the sciences physics, chemistry,
evolution, physiology (e.g., Peters 1982, Lawson and Thompson 1988,
Zoller 1990, Wandersee et al. 1994), but there are relatively few
studies that address misconceptions in ecology (but see Munson 1994).
Here is an example of why a misconception about plant defenses can
pose a problem. Because of the active chemicals present, plant material is often
used in dietary supplements and health remedies
as well as for spices. This has become big business. For
instance, the American Spice Trade Association reported a 20% increase
in use of spices in the 1990s (Harris 2001). A survey of Canadians
reported that two-thirds thought herbal supplements could be as effective
as prescriptive drugs in treating health problems (PRN 1999). But
used indiscriminately, in large amounts or in combination with other
chemicals, these plant chemicals can be harmful. An example is ephedra
(common name for a marketed material from Ephedra sinica).
It contains natural ephedrine alkaloids and is used for weight loss
and enhancement of sports performance (USFDA 2003a). It affects the
respiratory and circulatory systems, and in combination with stimulants,
such as caffeine, its effects are enhanced and have been linked to
various health problems and even death (Dharmananda 2000, USFDA 2003a).
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued warnings about use
of ephedra. But manufacturers do not have to prove product safety
of plant material prior to marketing; the government has to prove
its case of significant risk of illness once the product
is on the market and that may take years (USFDA 2003a). Another example is the problem of people taking certain oral medications (e.g., cholesterol-lowering agents and calcium-channel blockers used for circulatory problems) with grapefruit juice, which has furanocoumarins that bind with cytochrome P450 enyzmes in the small intestine, so the dosage absorbed into the blood stream is actually too high (i.e., the prescribed dosage takes into account that some will be bound by the enzyme and so not be active) (Greenblatt et al. 2001). Other examples of common herbal supplements that have risks when taken with prescriptive drugs are ginkgo biloba and St. Johns-wort, again because plant defensive chemicals can enhance or interfere with medication (USFDA 2003b). As use of medical drugs has increased greatly in the last 25 years, especially among the elderly in developed countries, so has use of herbal remedies along with the other drugs, which increases the concern about herb and drug interactions (Dharmananda 2000, USFDA 2003b). Concept of plant defenses counterintuitive for modern humans While huntergatherer societies and humans in early civilization
knew of and used plants as medicines, modern humans in developed
countries live in a world of synthetic and packaged medicines and
so are largely ignorant of those uses. Therefore, the concept of plant
defenses is not intuitive for modern-day humans. If people understood
that plants have evolved toxins in the process of protecting themselves,
they might have more appreciation for the potential danger of imbibing
these substances, especially in large quantities or with other substances.
Curiously, while books on food history discuss at length the use
and culture of spices, they typically say little or nothing about
why plants have toxins, the key ingredients of spices (e.g., see McGee
1984:212, Tannahill 1988, Fernandez-Armesto 2002). Such books tend
to give relatively few examples of plant chemicals as toxins, or they
present examples in the context of special cases, so people are likely
to get the impression that relatively few plants have chemical toxins.
Even in books about peppers (Capsicum), which are well known
for their hot taste, mention of plant defense is slight
and so embedded that a reader may easily miss that point (e.g., Naj
1992:48 and 223). Books about herbal medicines also tend not to indicate
why plants would have such chemically active substances (e.g., Tierra
1998). The domestication of plants used by humans required some adjustment
to plant chemical and/or morphological defenses (e.g., pickling or
salt-curing olives; breeding tomato fruits for palatability; pounding,
soaking, and cooking manioc), or the amounts imbibed were small enough
simply to enhance taste (e.g., spices, coffee, tea, cocoa) or provide
medication (e.g., chamomile, Echinacea, ginkgo). The
discovery that these naturally toxic plants [e.g., wild potato, taro
and cassava] could be worth cultivating and transforming into food
is another of the miracles of primitive agronomy, and
another of the unsolved mysteries of the early history of farming.
(Fernandez-Armesto 2002:100). Cooking was a key component in this transformation because it destroys
the poisons in some plants, but how early humans discovered that is
unknown (Leopold and Ardrey 1972). What is known is that hearths (and
so presumably cooking) were not common until about 40,000 years ago.
The invention of cooking is a cultural phenomenon that facilitated
adaptive radiation ecologically of humans around the Earth. It also
set the stage for the invention of agriculture (e.g., the nutritive
value of grain becomes available by cooking) (Fernandez-Armesto 2002).
Survey indicated misconceptions A survey of 227 college students at Binghamton University supported
the idea that people tend to have misconceptions about plant defenses.
While 35% of the students surveyed said caffeine in coffee is a poison
that protects coffee plants from many animals that would eat them,
29% said caffeine was present because the plants needed it for their
own metabolism, 20% thought it was a waste product of plant metabolism
with no function, and 15% thought it was due to plant-breeding by
humans for that trait (and not recognizing that the trait has to exist
before there can be selection for it). In other words, two-thirds
of the students are missing the point that caffeine is a poison that
has a role in protecting plants from herbivores, and they also apparently
dont have a basic understanding of plant metabolism or plant-breeding. Related to the issue of plant defense are these concepts: (1) plants can defend themselves against herbivores, (2) aside from the toxic plant defenses, herbivores also contend with poorer quality food than do carnivores, (3) reflecting the diversity of plant defenses, insect herbivores specialize on a small set of plant species, and (4) plants have internal mechanisms to fight specific pathogens. The survey of college students indicated that only 32% thought plants could defend themselves. Many people think plants are at the mercy of herbivores. This is not surprising since most people only eat plant matter that is relatively high in protein (e.g., grains) and digestibility (e.g., fruits, seeds, young leaves). Only 11% of the students realized that animals eating leaves contend with poorer quality food than animals eating animal tissue. Plant tissue has relatively low concentration of nitrogen and high concentration of indigestible material (Schoonhoven et al. 1998). This concept is central to understanding the low ecological efficiency in transfer of energy across trophic levels, and thus, energy flow in ecosystems and how that contributes to plantherbivore interactions. The student survey indicated that 52% did not realize that most insect herbivores specialize on a relatively small set of plant species. Many people think that the typical insect herbivore is like the gypsy moth; that is, they think that when the population builds up, the insects eat a lot of whatever plants are available (but even gypsy moths do not eat whatever plants are available). The student survey showed that 40% thought that plants cannot respond defensively to specific pathogens. Many people think that only animals (or mammals) can respond specifically to pathogens. Plants do not have an immune system with circulating cells, but the signal (gene products) and receptor mechanisms in the inducible defensive system of plants are as complex and sophisticated as the signaling mechanisms in animals (Ryan and Jagendorf 1995). Furthermore, the structural and functional similarities between plant and mammalian defense responses suggest that these responses may be inherited from a common ancestor (Baker et al. 1997). How to address misconceptions about the plantherbivore interaction The research on misconceptions shows that people tend to retain their
misconceptions, unless mentally forced to reject them and reconstruct
the current or modern conceptual views (Lawson and Thompson 1988,
Novak and Musonda 1993, Chinn and Brewer 1998). Textbooks and traditional
lecture-hall classes seldom provide the mental head-on collision necessary
to force people to rethink their views (Smith et al. 1993). For example,
studies show that students tend to memorize information sufficiently
to pass tests, but still retain their misconceptions (Smith et al.
1993). After identifying misconceptions, the next step is to challenge them
via engaging and/or discrepant events (Nussbaum and Novak
1982). It is somewhat easier to challenge misconceptions with laboratory
exercises and small group discussions (Posner et al. 1982, Smith et
al. 1993), so how can we address misconceptions in large-enrollment
courses and via textbooks? An obvious hook is students
interest in human health (e.g., diet, foods, disease, medicine). Presently,
ecology textbooks say little about plant defenses as a source of drugs
and spices. A survey that I did of ecology textbooks published between
1993 and 2003 (n = 27, which included re-editions) showed that only
59% mentioned that these chemicals can be a source of drugs and 22%
mentioned the relationship between plant chemical defenses and spices.
Furthermore, the textbook statements did little to engage students
and nothing to help students understand that the diversity of plants
is not simply a morphological phenomenon in response to abiotic conditions,
but also a chemical phenomenon largely due to selective pressure of
herbivores and pathogens. Here is a simple example of engagement. Of all illustrations
that I show in my ecology course, spiders on drugs is
the one that students invariably remember after the course. It shows
the results of a NASA study contrasting the web of a spider without
caffeine (a normal web) vs. an erratically constructed web with lots
of gaping holes made by a spider given caffeine (not that spiders
eat coffee plants, but they might eat insects eating coffee plants)
(Noever et al. 1995). It gets across the idea that caffeine is actually
a poison that can have detrimental effects on other, especially small,
animals. It just so happens that we humans are rather tolerant physiologically
of caffeine (Hollingsworth et al. 2002), so students personal
experience runs counter to this, and that is why this effect on spiders
surprises them, and thus engages them to think about or
rethink what such substances are doing in plants. Here is a more complex example, which uses story-telling to engage students (Wilson 2002), and it works best if questions are posed throughout. Since most wild plants contain secondary metabolites that make nutrients unavailable to herbivores, make the plant taste nasty, and/or make an animal sick, how did early humans discover ways to get around these plant defenses and begin the process of domestication of plants, in particular herbaceous plants? It has been well documented that both primates and some human societies deliberately eat dirt (geophagy) that contains no nutrients (Johns 1996). Adding clay (e.g., with a high level of kaolin, the active ingredient in the antidiarrheal Kaopectate), to plant matter containing toxins can result in the clay binding with the plant toxins (Vermeer and Ferrell 1985, Johns 1986). For instance, Native Americans in both South and North America added clay to wild potatoes (skin contains solanine, a glycoalkaloid) and in California to acorns (which contain tannins) (Johns 1996). Importantly, geophagy may be the first detoxification technique that humans used, since it has been reported for several species of primates (Johns 1996). Many other engaging discrepant event stories are available about the relationship of plant defenses, human diet, and the invention of agriculture. One study listed 216 plant species from 65 families for which detoxification techniques were used by humans to make the material palatable (Johns and Kubo 1988). Clearly detoxification of plant matter physically and/or genetically has played a very important role in the evolution and success of modern humans. Such stories help students, especially in developed countries where
most people depend on medicines dispensed as pills and have little
experience with agriculture or gardening, to discover the intimate
but contentious relationship that herbivores have with plants. In summary, people often have misconceptions about plants and herbivores, in particular about plant defenses. That people have these misconceptions should be of concern to us. Much more effort needs to be put into identifying these misconceptions and directly challenging them in every mode of instruction, but especially in textbooks and large classes, because this is where we have the most contact with the public. it is not enough to teach scientific conceptions. Teachers must also unteach naïve misconceptions. (Lawson and Thompson 1988:745). Acknowledgments I thank Jeff Bohner, Mike Armstrong, and Tracy Armstrong for comments on the manuscript, Andrew Telesca for surveying his sophomore astronomy class, and Ellen Simms for the opportunity to discuss some of these ideas at a Gordon Conference on PlantHerbivore Interactions. This work was supported in part by National Science Foundation grants DUE-0226897 and GK12-0086375. Literature cited Baker, B., P. Zambryski, B. Staskawicz, and S. P. Dinesh-Kumar. 1997.
Signaling in plantmicrobe interactions. Science 276:726733. Nancy Stamp Back to Table of Contents |
MeetingsMesopotamian
Marshes and Modern Development:
Practical Approaches for Sustaining Restored Ecological and Cultural Landscapes
|
The conference will be held at the Harvard Design School on 2830
October 2004. A photographic exhibition will appear at Harvard University
starting on 20 October, and preconference discussion panels will
be held in New York City on 26 October and in Cambridge, Massachusetts
on 27 October. The Mesopotamian marshes of southern Iraq, thought by some to be
the original Garden of Eden, once provided habitat for millions
of migrating birds and were inhabited since the time of the Sumerians
by thousands of people living on artificial islands of mud and reeds
and depending on sustainable fishing and farming. Since the early
1990s, a series of water manipulations have devastated this ecologically
and culturally crucial region, leading to one of the most severe
ecocides in history. The challenge is to creatively
design and sustain an environmental restoration endeavor that will
allow both for the preservation of traditional lifestyles and for
modern development.Previous conferences have examined the feasibility
of restoration efforts and the expected products that might ensue.
The present conference will instead focus on practical approaches
for sustaining the process of those restoration efforts, both during
and after the reparation work. |
Furthermore, where other conferences have focused primarily on
either the natural or the cultural aspects of restoration, but not
on both, we recognize that by its very concept and application,
restoration blurs the lines between what is natural
and what is cultural. We hope to offer possible solutions
to the sustainable development, both ecological and economic, of
the restored Mesopotamian marshlands. The conference is hosted by The Harvard Design School Center for
Technology and Environment, the Harvard University Center for the
Environment, the Center for International Development at Harvard
University Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard Design
School Department of Landscape Architecture. It is cosponsored by
Applied Ecological Services, the Canadian International Development
Agency, CH2M HILL, Dharma Living Systems, Design Workshop, Ducks
Unlimited, Iraq Foundation-Eden Again Project, Jones and Jones,
Michael Baker Corporation, Montgomery Watson Harza, and North American
Wetland Engineering, United States Agency for International Development. For further information, contact: www.gsd.harvard.edu/mesomarshes |
13th Biennial Southern Silvicultural Research Conference
| General information
The 13th BSSRC is co-hosted by Mississippi State University, Department of Forestry, and the USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station; it will be held 28 February4 March 2005 at the Hilton Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee (1-800-445-8667). A block of rooms has been reserved at $81 per night. Please support the conference by registering at the conference hotel no later than 29 January 2005. Purpose This conference is the latest in a series of meetings designed
to provide a forum for (1) the exchange of research information
among silviculturists and researchers in related areas, (2) research
coordination, (3) review of research in progress, and (4) new approaches
or techniques of general interest. The conference consists of an
introductory address, poster session with food and cash bar,
concurrent sessions on 1 and 2 March, and optional field trips on
3 March. |
Concurrent sessions will address a range of issues including pine
and hardwood nursery technology, natural and artificial regeneration,
silviculture, vegetation management, growth and yield, forest nutrition,
forest health, wildlife, water quality, and prescribed burning.
The field trips are excellent opportunities to see ongoing research
and management in the region. Attendance will be limited to 400
people. Register early and check the web site to see if space is
available. For special needs, accommodations, or general information contact: Kristina Connor |
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ESA Paul L. Ringold |
INTECOL Rebecca R. Sharitz |
The
2005 ESA~INTECOL scientific program sessions will be held at the
Palais de Congrès de Montréal - a spacious modern
convention center. A variety of lodging accommodations from full-service
hotels, economy hotels, pensions and university residence housing
will be available through the conference housing bureau.
Montréal
is one of the world's most international and captivating locations
with spacious parks, quaint historic districts, renowned cuisine,
ethnic and cultural diversity, exceptional shopping and a good
infrastructure of surface, air and rail transportation. Montréal
and the surrounding Québec landscape combine to make this
an ESA~INTECOL meeting you will definitely want to attend.
Important Dates
Accepting proposals
for symposia and organized oral sessions: June 1 - September 15,
2004
Accepting proposals for workshop, evening, discussions and special
sessions: September 20 - December 1, 2004
Accepting abstracts for contributed oral presentations and posters:
November 15, 2004 - March, 1, 2005 2005
Meeting
Registration will open early May, 2005
Deadline for Early Bird Registration: June 16, 2005
Proposal Submission
To obtain future information on program development, registration
and lodging, please visit the websites of the Ecological Society
of America (http://www.esa.org/)
and of the International Association for Ecology (http://www.intecol.net/).
ContributionsA History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 14: Plant Growth Studies in the 1600s
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.In Part 13 we saw that Francis Bacon grew a few plants in water
and discovered that some grew faster in it than in soil, from which
he concluded: for nourishment the water is almost all in all,
and that the earth doth but keep the plant upright, and save it
from over-heat and over-cold (Bacon 18571874, Volume
2: 478479; Egerton 2004). Later investigators read this in
his Sylva Sylvarum (1627), which may have stimulated their
own experiments, though his was not the only discussion of plant
growth. There is an ancient Christian work of uncertain authorship known as pseudo-Clements Recognitions, translated from Greek into Latin by Rufinus of Aquileia soon after AD 400, that is a dialogue between a skeptical father and his Christian sons. Within this context, various questions about nature were discussed, such as Does not the rebirth of seed from earth and water and its growth into plants for the use of man sufficiently demonstrate the workings of the providence of God? (translated by Howe 1965:409). One of the skeptics son then answers his own question: When they are sown, the earth, by the divine will, pours out upon these seeds the water it has received, as if it were milk from the breast. Any doubting Thomases can see this for themselves (Howe 1965:410):
This seems to have been only a hypothetical experiment, as there
is no statement that it was actually performed. In the late Middle Ages there was a perceptive churchman (a Cardinal) with a serious interest in science, Nicolaus Krebs of Cusa (14011464; Hofmann 1971), who in 1450 wrote Idiotae, dialogus IIII (The Idiot in Four Books) in the same spirit as pseudo-Clements Recognition, which he likely had read (Howe 1965:411). In Book IV, Of Statick Experiments, he argued that some things cannot be determined by reasoning and logic, but require experiment and measurement. The existence of God was now taken for granted, but a question that interested the Idiot and his Oratour was how to understand the elements. The Oratour asked: There is a saying that no pure Element is to be given, how is this provd by the Balance? (Nicolaus Cusanus 1650:188, quoted in Hoff 1964:107). The Idiot replied (Nicolaus Cusanus 1650:188189, in Hoff 1964:108):
There is no indication that Nicolaus Krebs of Cusa performed the
experiment either, though he improved it by recommending that one
weigh the seeds before planting and burn the vegetation at the end
of the experiment to determine its dry weight. The Idiot was widely read as late as the mid-1600s, when a physician-scientist, Johannes Baptista van Helmont (15791644), did perform the experiment. He was as devout a Catholic as Galileo was, and like Galileo, van Helmont was condemned for his writings. In his case, the condemnation was by his own university, in Louvain (1623 and 16331634), and by the Catholic Inquisition (1625) for a book he had written in 1621 on healing wounds with magnets (Pagel 1972:254, López Piñero 2000:290). He was placed under house arrest in 1634 (a year after Galileo) and remained under an ecclesiastical cloud until 1642. |
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Fig. 1. Portraits of J.B. van Helmont and F.M. van Helmont (Ihde 1964:28). |
Although he coined the word gas and tried
to distinguish different kinds, he also defended Nicolaus idea
(which actually goes back to Thales in antiquity) that water is a
universal element and other substances are modifications of it. After
his encounter with the Inquisition, he did not publish his other writings
on science and medicine, and only after he died did his son Franciscus
Mercurius van Helmont publish his Ortus Medicinae in 1648.
The account of van Helmonts plant growth experiment attracted
much interest because it was a real, not merely a hypothetical experiment
(van Helmont 1662:109, in both Hoff 1964:110 and Krikorian and Steward
1968:286287):
It seems ironic that he who distinguished gases from air did not
notice that his willow was in contact not just with dirt and water
but also air, from which it might also have absorbed substance.
His younger contemporary, René Descartes (15961650),
published his Discours de la méthode (1637), on how
to do science, in time for van Helmont to have pondered his four
rules, the fourth of which was to make enumerations so complete
and reviews so general that I should be certain of having omitted
nothing (Descartes 1911:92), but in this case, van Helmont
failed to follow rule 4 (not that Descartes always followed his
own rules either). If van Helmont had followed rule 4, he might
have itemized air as a potentially relevant factor. Of course, he
might have reasoned instead that since everything comes from water,
and he was already allowing for the plant to absorb water, that
air need not be considered; but if this was his thought, most likely
he would have said so. Van Helmonts Ortus Medicinae had already attracted interest in England before it was translated in 1662. Isaac Walton discussed the willow growth experiment in The Compleat Angler (1653; quoted from second edition (1655:3132 in Webster 1966:99) and it seems likely that Thomas Browne read the works of both Van Helmont and Walton. Webster (1966:102) claimed that The first exhaustive study of the efficacy of water as a plant nutriment was made by Sir Thomas Browne (16051682). However, neither the passage he quotes from Garden of Cyrus (1658; 1964, Volume 1:217) nor Brownes botanical notes that remained unpublished until 1929 contain any quantitative data, unless one considers this note quantitative (Browne 1964, Volume 3:393):
Websters claim seems overly flattering to Browne. In 1658 plant growth attracted the interest of two colleagues at Oxford University, Robert Boyle (16271691) and Robert Sharrock (16301684). Sharrock published The Propagation and Improvement of Vegetables by the Concurrence of Art and Nature in 1660, a year before Boyle published Sceptical Chymist. Sharrock wanted to verify Bacons claims in Sylva Sylvarum, and he decided to test a wide range of species growing just in water (Arber 1960, Clowes 1975). He placed small shoots without roots in vials of water and found that at least 24 species sprouted roots and 17 did not; a few of the rooted species died shortly after sprouting roots. He weighed the surviving plants and published his data on their increase over a stated period of time. He also found that in jointed stems the adventitious roots arose from the nodes, while in non-jointed shoots they appeared from beneath axillary buds (Websters words, 1966:104105). Sharrock dedicated his book to Boyle, and since Boyle observed some of his experiments, he may have aroused Boyles interest in plant growth. |
Fig. 2. Robert Boyle (Ihde 1964:28).
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Boyle indicated in Sceptical Chymist that he began his own
experiments before he knew of van Helmonts work and that he
might not have bothered if he had read his book beforehand (Nash 1957:331,
Krikorian and Steward 1968:289). Boyle was an active experimenter
(Hall 1970, Davis 2000, Hunter 2000), but in this case he entrusted
the experiment to his gardener when he was not even at home. Websters
conclusion on Boyle is more equivocal than on Browne (1966:107):
Although Boyle was a highly respected experimental scientist, he did not have the last word on the subject in his own century. John Woodward (16651728) was a London physician, professor at Gresham College, and a member of the Royal Society of London (Eyles 1976, Levine 1977). He read what Bacon, Helmont, and Boyle wrote about water being the source of plant growth with skepticism and decided to conduct his own experiments. He was skeptical of both the experiments growing plants in d |