Doctoral Dissertation Award 2017 - Submission invitation

Frontiers of Biogeography and the IBS Early Career Committee are pleased to invite submissions for Doctoral Dissertation/Thesis synopses from early career biogeographers*. Submitted synopses will compete for the Doctoral Dissertation Award that will be presented at the 2017 IBS biennial meeting in Tucson, Arizona, USA.

Established in 2013, the Doctoral Dissertation Award aims at promoting new knowledge and new energy in the field of biogeography by recognizing and publicizing outstanding doctoral work in the field of biogeography.


All synopses submitted to Frontiers of Biogeography after July 30^th, 2013 will be considered for the award as well as synopses submitted from this call’s date and until September 30^th, 2016. These latter submissions will also be considered for publication in Frontiers of Biogeography and go through the usual peer-review process.

The recipient of the Award will be invited to give a talk at the IBS Biennial meeting and will be presented with a certificate, a commemorative plate, and 1000 USD to help with the travel expenses to the 2017 IBS biennial meeting.

In preparing your submission, we strongly recommend you to follow the submission guidelines to Frontiers of Biogeography. We also encourage you to write an engaging summary, that not only describes the chapters of your thesis but it is written within a context of how the state of knowledge of your area is and how your doctoral dissertation contributes to this knowledge.


Guidelines for dissertation synopses
‘Long synopses’ of recently completed PhD dissertations/theses should include a brief summary of the state of the field as well as the contributions provided by the dissertation/thesis. Synopses should clearly articulate how the chapters (either published or unpublished) fit together and warrant attention as a single body of work, clearly listing those already published (including citation) and those yet to be published at the time of submission. The length of the submission should not exceed 2,500 words, with approximately 2-3 paragraphs of introduction, 2-3 paragraphs of methods, 1-2 of results and 1-2 paragraphs of discussion. Submissions will only be considered for those dissertations completed within 2 years of graduation from the PhD granting institution at the time of this call.
All synopses will be peer reviewed based on the following criteria:

• Novelty / originality work (20%)
• Clarity / specificity of the research questions and hypotheses (10%)
• Adequate Theoretical framework according to the objectives (10%)
• Originality of the data (10%)
• Methodological tools (10%)
• Scope and limitations of the research (10%)
• Relevance of the results to the research question (10%)
• Relevance / impact in the field of biogeography (10%)
• Structure and intelligibility of the written work (10%) 

For more information on manuscript length and format please visit http://www.escholarship.org/uc/search?entity=fb;view=authorinformation#length

Information for Authors can be found at http://www.escholarship.org/uc/search?entity=fb;view=authorinformation

For more information on Frontiers of Biogeography please visit http://www.escholarship.org/uc/fb
Frontiers of Biogeography is indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals <http://www.doaj.org/openurl?genre=journal&issn=19486596>, which reflects consistency in publishing articles of substance and commitment to Open Access standards. 


For more information about the Doctoral Dissertation Award contact:

Fabricio Villalobos
Chair, IBS Early Career Biogeographers Committee
fabricio.villalobos [at] gmail.com

Karen Faller,
IBS Membership Services
Biogeography.ibs@gmail.com

*Early Career Biogeographers: within 2 years of having received PhD.  Time since PhD degree can be extended by 1 year for each child born or adopted during this period.  Other forms of exceptional caregiving responsibility (e.g. partner, spouse, aged parent, etc.) will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Call for workshop proposals - IBS 2017, Tucson, AZ

The International Biogeography Society seeks proposals for workshops for the 2017 Biennial Conference, 9-13 January, 2017 in Tucson, Arizona, USA.  Workshops are an exciting part of our meeting as they offer in-depth opportunities to learn about topics of biogeography, often bringing in people to the conference that otherwise might not attend.  Workshops can be either full or half-day in length and ideally would offer conference attendees opportunities to expand their knowledge in specific applications, topics, or opportunities for making connections.  Workshops are scheduled to be held on January 9 (Day 1) of the conference.
 

Workshops can be proposed for any topic, including those held in the past, including: Spatial Analysis in Macroecology/Phylogenetic Analysis in Macroecology - Species Distribution Modelling - R-package:  BioGeoBEARS - Map of Life - Communicating Biogeography - Popular Science Writing - Visualizing Evolution in Time and Space - Biogeography of Stress - Biodiversity Informatics - Bayesian Statistical Analysis

Workshop proposals should include the following information:

1) Name, institution and email of organizer(s).  Please delegate a single organizer as the point of contact between the organizers and the IBS.

2) Title of workshop

3) Workshop outline (< 600 words) targeting audience/technical details:    depth of knowledge needed by attendees/level of detail of workshop; Maximum number of people in workshop (if it needs capping) ; room/power requirements

IBS will provide the following financial support for workshop organizers chosen (NOTE - amounts are for the entire workshop, not per organizer, and assuming that workshops have a minimum of 25 attendees): $1,000 (USD) per half-day workshop - $2,000 (USD) per full day workshop. We welcome all interests/suggestions, however please note that as with the symposia, only a few workshops will be able to be chosen out of an unknown number of submissions.  In the past, we have held 3 to 5 workshops maximum.

Submission and questions: Please send proposals for workshops by email to Pedro Peres-Neto (peres-neto.pedro@uqam.ca), IBS VP for Conferences by June 15, 2016.  The workshop organizing committee will have a decision by June 30, 2016. 

Call for Symposia - 2017 Biennial Meeting of the International Biogeography Society

The International Biogeography Society seeks proposals for symposia for the 2017 Biennial Conference, 9-13 January, 2017 in Salvador, Brazil.  The symposia are an integral part of our meeting as they are in the form of plenary sessions in which all attendees participate.  These plenary symposia provide opportunity for several speakers (typically 5-6) to present cutting-edge work that will have a appeal to a broad cross-section of Biogeographers. Ideally these findings address a current debate or provide synthesis and integration for a selected theme or topic.  Symposia held at previous meetings are available at the IBS website,  http://www.biogeography.org/html/Meetings/index.html. 

Symposium proposals should include  the following information:

-       Name, institution and email of organizers.  Please delegate a single organizer as the point of contact between the organizers and the IBS.
-       Names (institution, email and tentative title) of 4-6 speakers.  Please only list speakers that you have contacted regarding the symposium and indicate their current level of commitment (tentative or confirmed).
-       Title of symposium
-       Session description (focus on the theme and strong justification): < 600 words.

IBS will provide partial financial support for travel of symposia speakers, but we expect that the remainder of expenses will be covered by symposium speakers and organizers. We strongly encourage organizers to convey this information to potential speakers and try to use the partial financial support in an optimal manner. 

Review process.  All proposals will be peer reviewed by external reviewers selected by the IBS board using a score system. 

Submission and questions: Please send proposals for symposia by email to Pedro Peres-Neto (peres-neto.pedro@uqam.ca), IBS VP for Conferences.  Deadline has been extended to Dec 1, 2015.