Call for workshops - Climate Change Biogeography - IBS Special Meeting

Call for workshops

The International Biogeography Society seeks proposals for workshops to be held at the 2018 special International Biogeography Society meeting on Climate Change Biogeography, 21-25 March, 2018 in Évora, Portugal.

Workshops are an exciting part of IBS meetings as they offer great opportunities to disseminate and learn about cutting-edge topics in biogeography. Workshops can be either in the form of a full or half-day and ideally would offer conference attendees opportunities to expand their knowledge in specific applications, topics, and opportunities for networking. Workshops will be held on March 20, the day before the beginning of the conference.

Previous workshops at IBS meetings include: 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.

Submission and questions regarding workshops should be sent by email to Miguel Matias (mgmatias@uevora.pt), on behalf of the Organizing Committee, by July 30, 2017.

Call for Symposia - Climate Change Biogeography - IBS Special Meeting

Call for Plenary symposia

The International Biogeography Society is seeking for three plenary symposia to be held at the 2018 special International Biogeography Society meeting on Climate Change Biogeography, 21-25 March, 2018 in Évora, Portugal.

The symposia are an integral part of our meeting as they are in the form of plenary sessions in which all attendees participate. In this Climate Change Biogeography meeting we are seeking proposals for three symposia, each targeting the following topics:

·      “The past”: This symposium should showcase the state-of-art research in using reconstructions of ancient distributions and climates to better understand current and future changes.

·      “Present: From patterns to processes”. This theme will showcase a range of biogeographical studies including macroecological approaches to unravel classical biogeographical to state-of-art mechanistic modelling to large-scale experimental studies across major biogeographical gradients.

·      “Looking into the future”. The final theme will highlight studies that integrate biogeographical approaches to forecast changes in species distributions as a function of future climate change. This theme should showcase the development and application of state-of-the-art modelling approaches that combine ecology, physical geography and phylogenetics.

For more details on the themes, please check our website: http://www.ibs2018.uevora.pt/themes/

These plenary symposia will provide opportunity for several speakers (typically 5-6) to present cutting-edge work that will appeal to a broad cross-section of Biogeographers. Ideally, the talks should address current debates or provide a synthesis and integration for a selected theme or topic.

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 and indicate their current level of commitment (tentative or confirmed).

-       Title of symposium

-       Session description (focus on the theme and strong justification): < 600 words.

Check symposia from previous meetings at the IBS website: http://www.biogeography.org/html/Meetings/index.html. 

Review process.  All proposals will be peer reviewed by external reviewers selected by the IBS board using a score system. Note that only three proposals will be selected from the pool of submissions for plenary symposia. IBS will provide partial financial support for travel of symposia speakers, but we expect that symposium speakers and organizers will cover the remainder of expenses. We strongly encourage organizers to convey this information to potential speakers and try to use the partial financial support in an optimal manner. Non-selected submissions may still be considered as a parallel session, though in this case the meeting will not be able to cover travelling expenses for speakers.

  

Submission and questions: Please send proposals for symposia by email to Miguel Matias (mgmatias@uevora.pt) by July 30, 2017.

Call for Meeting Hosts for the International Biogeography Society - Biennial and Off-year meetings

The IBS is seeking for proposals from potential local groups interested in hosting one of the two upcoming conferences.

1) Ninth International Conference of the IBS. The biennial meeting is the main event for the society. This should be held within the second week of January 2019.  As the main event for the society, a key consideration will be that the meeting be accessible to the majority of IBS members who are located in Europe and the Americas.  Traditionally the meeting has alternated across the Atlantic: Mexico (2009), Greece (2011), United States (2013), Germany (2015) and the upcoming meeting will be in Tucson, USA (2017).  We are open to the possibility of exploring parts of the world where the society has not yet held a major meeting.  Meeting attendance is anticipated to be 600-700 people.  Minimum requirements of the venue are 1) one auditorium with a capacity of 600-700 people, 2) five smaller rooms with a capacity of 100-150 people, 3) one large room (or two adjacent rooms) suitable for displaying about 350 posters, and 4) various smaller meeting rooms (small storage facility, IBS board meeting).

2) A special meeting of the IBS held on the “off-year” between the biennial meetings.  The aim of this meeting is to provide either one or more of the following (i) growth of the society into geographic and/or disciplinary areas that are currently under-represented in the society; or (ii) to provide opportunities for early career biogeographers.  This meeting may occur between October 2017 and May 2018 (excepting early January 2018).

Proposals should be submitted by potential hosts who are interested in chairing the local organizing committee for any of these meetings. The duties of the local hosts involve conducting contract negotiations with the venue and the hotel(s), all local logistics including field trip organization, production of the abstract book, and involvement with all financial matters.  The IBS has a strong experience in providing support to meetings, including useful documentation regarding how to plan and structure an IBS meeting, and direct support during the organization process and meeting.  Please note that we welcome dialogue with potentially interested parties prior to submitting a proposal.

Please use the following format:

Hosting committee (names and affiliations):

Venue location (university, hotel, or a mix of both):

Proposed dates (particularly for special meetings as the Biennial Conference takes place in the second week of January in 2019):

Transportation information (to city, airport to venue; type of transportation available, distance to venue and estimated costs):

Airfares examples, from: Frankfurt, London, New York/Newark, Sao Paulo, Mexico city (others as you see fit).  

Hotel price estimates (per night in local currency):

Estimated cost for the venue (total in local currency; rentals for conference rooms, audio/video, etc):

Catering costs (lunch, coffee breaks):

Suggestions for social activities and estimated costs (types, e.g., open bar in poster sessions, opening reception, etc)

Attractions of the host location for IBS members:

Factors that could reduce the total cost of the meeting:

Potential for funding from local institutions:

Potential for enhancing IBS membership:

Potential field trips and other activities:

Deadline: September 5, 2016

Submission and questions: Please send host proposals by email to Pedro Peres-Neto (peres-neto.pedro@uqam.ca), IBS VP for Conferences.  Also, do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions regarding the details in the proposal.  Examples of past conferences can be found at http://www.biogeography.org/html/Meetings/index.html.

Meetings are a central activity within IBS and the IBS board thanks you in advance for your interest in serving as hosts.

Alfred Russel Wallace Award - call for nominations

The Alfred Russel Wallace Award was established by the International Biogeography Society in 2004 to recognize a lifetime of outstanding contributions by an eminent scholar in any subdiscipline of biogeography.  Previous recipients have included Drs. Jack Briggs, Jared Diamond, John Avise, Bob Ricklefs and Jim Brown. 

We are now in the process of accepting nominations for the 2015 award.  Nominations should consist of a supporting cover letter of no more than 800 words, co-signed by two members of the IBS, plus an abbreviated CV of the nominee.  The selected recipient will be invited to address the society at its next biennial meeting.

Please forward nominations to Carsten Rahbek (crahbek@snm.ku.dk), chair of the Awards Committee, by February 24th, 2014.

INTERNATIONAL BIOGEOGRAPHY SOCIETY EARLY CAREER CONFERENCE 2014

The International Biogeography Society (IBS) and the Australian National University (ANU) would like to invite you to the INTERNATIONAL BIOGEOGRAPHY SOCIETY EARLY CAREER CONFERENCE 2014.

The conference will take place in Canberra, ACT, Australia between the 7^th and the 11^th of January 2014, and is jointly supported by the IBS (http://www.biogeography.org/), the ANU Centre for Macroevolution and Macroecology (http://macroevoeco.com/), and the ANU-CSIRO Centre for Biodiversity Analysis (http://cba.anu.edu.au/). The event aims to bring together early career researchers, along with more experienced scientists, working on many aspects of biogeography.

REGISTRATION AND ABSTRACT SUBMISSION WILL BEGIN IN JUNE 2013.

The schedule of the conference is as follows: 

-On the 7^th of January, we will offer workshops for a limited number of participants on methods of phylogenetics and modelling species distributions.

-On the following three days (8^th-10^th of January 2014), talks and posters will be presented by attendees across three symposia:

1.SPECIES DISTRIBUTION ACROSS TIME AND SPACE (Dan Warren - ANU)

2.BIODIVERSITY TURNOVER ACROSS SPATIAL SCALES (Dan Rosauer - ANU)

3.ADVANCES IN PHYLOGENETIC METHODS FOR BIOGEOGRAPHY (Marcel Cardillo, Haris Saslis-Lagoudakis, Peter Cowman - ANU)

-On the final day (11^th of January 2014), several field trips will be offered around the region of Canberra.

The conference will be held at ANU Commons (http://commons.anu.edu.au/), on the ANU campus. Workshops will be run at the teaching facilities of the Research School of Biology, ANU, a new complex with purpose build rooms for computer centric workshops. ANU is within a few minutes’ walk to the main attractions and amenities of Canberra CBD, including restaurants, bars and museums (http://www.visitcanberra.com.au/). Several accommodation options are offered near the venue (http://www.visitcanberra.com.au/Accommodation.aspx). Additional budget accommodation options will be provided for students.

Canberra is the capital of Australia, and is surrounded by beautiful nature, including several nature reserves, where visitors can see many iconic Australian animals (the platypus, koalas, kangaroos, wombats, wallabies), and plants (banksias, eucalypts), as well as cave systems. The coast is only a couple of hours away and Sydney approximately a 3 hour drive.

Student participation will be supported by awards offered by the IBS. More information to follow.

We look forward to welcoming you to Canberra in January 2014!

The ANU Organising Committee

Haris Saslis-Lagoudakis

Peter Cowman

Dan Warren

Dan Rosauer

Marcel Cardillo

ibsconference2014@gmail.com

IBS meeting - Travel awards

Dear Biogeographers

The International Biogeography Society and the Paleontological Society are awarding travel grants for students and post-docs (i.e. received the PhD less than two years ago) to attend the 2013 IBS biennial meeting, 9-13 January 2013 in Miami, Florida. Grants will be awarded to individuals giving oral and poster presentations at the meeting; all applicants must be current members of the International Biogeography Society.

The standardized application form for all awards can be downloaded from the conference web site. Applications and supporting materials are due by September 30th, 2012.  Awards include registration, attendance at a workshop, and up to $500 of travel costs.

If you or anyone you know of could benefit from these awards, please refer them to http://www.biogeography.org/html/Meetings/2013/travelawards.html for details and contact ibstravelawards@gmail.com with any questions.

If you are a student yourself, please note that all applicants must be current members of the International Biogeography Society.  If you are not a current member and are otherwise eligible for the awards, you can renew here prior to applying:
Click Here to Register

Registration is now OPEN for the 

6th Biennial Conference of the  International Biogeography Society
North Miami, Florida, USA - January 9-13th

The meeting is built around four successive SYMPOSIA (10th & 11th January)  each with a suite of leading international scientists and *openings for contributed papers*:

1. Island Biogeography: new syntheses
    (Organizers: Rob Whittaker & Kostas Triantis).
2. Beyond Bergmann:  new persectives on the biogeography of traits

    (Organizers: Adam C. Algar and Nathan G. Swenson).
3. The convergence of conservation paleontology and biogeography

    (Organizers:  Jenny McGuire & Edward Davis).
4. Predicting species and biodiversity in a warmer world:  are we doing a good job?

    (Organizers:  Antoine Guisan & Niklaus E. Zimmermann).

The meeting also has 12 sessions of CONTRIBUTED PAPERS (12th January) on key topics:
i.  Island biogeography
ii.  Neotropical biogeography
iii.  Climate-change biogeography
iv. Conservation biogeography
v.  Pre-quaternary paleoecology and biogeography
vi.  Quaternary paleoecology
vii.  Phylogeography
viii.  Marine biogeography
ix.  Natural disturbance biogeography
x.  Global-scale biogeography
xi.  Hot topics in biogeography

Dr. Jim Brown will give a keynote lecture after receiving the Alfred Russel Wallace Award, recognizing his lifetime of outstanding contributions to biogeography.
&
Dr. Miguel Araújo will give a keynote lecture after receiving the Macarthur & Wilson Award, a new award recognizing an early-research individual for a notable, innovative contribution to biogeography.

In addition, before the meeting, on the 9th of January, five WORKSHOPS will be held: Biodiversity Informatics Training, Biogeography of Stress, Communicating Biogeography, Popular Science Writing, & an Introduction to Bayesian Statistical Analysis.

On the 9th & 13th of January, arranged FIELD EXCURSIONS will visit a number of Florida's beautiful biogeographic locations.

Check out the IBS meeting website for more details and to register (http://www.biogeography.org/html/Meetings/2013/index.html)

List of funding agencies

Dear All

I would like to request your help in a task I am developing at this moment:  putting together a list of funding agencies that might help young biogeographers find PhD or Postdoc grants, but also travel or small research grants.

The idea is to put together a list of agencies from different countries that young biogeographers can use as a reference when looking for funding. For example there are countries with research agencies that fund individual PhD and Postdoc projects. There are also other agencies, and even societies, that also fund short research projects, or that cover some (or the totality) of the travel costs associated with congress/courses attendance. Mailing lists, like evoldir or eco-log, can also be good sources of information on different kinds of grants.

This is where I need your help. I would like this list to include as many countries as possible, so I would appreciate if you could send me any information you have on research agencies/mailing lists, ect from your country, or from any other country.

Feel free to email me to: ana.margarida.c.santos[at]googlemail.com

Thank you in advance

Guida

MacArthur & Wilson Award

The International Biogeography Society

Announces

The MacArthur & Wilson Award

The Board of Directors of the International Biogeography Society (IBS) is pleased to open the competition for a new biennial Award.  Named after R. H. MacArthur and E. O. Wilson, it honors their seminal contributions to biogeography. The award will recognize an individual for a notable, innovative contribution to biogeography.  This award will be targeted at comparatively early career investigators and will have a guideline that recipients should have completed their PhD no more than 12 years before the deadline for nominations. The committee has some flexibility in regard to this criterion, to take account of differing life and career paths. A pair of collaborators might be considered providing both are eligible by this criterion.

The recipient should be prepared to offer a paper at the biennial meeting of the IBS and will be invited to publish a short article on their work in Frontiers of Biogeography. In return, their attendance at the meeting will be underwritten by the IBS.

The first award will be presented at the IBS biennial meeting in Miami, Florida, 10–12 January 2013.

Nominations should be sent to the Chair of the MacArthur & Wilson Award Sub-Committee (pdf’s are preferred; Robert.whittaker@ouce.ox.ac.uk) no later than Friday 23rd March, 2012. An individual can be nominated for a single paper or a ‘group of papers’ and it is anticipated that such a corpus of work will involve – in the spirit of MacArthur & Wilson’s famous monograph – scholarly collaborations with other co-workers.

 

Nominations should consist of a supporting cover letter of no more than 800 words, co-signed by two members of the IBS, plus a short cv of the nominee, plus pdfs of four key papers published by the nominee, at least two of which should have been published within the last three years.  Current members of the IBS Board are not eligible for nomination.

Current members of this IBS sub-committee include: Pauline Ladiges, Christine Maggs, Albert Phillimore, Robert E. Ricklefs, Brett R. Riddle, Robert J. Whittaker (chair).  

For further information about the IBS, see www.biogeography.org.

Frontiers of Biogeography is out!

The inaugural issue of Frontiers of Biogeography — the scientific magazine of the International Biogeography Society is published today. Downloads available at http://www.biogeography.org/html/fb.html (whole issue) http://www.biogeography.org/html/fb/FBv1i1.html (individual articles)

Discounts at UC Press

UC Press is currently offering discounts to people living and purchasing in the US, including titles such as the "Encyclopedia of Islands" (available at almost 1/2 its retail price) and other UC Press titles (discounted up to 70%). go.ucpress.edu/bigsale. Please use discount code 10M9352

If you like this or other UC Press biogeography titles but are not living/buying in the US, let us know (blog here, or better still tweet at http://twitter.com/Biogeography) and we'll try to arrange discounts for the 2011 meeting.

IBS Awards: Call for Nominations for the Alfred Russel Wallace Award

The ARW award was established by the International Biogeography Society (IBS) in 2004 to recognize a lifetime of outstanding contributions by an eminent scholar in any subdiscipline of biogeography. Previous recipients have included Drs. Jack Briggs, Jared Diamond and John Avise. Preliminary nominations consist of a letter endorsing the candidate with an abbreviated copy of their curriculum vitae. The committee reviews these materials and solicits complete nomination packets (consisting of the letter of nomination, a complete CV, and three or more letters of recommendation) for selected individuals. The selected recipient will be invited to address the society at its next biennial meeting.

We are now in the process of accepting nominations for the 2011 award. Please forward preliminary nominations to Felisa Smith (fasmith(at)unm.edu), chair of the Awards Committee, by July 1, 2009.

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

Annual Report of IBS Activities: January 2007 – January 2008

John (Jack) W. Williams, Secretary, International Biogeography Society
Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA. jww(at)geography.wisc.edu

“The Secretary … reports annually to Membership on actions taken by the Governing Board of Directors.” (IBS Bylaws)

This report briefly summarizes major activities pursued by the International Biogeographical Society and its Governing Board of Directors from January 2007 to January 2008. This time window begins with the Third Biennial Conference of IBS (held in Tenerife, Spain, January 9-13, 2007) and concludes with the annual meeting of the Governing Board held in Washington, DC, USA, January 11-13, 2008).

1. Third Biennial IBS Conference: Tenerife, Spain January 9-13 2007
The Third Biennial Conference of the International Biogeographic Society was an unqualified success. Previous newsletters have reported on the highlights of the meeting (IBS Newsletter 5[1]) and summarized members’ feedback (IBS Newsletter 5[3]), so this report is limited to a few vital statistics:
a. Number of attendees: ~320.
b. Number of countries represented: 35
c. Income: 55,138 Euros
d. Expenses: 53,280 Euros

Thus, 97% of all conference revenue directly supported conference activities, while leaving a small surplus for future IBS activities. Major revenue sources included sponsorships from third-party organizations and governments, registration fees, on-site vending, and pre-allocated transfers from the IBS general fund (which is mainly supported by membership dues and donations). Major expenses included catering, bus rental, printing, AV, administrative assistance, speaker costs, cleaning, and the cost of goods sold.
The IBS Governing Board of Directors is deeply grateful to the tireless efforts of Dr. José María Fernández-Palacios, his students, and Dr. Robert Whittaker (President-Elect of IBS) in organizing the meeting, and to George Stevens (VP for Development and Awards) for coordinating membership registration. The Governing Board also gratefully acknowledges support from the Spanish Government, the Island Government of Tenerife (Cabildo Insular de Tenerife), the city of Puerto de la Cruz (Ayuntamiento del Puerto de la Cruz), PAGES (Past Global Changes), MarBEF (Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning, the National Science Foundation, Oxford University Press, and Blackwell Publishing.
See the March 2008 issue of the Journal of Biogeography (accessible to IBS members through the IBS website) for a special issue devoted to papers presented at the Third Biennial Conference.

2. Fourth Biennial IBS Conference: Mérida, Mexico January 8-12 2009
Dave Hafner (VP for Conferences), Ella Vázquez-Domínguez, and colleagues at the Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Autónoma de México are hard at work preparing for the Fourth Biennial Conference, to be held in Mérida, México next January. Their report in the 2007 Winter issue of the IBS Newsletter 5(4) gives more details about the venue and plans. The big development since then is that the list of symposia has been finalized. They are:
Biogeography of Extinction (Organizers: Jack Williams, Steve Jackson, Felisa Smith)
Pattern and Process at Biogeographic Boundaries (Organizers: Brett Riddle, Dave Hafner)
Biogeography of Disease (Organizers: Kate Smith, Sam Scheiner)
Asian and American Disjuncts (Organizers: Jun Wen, Robert Ricklefs)
See the flyer included in this newsletter for a partial list of invited speakers; the lists of invited speakers for the symposia are being finalized and will be advertised in the next newsletter. In addition, we will experiment with a half-day of no more than three concurrent sessions of contributed talks, selected from submitted abstracts. Submission requirements, deadlines, and selection criteria for contributed talks will be posted on the IBS website before June.
Pre-conference workshops include Visualizing Evolution in Space and Time (David Kidd), Science Writing (Robert Whittaker), and Spatial Analysis in Macroecology (José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho). Pre-and post-conference field excursions will tour the Chichén Itzá ruins, Dzibilchaltún ruins, Ría Celestún, and Loltún and Calcehtok Caves.
Registration costs and dates are in the process of being finalized, but the early-bird registration deadline will likely fall in mid-October. Meeting registration will be limited to the first 500 registrants; posters will be limited to the first 250 submitted. More details on this and other meeting-related information will be coming soon … stay tuned.

3. Membership
The number of IBS members reached an all-time high in 2007, with over 720 members. Our membership numbers clearly track the biennial meeting cycle, with the number of members growing in the months prior to the January 2007 meeting, cresting shortly after the meeting, and then declining in summer and fall of 2007. This post-meeting waning of the IBS membership is of some concern to the IBS Governing Board, although we expect that by early 2009, the number of IBS members will equal or exceed 2007 levels. The Board is discussing ways to keep membership levels high during off years in our biennial meeting cycle.
Membership registration and recruitment is managed by George Stevens, VP for Development and Awards.

4. Public Affairs and Communications
In 2007, activities by the VP for Public Affairs and Communications (Miguel Araújo) focused on two areas of activity: improving and expanding the quarterly electronic newsletter sent to IBS members, and creating a new blog for the IBS.
A new team of editors was appointed to the newsletter, led by Miguel Araújo (Chair) and Joaquín Hortal (Managing Editor). The graphic design of the newsletter was updated and improved, a new section consisting of interviews with senior biogeographers was launched (Profiles in Biogeography, led by Lee Hannah), and two new sections are being launched in 2008 (The Teaching of Biogeography, led by Richard Pearson, and Conservation Biogeography, led by Antje Ahrens). An effort also is being made to publish thought-provoking guest editorials (for an excellent example, see the editorial by Bradford Hawkins in this issue). Finally, an official email address for the newsletter was created: ibs(at)mncn.csic.es
The IBS blog, found at http://biogeography.blogspot.com, was created in response to a call by several IBS members at the Tenerife meeting. Blogs have become mainstream media tools for providing commentary and news on the Internet and the vision of IBS is to use this technology to increase communication among IBS members and promote the discipline outside of the society. Currently, the content of the blog is heavily tied to the newsletter, providing the opportunity to write comments on the articles published. We anticipate that the blog can be used for feedback during and after the Mérida meeting. Posting to the blog is open to all IBS members.
Additionally, the IBS website is in the process of being updated and overhauled by Lois Alexander (Treasurer and Webmaster) … more soon.

5. Awards
John Avise was awarded the 2007-2009 Alfred Russel Wallace Award, and will be giving the keynote address at the 2009 IBS conference in Mérida.
At the January 2008 board meeting, the Governing Board of Directors voted to create a standing Awards Committee that will report to the VP of Development and Awards. Previously, awards were made by an ad hoc committee, which led to issues of continuity.

6. Graduate Student Development Committee
Dov Sax (Director-at-Large) has volunteered to lead a new committee tasked with promoting the development and participation of biogeography graduate students in IBS, and specifically to obtain resources to aid the travel of graduate students to the IBS conferences.

Respectfully submitted,

Jack Williams
Secretary, International Biogeography Society

The island biogeography theory at 40

Colleagues may be interested to see the following web page, providing details of a symposium being held at Harvard, 5th-6th October, on the Island Biogeography Theory at 40: impacts and prospects.

http://www.mcz.harvard.edu/events/island_biogeography/

They say life begins at 40, so perhaps we will see a new burst of energy linked with the equilibrium theory?

Rob