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Student and Post-Doc Travel Grants - International Biogeography Society

The International Biogeography Society is awarding travel grants for students and post-docs to attend the 2009 biennial meeting, which will be held January 8-12, 2009 in Merida, Mexico. The U.S. National Science Foundation has provided a large grant to IBS that will pay for several dozen young scientists from U.S.-based institutions to attend the meeting. Applicants awarded these grants will still need to pay meeting registration costs, but most other expenses, such as airfare, hotel costs, and food, will be supported =96 up to a maximum of $1,300 per award recipient. IBS will also provide a limited number of travel grants for students based outside the U.S. These grants will award a maximum of $800 per award participant. All grants will be awarded to graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and post-docs giving oral or poster presentations at the meeting.

Each applicant will need to submit an application along with an electronic letter of recommendation from a non-student member of IBS. Application instructions can be found here.

Applications and supporting materials are due by October 31st, 2008. Grant recipients will be notified by November 15th, 2008.

Please contact Matt Heard with any questions.

Matthew Heard
Brown University
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Box G-W
Providence, RI 02912
heard.m(at)gmail.com
401-863-2789
heard.m.googlepages.com

Dear Biogeographers:

The International Biogeography Society is "moving into high gear" to get ready for the 4th IBS meeting in January of 2009 in Merida, Mexico. For more information you can check our new website (http://www.biogeography.org/). Please note that the registration fee is reasonable and includes lunch and the banquet.

We have four ½-day symposia planned: 1) Patterns & Processes in Biotic Exchange, 2) The Biogeography of Disease, 3) Asian & American Disjuncts, and 4) The Biogeography of Extinction. Poster sessions are an important part of our meeting and we invite posters that cover all areas of biogeography. We also have three popular Workshops: Visualizing Evolution, Spatial Analysis, and Communicating Biogeography.

Check out the website for more information on all of these. And there are some exciting new developments to look for as well:

First I am pleased to announce that Carsten Rahbek and the board of the Nordic Ecological Society (NES; Ecography) have agreed to sponsor one of our symposia, "The Biogeography of Extinction". Having such sponsorship is critical to keeping the costs of the meeting reasonable. In addition, invited speakers for all symposia will be offered the opportunity to submit a paper to a special issue of Ecography. Collaboration between IBS and NES should help both societies. In addition, this idea fits in well with one of the current goals of IBS: seeking to broaden the awareness of our society and to increase collaboration with other likeminded societies and journals. I would like to thank Carsten Rahbek along with Miguel Araújo and Jack Williams for originating the proposal for potential sponsorship and to NES for approving it.

Second, for the first time the presentations in the symposia are of varying length and involve IBS members from different stages of their career.

Third, this meeting will have, also for the first time, ½ day of concurrent sessions of contributed (oral) short papers. Anyone submitting a poster abstract can ask that it be considered for one of
these sessions; a committee has been set up to evaluate the submitted abstracts and select the ones that will be asked to present a short paper (15 min).

Fourth, IBS has been successful in acquiring funds that can be used to help support travel costs for students. Details of these awards and application material will be posted on the IBS website by October 1. Thanks to Jack Williams, George Stevens, Mike Dawson, and Dov Sax for their help with this effort.

Finally, there will be awards presented at the business meeting for the best posters. Our local host for the meeting is Ella Vazquez from UNAM, our Vice President for Conferences is Dave Hafner, and Lois Alexander is our web master: without a large commitment of time from all of these members this meeting would not be possible.

I will conclude by asking you to please consider sponsoring a graduate student so that we continue to attract the young members of our society to our meeting. I encourage you to register now; we are operating on a first come first served basis for all attendees and posters.

See you in Merida!

Vicki Funk, President of IBS

P.S. The link has been re-established and you may now access the journals on line again (thanks Rob and Lois)!

Registrations for the Merida meeting now open!!

Your IBS Board and specifically Ella Vazquez-Dominguez and the Local Committee at the Instituto de Ecologia, Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico D.F. invite you to plan ahead now to attend the 2009 biennial meetings of the IBS in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico from 8 to 12 January 2009.

Meeting registration and abstract submission are now available on the following website: http://www.biogeography.org/html/Meetings/index.html

Hotel reservations should be done through InterMeeting, a professional company in charge of the organization of the IBS Meeting. In order to do the reservation, please complete the Hotel Reservation Form available on the meeting webpage and send it by fax (+52 55) 5663-0035) or email.

Merida is in the midst of cultural, natural, historical, and geological riches. The beautiful colonial "White City" was founded in January 1542 on the ruins of the Mayan city of T'ho, and is only 120 km from the archeological wonders of Chichen Itza.

The center of the Chicxulub Crater, formed from an asteroid impact 65 mya and implicated in the K-T extinctions, is located 20 km outside of Merida (in the pueblo of Chicxulub).

Several biosphere reserves are within easy distance of Merida (e.g., Celestun and Ria Lagarto Biosphere Reserves). Check out these and other enchanting features of Merida on the web (e.g., http://www.visitmexico.com/wb/Visitmexico/Visi_Merida).

Climate should be ideal in January, and we're planning field trips to explore the natural and archeological wealth of the region.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone in January!

IBS 2009 - First announcement

Your IBS Board and specifically Ella Vázquez-Domínguez and the Local Committee at the Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Autónoma de México, México D.F. invite you to plan ahead now to attend the 2009 biennial meetings of the IBS in Mérida, Yucatán, México from 8 to 12 January 2009.

Mérida is in the midst of cultural, natural, historical, and geological riches. The beautiful colonial “White City” was founded in January 1542 on the ruins of the Mayan city of T’ho, and is only 120 km from the archeological wonders of Chichén Itzá. The center of the Chicxulub Crater, formed from an asteroid impact 65 mya and implicated in the K-T extinctions, is located 20 km outside of Mérida (in the pueblo of Chicxulub). Several biosphere reserves are within easy distance of Mérida (e.g., Celestun and Ría Lagarto Biosphere Reserves). Check out these and other enchanting features of Mérida on the web.

Climate should be ideal in January, and we’re planning field trips to explore the natural and archeological wealth of the region.

Your enthusiastic response to our survey about our biennial meetings told us what you most liked about our meetings and what needed improvement. The respondents also gave us clear directives on how we might improve upon them. Specifically, the membership particularly valued the personal, intimate nature of our meetings that encourages interaction and cross-discipline discussion. At the same time, members wanted increased opportunities for oral presentations, particularly for up-and-coming researchers and advanced graduate students; increased, dedicated opportunities for group discussions; longer time and increased space to view posters; and increased involvement of paleontologists, geographers, and geologists. The survey results offered specific means to these ends, and we are most grateful for this input. As a result of your comments we have altered the format of the meeting; we hope you like the results.

Board considerations for the Mérida meetings fall into three general categories: 1) format of symposia; 2) topics of symposia; and 3) limits on meeting size. We’re planning to experiment with several different symposium formats that will include that of previous meeting symposia; one that includes selected contributed papers; and we’ve agreed (after extensive debate) to experiment with ½-day of no more than 3 concurrent sessions. By creatively selecting concurrent session topics, we hope to avoid the typical effect of segregating participants by discipline.

We’re looking for symposium topics that will continue and enhance our success of involving biogeographers from diverse disciplines, intrigue those underrepresented sciences (e.g., paleo, geography, and geology) and the general public, and also be most pertinent to the regional setting. We’re currently considering the following topics for four symposia: Environmental Change and Ecological Collapse; K-T Boundary extinctions; Diversification Across the Neotropical-Nearctic Transition Zone; Biogeography of Paleoboundaries and Paleo Hotspots; Caribbean Biogeography—Integrating Marine & Terrestrial Biogeography; the Great American Biotic Exchange; Human Biogeography and the Biogeography of Infectious Diseases; and Asian American Disjuncts.

Additionally, we are very pleased to announce that John C. Avise will be in attendance to receive the 2007 – 2009 Alfred Russel Wallace Award, joining our first two distinguished recipients, John C. Briggs (2003 – 2005) and Jared Diamond (2005 – 2007). And we’ve already scheduled one workshop: “Visualizing Evolution in Space and Time.” For background information about the workshop, see the article by David Kidd in the Summer 2007 IBS Newsletter 5(2):6-8 (available online at http://biogeography.blogspot.com/2007/07/geophylogenies-uniting-space-and-time.html).

While the growth of our Society has been beyond our expectations and demonstrates both the vital role and enthusiastic support of our organization, we share the members’ concern that we don’t destroy the most valued aspects of our meetings by “loving it to death” with overwhelming numbers. Thus we’re setting a cap of 550 on meeting participation, and of 250 posters (in three sessions). It looks like it will be first-come, first-served; so stay tuned (via the IBS web site and Newsletter) for registration dates.

We’re working hard to respond to the membership’s input, and to build on the success of our first three biennial meetings. The Board will be meeting in January to finalize the format and topics of the meetings. If you have further input or questions, please email the VP for Conferences (Dave Hafner) at david.hafner(at)state.nm.us. If you would like to suggest speakers or titles of talks for the above symposia, please send that information to Dave. 2011 IBS Meetings.—It’s never too early to plan on the next meetings! If you have suggestions for a meeting venue, or (even better) would be interested in hosting the 2011 meetings, let Dave Hafner know!

Dave Hafner, VP Conferences and Ella Vázquez-Domínguez, director-at-large
Check the latest news on the conference at http://www.biogeography.org/meetings.htm

Member Input Shapes January 2009 Meeting in Mérida, México

Who knew that putting “the posters between the booze and the participants” was a suggestion on the tip of the tongue of so many members? This level of detail in member preference is shaping the scope and scale of the next international meeting of the Society as a result of two electronic surveys conducted earlier this year. Dr. David Hafner (david.hafner(at)state.nm.us) and his team are using this survey data to plan the next international meeting, to be held in 8-12 January 2009 at Merida, Mexico. Dr. Hafner’s team is wrestling with issues ranging from how to register and entertain the nonscientists traveling with their biogeographer partners to how to recruit and prepare the speakers for the various symposia. Polling results indicate that the success or failure of the next meeting hinges, in the collective mind of members, on several key decisions made well in advance of the actual meeting. The central challenge before the IBS Board is how to maintain the intimacy and intensity of the next meeting while recognizing the explosive growth of IBS.

In the past two years IBS has tripled in size. IBS membership now exceeds 700 and may well grow again, substantially, by January 2009. Biogeography is a hot topic and is attracting increasing attention around the world. Members tell us that being bigger should not be the goal and that we should consider capping membership or meeting attendance in order to keep the international meetings intimate. Such caps may be necessary but until that decision is made other means of accommodating our rapidly expanding membership also are being explored.

In particular, members said that creating concurrent sessions to reduce session size would diminish the value of the meeting. Full plenary sessions allow for a shared meeting experience. That experience forms the basis for conversations and interactions throughout the four-day meeting. However, there is a strong desire to hear additional points of view and to expand opportunities for discussion. Rather than running parallel sessions provocative presentations from a wider array of scientists and graduate students are being proposed. Such an approach would require more pre-meeting planning but would result in greater value for participants.

One idea tested at the Canary Island meetings to stimulate conversation was end-of-day, small group discussions. Initially populated by students who were awarded travel stipends, the demand for these sessions exceeded all expectations. Participants in the small group discussions (each organized by an established researcher who was not a symposium speaker) were so overwhelmingly positive that non-awardees begged to participate. Those who participated were unanimously positive in their praise and asked that the small group discussions become a regular feature of the meetings. The discussion sessions became a kind of “meet and greet” for shy and uncertain students (and some faculty) who nevertheless had much to say. It is easier to ask a question or state an opinion in a group of 12 than stand and speak to several hundred meeting participants. In retrospect, we should have known it would work out this way. Thank you, members, for making this point to meeting organizers.

We also have learned that a large part of your decision to attend the next meeting is the cost of travel. We will be offering travel stipends to students from around the world and to researchers from developing countries. It is still too early to know the exact details of these travel awards but if you are interested in obtaining travel assistance watch for upcoming editions of this newsletter and look for email messages from Dr. George Stevens, VP for Development and Awards, at georgecstevens(at)hotmail.com. As before these travel awards will be announced to the membership and applications will be made electronically. Keep your email information updated on the www.biogeography.org website (or jump directly to the membership portal by typing http://www.regonline.com/IBSMembership into your browser) to make sure we know how to contact you in the coming year.

Google maps output showing the location of Mérida, at the Yucatán Peninsula of México

Even for those of you who are not planning on applying for a travel stipends, purchasing your airline tickets in advance can save you hundreds of dollars. Our next international meeting will be begin with workshops on the 8^th of January, 2009 and end with field trips to nearby ruins and ecologically interesting sites on the 12^th of January, 2009. Book your travel through to airport code “MID.” Shuttles from the airport will be available and included in your meeting registration fees. Currently airfares are $600 to Mérida, Mexico from points in the United States, $1,200 from South America, $1,600 from the UK and Europe, and a staggering $5,900 from Australia.

In the very least, mark your calendar from the 8^th through the 12^th of January, 2009. If you are unable to attend the 2009 IBS meeting you can expect a slow week as many of your Biogeographer colleagues will be benefiting from your meeting planning advice in beautiful Mérida, Mexico.

George C. Stevens,VP for Development and Awards

Check the latest news on the conference at http://www.biogeography.org/meetings.htm