a href="index.html">
SICB


Division of Invertebrate Zoology (DIZ): 2002 Spring Newsletter



In this newsletter:




Message from the Chair

Rachel Ann Merz

Greetings All,
The national meeting held this year in sunny Anaheim, CA was terrific - the attendance figures nearly tied last year's record; the symposia, oral sessions and posters were very satisfying and as I talked with folks throughout the meeting people were happy with what they were learning about Biology and with how well the layout of the hotel facilitated the meeting. The program officer team of John Pearse (now the past SICB PO) and Stacia Sower (the new SICB PO) are to be congratulated.

In our DIZ business meeting the main issue that I brought to the membership was a suggestion to modify our division bylaws so that if a Division officer is unable to complete his or her term of office that we have a replacement procedure. I suggest that we use the Society's bylaws as our model. Therefore, if the Secretary or Program Officer were unable to serve, then the Division Chair, in consultation with the DIZ executive committee and the President of the Society, would be enabled to appoint someone until an election could occur. If the Division Chair position needed to be filled, then the DIZ Executive Committee, in consultation with the President of the Society, would be charged with appointing an interim Chair. I am eager to hear any feedback from you about this issue. The plan is for a draft of the proposed addition to our bylaws to be published in the Fall newsletter so that the matter can be voted on at the DIZ business meeting in Toronto.

Other division news is that Penny Barnes has been elected as our new Program Officer. The electronic voting procedure was used for the first time this fall and there was about an order of magnitude increase in the number of votes cast. Thanks to both Penny and Sid Bosch for their willingness to run -the division is really lucky to have such qualified and helpful candidates. I encourage you to contact Penny with ideas or suggestions for symposia for the New Orleans meeting in 2004.

Another change in the DIZ personnel is that Shea Tuberty, our representative to the Student/Post Doctoral Affairs Committee is stepping down after 4 years in office. Shea has done outstanding service for the division by helping to arrange the graduate student lunchs, panels on careers and by helping DIZ reach out to new members to join us at our business meeting and division social. The chair of the SPDAC , Kevin Kelley recently wrote to me, "Shea Tuberty, was an absolutely fantastic DIZ representative. He really cared about his job and he put in more effort than any SPDAC member I have worked with." We should all thank Shea for this real contribution to the long-term success of the division and society. One last very thoughtful thing that Shea did was to talk up his position so well at the meeting that several folks were willing to serve. I thank all that expressed interest and I especially thank Ben Miner for taking on the job as our new representative to the SPDAC.

This will be my last year as Chair of DIZ and so I have asked Kevin Eckelbarger, Richard Emlet and Sonke Johnsen to serve as a nominating committee. They have willing agreed to take on this important task. I thank them and I urge you to learn about the candidates and vote when the ballot arrives.





Message from the Secretary

Will Jaeckle

Hello all. It was delightful to see such a large number of invertebrate zoologists at our society's annual meeting in Anaheim. By all accounts, the meeting was a success and our membership was well represented by oral and poster presentations and symposia (see Program Officer Penny Barnes' Message).

Please note that Rachel Merz's tenure as Chair of DIZ will end at the 2003 meeting in Toronto. The Nominating Committee she assembled (Drs. Kevin Eckelbarger, Richard Emlet, and Sönke Johnson) are to be congratulated for convincing Jon Norenburg and Tom Wolcott to be candidates. Please read the Candidate's CVs and Statements in this Newsletter and vote when you receive the election ballot in the mail.

I would also like to remind our student members of the existence of SICB's Grants in Aid of Research Program. This year four DIZ proposals received funding. Congratulations to Ben Miner ("Developmental mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity in echinoid larvae"), Matthew Hooge ("Phylogenetic relationships of the Aceola inferred from 18S rDNA sequences"), Melissa Coates ("Measuring the visual information seen by the jellyfish Tripedalia cystophora in its native habitat"), and Tanya Koropatnick ("Identifying chemotactic factors involved in the symbiont-induced hemocyte migration in the light organ of the squid Euprymna scolopes")!

I encourage/implore contributions to the lapsed "Great Invertebrate Zoologists" series. Now, before the field season begins, is the time to begin to write the history of your favorite invertebrate zoologist and his/her contributions to our science. Please contact me if you wish to contribute to this series.

A final request -- With the guidance of the SICB Webmaster I am going to attempt to compile a list of web sites that advertise courses, internships, fellowships, and granting opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students that will be part of DIZ's section of the SICB webpage. This strikes me as an opportunity for DIZ to promote our science programs and provide a service for our current and future student members. If you wish to have your course, program etc. included, please send the title and website address to me.





Message from the Program Officer

Penny Barnes

I was not able to attend the SICB Annual Meeting in Anaheim, but all reports indicate that the meeting proved to be a successful and productive start to 2002. The Division of Invertebrate Zoology was well represented at the meeting, with 51 oral presentations and 23 poster presentations. We also sponsored or co-sponsored 4 symposia: "Physiological Ecology of Rocky Intertidal Organisms: from Molecules to Ecosystems", "New Perspectives on the Origin of Metazoan Complexity", "Retirement Symposium in Honor of Russel L. Zimmer", and "Integrative Approaches to Biogeography: Patterns and Processes on Land and in the Sea". Well done!

With the closing of the Anaheim meeting, I began my three-year term as Divisional Program Officer (DPO). I anticipate that the next three years will be exciting and rewarding, and I look forward to being of service to the DIZ and the SICB. The responsibilities of the DPO include assisting in the organization of the scientific program for the annual meetings and working with the other DPOs, and the SICB PO, in planning interdivisional programs and the Annual Meeting. Inherent in my position as DPO is the responsibility of ensuring that DIZ showcases its science. To carry out my responsibilities with maximal success, I need to receive input from the members of DIZ; the more input I receive, the better I can truly represent the Division in regard to the scientific program. General comments, relating to the format and schedule of the Annual Meeting, and more specific suggestions concerning potential symposia are welcome. As always, the participation of the membership is essential for the Society's officers to make informed choices and I encourage you to send any comments or suggestions to me via email (barnesp@naos.si.edu).

As you all know, the tragic loss of DIZ's former Program Officer, Dr. Larry McEdward, was an enormous blow to the Division. Unfortunately, there will be no DIZ-sponsored symposia at the upcoming SICB Annual Meeting in Toronto, although there is a possibility that we may be able to assist as a co-sponsor (see sicb.org for a list of the symposia scheduled for Toronto). Now is the time to be thinking of ideas for symposia for the New Orleans meeting! The deadline for submission for proposed symposia will be August 15th, 2002 but it is not too soon to bring your ideas to my attention! I have already received material on one suggested symposium and I look forward to receiving many more over the next few months. You will find information on how to plan and organize a symposium, for the New Orleans meeting, on the SICB webpage (sicb.org). Assisting with the development of symposia proposals is part of the Program Officer's job and, if you have any questions regarding how to develop your proposal, please do not hesitate to contact me. In addition, once a symposium proposal has been accepted by the Society, the Program Officer can assist with requests for funding as required. Remember, registration is reimbursed to symposium participants when the symposium organizer(s) have applied for outside funding, regardless of the success of the funding proposal.





Message from the Graduate Student-Postdoctoral Affairs Committee

Ben Miner

Hello fellow students. The Anaheim meeting is behind us, and I would like to extend the Division's thanks to all the graduate students who worked to make this meeting such a success. I would also like to congratulate Stacey Combes, Jonathan Cohen, and James Strother for winning best student presentation, the Adrian Wenner Strong Inference Award, and best student poster, respectively. I encourage all undergraduate, graduate, and recently post-graduate (< 1 year) students to enter these competitions in 2003.

It appears that SICB has started a trend to alternate between very warm and very cold meeting locations. This year continues that trend with our annual meeting in Toronto, Ontario, January 4-8 2003. To ensure SICB continues to consider the needs of graduate students, I am interested in suggestions for improving future meetings. Please email suggestions to me at miner@zoo.ufl.edu. I will soon be soliciting DIZ student members for their evaluation of the 2002 Anaheim meeting.

Good luck with your studies and research!





Message from the Student Awards Committee Chair

Sara Lindsay

Thank you to all of the judges for the Best Student Paper competition, especially those who volunteered on the spot at Anaheim. Seventeen students vied for the Best Student Paper (oral presentation) award and 6 students competed for the Best Student Poster award. The judges were impressed by all presenters and presentations, and we look forward to hearing from these and more students at future meetings. Stacey Combes from the University of Washington was awarded first place for her oral presentation "Dynamic bending in insect wings: origins and consequences of structural complexity". Jonathan Cohen, Duke University, won second place for his talk, "Alteration of the shadow response in a larval crab by ctenophore kairomones". Jonathan's presentation also earned him the Adrian Wenner Strong Inference Award. James Strother from the University of California, Berkeley won first place for his poster presentation, "Computer simulations of larval behavior in wave-driven flow predict settling success in response to soluble cues". Congratulations to all the winners!





In Memoriam: Dr. Ralph Morris Buchsbaum

The Division of Invertebrate Zoology mourns the loss of one of the most influential teachers and researchers of our science. On February 11th, Dr. Ralph Buchsbaum succumbed to heart failure in Pacific Grove, California. He was 95.

Dr. Buchsbaum is best known for his textbook Animals without Backbones, first published in 1938. In this pioneering work, Dr. Buchsbaum used abundant photographs and clear text to reveal to students the structure of invertebrate animals and their nature in the field. This work has been reprinted innumerable times, and the current, third edition (1987) was co-authored with his wife Mildred Buchsbaum, his daughter Vicki Pearse, and his son-in-law John Pearse. These authors further enlarged on Animals without Backbones to produce a new book entitled Living Invertebrates, also published in 1987. In addition to these invertebrate zoology texts, Dr. Buchsbaum authored or co-authored no less than 14 other books, including The Lower Animals (with Lorus and Margery Milne) and others on such diverse subjects as Basic Ecology and Methods of Tissue Culture in vitro, as well as a text for young readers entitled Balance in Nature.

Dr. Buchsbaum's microscopical and photographic talents are also preserved in a series of 29 educational films he produced for the Encyclopedia Britannica Education Corporation. Here too, Dr. Buchsbaum's breadth of knowledge is revealed by the range of topics covered in these films, which include titles such as The Sea, The Chick Embryo from Primitive Streak to Hatching, and Gene Action.

Although he was known primarily for his influence in the teaching of invertebrate biology, Dr. Buchsbaum's research was mainly in tissue culture, in which he was an early pioneer. He and his wife were the first to create chimeras between chick fibroblast cells and the green alga Chlorella (Science 80: 408-409, 1934). In addition, he collaborated closely with Harold Urey and others to develop a method for using oxygen isotope ratios to determine paleotemperatures (Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer. 64: 1315-1326, 1953).

In 1952, Dr. Buchsbaum established a small publishing company, The Boxwood Press, initially to publish his laboratory guide. The press has flourished ever since, and became his main occupation after he retired in 1972. Boxwood emphasized biological topics (e.g., Reproduction of Marine Invertebrates, Acmaeidae, Spionidae, Abalone: Gross and Fine Structure, Hydra and the Birth of Experimental Biology, Bird Year, Elephant Seals, Woody Plants in Winter) as well as natural history treatments (e.g., Monterey Bay Area: Natural History and Cultural Imprints, Año Nuevo, A Panama Forest and Shore). But, again, Dr. Buchsbaum's wide-ranging curiosity shows itself in the diversity of Boxwood titles in history, biography, and other literary areas. The Boxwood Press will be continued by his son.

Dr. Buchsbaum is survived by daughter Vicki Pearse and son Monte Buchsbaum, and three grandsons. His memory, however, is cherished far beyond his immediate family as he was known as a stimulating and innovative teacher and mentor of students at both the University of Chicago and the University of Pittsburgh, and a strong advocate for environmental causes and rational thinking. Through his academic works and his interactions with others, Dr. Buchsbaum will remain a member of our scientific community.




Minutes of the 2002 Annual Business Meeting

Rachel Merz, Chair of the Division of Invertebrate Zoology, opened the divisional business meeting on January 3 2002 in Anaheim, CA. The first order of business was the acceptance, without amendment, of the minutes of the 2001 business meeting as published in the Spring 2001 newsletter.

Chair Merz reported that overall meeting attendance and membership was more-or-less unchanged, but subscriptions to the American Zoologist have slowly declined, largely due to the loss of library accounts. She also reported that SICB's Grants in Aid of Research program received a significant increase in monies available for allocation this year. Through Rachel, SICB-President Marvalee Wake requested member opinions regarding (1) the usage and quality of the SICB webpage and (2) the distribution of paper/poster presentations by topic rather than by divisional affinity. Rachel noted that with the current topic-based assignment system there may be a loss of divisional identity. SICB Program Officer (and DIZ member) John Pearse also noted that our division's presentations are the most "scattered" of the society.

Rachel also reported the results of our most recent divisional election where Penny Barnes was elected as the DIZ Program Officer and thanked the nominating committee (Bill Kier, Damhnait McHugh, and Jan Pechenik) for their work in providing the Division with two excellent candidates. Although Penny Barnes was unable to attend the meeting, the divisional membership was asked to consider organizing symposia for the 2004 meeting in New Orleans.

Mike LaBarbera has stepped down as the Chair of the Libbie Hyman Award committee and Amy Johnson has filled this vacancy. Amy has implemented a web-based application (available on the SICB web page) and both graduate and senior undergraduate students were encouraged to apply for this award.

Sara Lindsay (new Chair of the Student Award Committee) acknowledged and thanked her predecessor (Clay Cook) for his service to the Division. She reported that 17 oral and 6 posters presentations were entered in this year's competition. The total number of entrants this year is slightly greater than for the last meeting ­ (Chicago). Sara expressed her thanks to the 12 DIZ members who volunteered to serve as judges of the student's presentations.

Secretary Jaeckle thanked Ben Miner and Andreas Heyland for their willingness to supply photographs of Larry McEdward for a "memorial" poster that was displayed during the meeting. He also requested contributions to the "Great Invertebrate Zoologist" series for DIZ's contribution to the Fall Newsletter.

Shea Tuberty, DIZ's representative to the Graduate Student – Postdoctoral Affairs Committee, reported that the "first-timers" orientation meeting and the graduate student / postdoctoral fellow luncheon were both well attended. He noted that he will be leaving this position and DIZ will need to secure a new representative for this all important committee.

Clay Cook (President of AMS) reported on the photomicroscopy contest that occurred during the meeting and summer scholarship program (both sponsored by AMS). Clay also urged our membership to promote the journal "Invertebrate Biology" to our students and colleagues.

Tom Wolcott noted that the attendance of members of the Crustacean Society at SICB meetings has dramatically declined. He encouraged the DIZ membership to encourage these invertebrate zoologists to attend and participate at our annual meetings.

After the tragic death of DIZ's Program Officer Larry McEdward last summer, Rachel has graciously agreed to remain as Chair for an extra year. A Nominating Committee will soon be formed to seek candidates for the position of DIZ Chair. At present, there is no formal policy to replace a DIZ officer who is unable to complete their term of office. Rachel proposed to produce a draft of a DIZ "policy for replacement" that will parallel the Society's by-laws covering this subject. This draft will be sent to all DIZ members and will be discussed at next year's annual business meeting. Sara Lindsay suggested an alterative possibility of a "shared position" between two individuals. Future discussion of this potential by-law change was suggested.

Vicki Pearse (editor, Invertebrate Biology) expressed her appreciation to the membership of DIZ for the continued support of this journal.

SICB President Marvalee Wake, Ron Dimock, and Brett Burk (Burk and Associates) were introduced to the Division. President Wake reported an overall SICB membership of 2100-2200 individuals of which ca. 1200 attended the Anaheim meeting. The requested from the DIZ membership suggestions for improving the operation of the meeting and a variety of changes and requests were proposed to make the meeting more "user-friendly".






Elections: Candidates for DIZ Chair

Jon Norenburg

Current Position: Curator/Research Zoologist, Department of Systematic Biology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560-0163; Adjunct Research Faculty, American University, Washington, DC

Education: 1974 - B.S. (Honours), Biology, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia; 1976 - M.S., Biology, Acadia University; 1983 - Ph.D., Zoology/Systematics, Northeastern University, Boston, MA.

Professional Experience: 1992-present Curator/Research Zoologist, Department of Systematic Biology, National Museum of Natural History; 1988-1992 - Supervisor, Benthic Invertebrates Section, Smithsonian Oceanographic Sorting Center; 1983-1986 - Postdoctoral Research Associate jointly at Department of Anatomy, Medical College of Georgia, and Mt. Desert Island Biological Laboratory, Maine; 1982-1983 - Smithsonian Institution Postdoctoral Fellow, Fort Pierce, FL.

Professional Interests: Evolution and diversification of the phylum Nemertea, through use of phylogenetic systematics to integrate and organize studies of comparative morphology (histochemical, histological and ultrastructural), life-history attributes, and molecular sequence data. Current projects include a phylum-level phylogeny based on morphology and sequence data from five gene fragments of 100 species of nemerteans; monographic studies and studies of specialized groups of nemerteans (deep-sea pelagic, mesopsammic, supra-littoral, and commensal); nemertean larval development and morphology.

SICB Activities: Member since 1976, attending all annual meetings except three. Program Officer, Division Invertebrate Zoology ('93-'96); Program Officer, Division of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology; member, SICB Program Advisory Committee; Chair ('92) and occasional judge for DIZ and DSEB Best Student Paper Selection Committee; co-organizer and editor for "First Symposium on Biology of the Nemertina," ASZ, Philadelphia, 1983; co-organizer for "Phylogenetic Systematics, Biogeography, and Marine Biodiversity," ASZ, Washington, DC 1995.

Other Memberships/Affiliations: American Association for Zoological Nomenclature (Secretary/Treasurer '90-'92, Secretary '92-'95), American Microscopical Society (Member-at-Large '97-'00; '02-'05), Biological Society of Washington (elected Councilor twice), International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature (Trustee since 1990), Society of Systematic Biologists, Willi Hennig Society; Associate Editor, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington '91-'97; co-organizer "Fourth International Conference on Nemertean Biology," Asilomar, CA 1995.

Statement of Goals: I was a strong advocate of trying the current format of "integrated" or topic-based sessions at the annual meetings. As a former program officer for two divisions I still organized sessions based on abstracts submitted to a division. I felt the frustration of wishing to promote the disciplines most strongly represented by those divisions while also seeing the utility of integrating at least some of the submitted presentations with their counterparts in other divisions. I also learned that you can't please everyone all of the time, including myself. The current meeting format still is in a major paradigm shift. I want to see the program remain flexible and creative but I am not a candidate for program officer. One of my goals as DIZ Chairperson would be advocating greater use and integration of the divisional program officers in planning and executing meeting programs. The DIZ continues to be the primary or secondary professional societal affiliation for many invertebrate zoologists. This is not odd to most of us, even if other divisions and societies seem to be more focused by taxon or discipline. Our division has always been a leader in integration. It nurtured my eclectic interests as a student and continues to do that for many of us. I will advocate maintaining a strong division structure as a counter-balance to integration, so that it is the utilitarian effect of integrating the annual meeting that is the goal, not integration for its own sake. Promoting excellence in our science is the obvious goal of DIZ and SICB but my primary guide would be its success in providing a stimulating and nurturing home for our students and young professionals, which cannot be done without drawing the enthusiastic participation of our "established" colleagues. I will not claim to be able to do this by myself. Don't vote for me if you are not ready to participate, at least by being responsive.



Thomas G. Wolcott

Current position: Professor, Marine Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, NC State University

Education: B.A. (Zoology). 1966. University of California, Riverside; Ph.D. (Zoology). 1971. University of California, Berkeley

Professional experience: 1971-72 Lecturer, Univ. of California, Riverside; 1972-78 Assistant Professor, Zoology, North Carolina State Univ.; 1978-85 Associate Professor, Marine Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, NC State Univ.; 1985- Professor, Marine Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, NC State Univ.; 1985- Research Associate, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

SICB activities: Member and presenter at Annual Meetings since late Pleistocene; Secretary, Ecology Division, back in the 80's; SICB Secretary, 1997-2000

Other memberships: Crustacean Society, ASLO, AGU, AAAS (Fellow), Bermuda Biological Station for Research, Inc. (Corporation Member)

Research interests: Physiological/behavioral ecology, mostly of crabs. Development of biotelemetry systems and field instrumentation for situations where organisms or microhabitats cannot be observed directly. Biological-physical interactions in plankton, using a "behaving" drifter to simulate vertical migration of larvae or dinoflagellates.

Statement of goals: The chair of DIZ has a semi-bully pulpit from which to proclaim the revelations awaiting those who branch out from that popular, but minor, group possessing notochords. I would hope to foster greater participation in SICB and DIZ by graduate students (especially new ones), so that the dazzling variety of model systems afforded by the invertebrates may be better utilized to address questions relevant to all taxa. I also intend to continue courting allied taxonomically-specialized societies to participate actively in our meetings, in the hope that we all will synergize each other's learning. It is my conviction that SICB's greatest strength is its ability to foster cross-fertilization among subdisciplines. As we develop such interactions, we each must explain to the other why what we do is interesting. In so doing, we are brought to see more clearly what's really important in our own work. I will encourage DIZ members to continue developing symposia that can be co-sponsored by a broad variety of other Divisions, to continue demonstrating just how fascinating, varied, bizarre, cool and just plain useful the invertebrates (and invertebrate biologists) are.






Link to officer list on DIZ page