Division of Invertebrate Zoology (DIZ): 2004 Fall Newsletter
The spionid polychaete Polydora cornuta (left) and a nereidid polychaete (right) are preparing for the
2005 Annual Meeting in San Diego! Are you ready for the meeting?
Photos submitted by Sara Lindsay.
In this newsletter:
Message
from the Chair
Thomas Wolcott
The students are back on campuses, and Libbie Hyman Award winner Heidi Weiskel is back from her experience at Friday Harbor (congratulations again, Heidi!), probably never to be the same. The days are growing shorter and the nights cooler, and many of our beloved invertebrates soon will retreat into the mud. What to do for excitement once hurricane season is past? Well, we can start plotting our adventures for San Diego after the turn of the year! In addition to an exuberant intellectual climate fostered by several top-notch universities, the Californian Deep South presents biologists with a staggering variety of ecosystems, all within a few hours' driving range. My natal city probably has changed so that I'll scarcely recognize it, I'll revel in the setting. It's surrounded by rocky shores, sandy beaches, kelp forests, low desert, high desert, chaparral, mountains (some retaining unburned big trees), and the Sea of Cortez. Exposure to the variety of dramatic challenges faced by the plants and animals of these disparate habitats, and their multifarious solutions, are what seduced me into physiology/ecology. Some of you may be renewing acquaintance with these marvelous places, others gaining first exposure. I hope you'll set aside some time for messing about in the field. For those wishing to expand their life lists of critters seen, there's of course the San Diego Zoo and the Scripps Aquarium. For those who like to see marine mammals fly, there's Sea World. For cultural contrasts, there's Tijuana (probably contrasting with normal Mexican culture as much as with ours), and more rural country to its south in Baja California. For the history buffs there are museums in Balboa Park, the Cabrillo Monument, old ships in the harbor, and Old Town minutes from the Mission Valley hotel. For gourmands, there are many excellent, authentic and reasonably priced Mexican restaurants... and there's a public transport system to take you there.
But I digress. Location isn't everything; we've also got some engrossing meetings coming up. Program Officer Penny Barnes' message tells of the wide-ranging symposia with which DIZ is involved. With so many tempting titles, we may have more than the usual frustration at our inability to be 2-3 places at once. This will provide abundant motivation for what often is the most valuable activity at meetings: sitting down with each other and trading the fascinating ideas we've discovered since last year. I hope to do that with more than a few of you.
See you in S.D.!
Message from the Program Officer
Penelope Barnes
The SICB and
Divisional Program Officers recently met in San Diego to schedule
over 1000 abstracts for the upcoming meeting in San Diego! The
Division of Invertebrate Zoology will be particularly well
represented at the San Diego meeting. DIZ is co-sponsoring two
symposia, and supporting an additional 4 symposia in San Diego.
Janet Leonard's symposium entitled "Mating
Systems and Sexual Selection in Hermaphrodites" is scheduled
for the mornings of January 5th and 6th. In
addition, Janet is organizing a small social, on the evening of
January 5th, to provide an opportunity for SICB members to
meet with symposium speakers. The second DIZ-sponsored symposium,
"Complex
Life-histories in Marine Benthic Invertebrates: A Symposium in Memory
of Larry McEdward", is organized by Dianna Padilla and
Benjamin Miner and is scheduled on January 7th, all day.
DIZ joins DSEB and DEDB as co-supporter of Ken Halanych's symposium
entitled "WormNet:
Recent Advances in Annelid Systematics, Development, and Evolution".
This symposium is scheduled for January 6th, all day.
The Division of Invertebrate Zoology is also pleased to be
co-supporter of the AMS symposium, "The
New Microscopy: Toward a Phylogenetic Synthesis", organized
by Ruth Dewel, Kathy Coates, Mary Beth Thomas, Clay Cook and Julian
Smith and scheduled for January 5th (all day). DIZ is
co-supporter of both society-wide symposia: "Desiccation
Tolerance in Animals, Microbes, and Plants: Comparative Mechanisms
and Evolution" organized by Peter Alpert, James Clegg, Brent
Mishler and Mel Oliver and "Terminal
Addition, Segmentation, and the Evolution of Metazoan Body Plan
Regionalization" organized by Nigel Hughes and David Jacobs.
The former symposium is scheduled for January 5th (all
day) and January 6th (morning) and the latter symposium is
scheduled for January 7th (all day) and January 8th
(morning). All of these symposia have complementary oral and/or
poster sessions and so, be sure to check the SICB meeting program for
these. To find out more about these symposia, just click on the
titles given above.
At the last
SICB meeting, the DIZ/AMS/DEE social was expanded to include The
Crustacean Society. The social proved a great success and The
Crustacean Society will be joining us in San Diego for "The
Muchos Amigos Mexican Reception" at the Town and Country Hotel!
The DIZ/AMS/DEE/TCS social is scheduled for the night of January 6th
(Thursday) from 6:30 to 8 pm (check the meeting program to confirm).
At
the Orlando meeting in January 2006, DIZ will be sponsoring Robert
Podolsky's and Amy Moran's symposium entitled "Integrating
Function Over Marine Life Cycles". DIZ will also be
co-supporter of "Genomic and Proteomic Approaches in Crustacean
Biology" organized by Donald Mykles and David Towle.
Congratulations to all successful symposium organizers on excellent
proposals!
At the recent
Program Officers' meeting in San Diego, the Program Committee members
unanimously agreed that the Best Student Paper (BSP) award programs
administered by most of the SICB divisions would benefit from
standardizing some (but not all) of the procedures and requirements
of those programs. The Program Committee made two specific
recommendations: 1) to eliminate divisional affiliation requirements
for the BSP programs. This change acknowledges the scientific
overlap between the divisions and promotes interaction between
divisions. Also, because a student can change divisional affiliation
with one click on their SICB member information page, the enforcement
of this requirement is less meaningful. 2) An individual awarded the
first place Best Student oral award from any division would be
ineligible to compete for the Best Student oral award in that same
division, or any other division, in the future. A similar rule would
apply for Best Student poster awards. An individual could compete for
a poster award after winning an oral award, and vice versa. This
change would give the Society an increased opportunity to acknowledge
a larger number of the students making outstanding presentations.
This is my
third and final year as Program Officer for DIZ. I've found the
position to be extremely interesting and I've greatly enjoyed working
with the symposium organizers. My thanks go to the SICB Program
Officers Stacia Sower and Kate Loudon, as well as Sue Burk and my
fellow Divisional Program Officers for their assistance and good
humour!
See you in San
Diego!
Message
from the Secretary
Bob Thacker
I hope that
everyone has had an exciting summer studying your favorite
invertebrates!
Congratulations
to Amy L. Moran, who will be the new DIZ Program Officer. Thanks are
due to all who participated in the election process. Please attend
the Divisional Business meeting to stay involved with DIZ.
Student members
of SICB should review the qualification criteria and applications for
several funding opportunities:
Grant-in-Aid
of Research (up to $1,000), deadline November 22, 2004
Fellowship
for Graduate Student Travel (up to $2,000), deadline November 22,
2004
Libbie H.
Hyman Memorial Scholarship, deadline March 3, 2005
These awards
can provide advanced undergraduate and graduate students with
financial assistance to help defray the costs of research
experiences. Financial contributions to these programs from members
of the division are greatly appreciated. See the SICB web pages for
more information (http://www.sicb.org/awards.php3).
I look forward
to seeing you in San Diego and a very successful meeting.
Message from the Graduate Student-Postdoctoral Affairs Committee
Representative
Ben Miner
Hello fellow
students. The San Diego meeting is quickly approaching, so get out
the sunblock and sandals. I would like to remind student members of
a couple important deadlines. Applications for student support are
due Nov. 1. This support covers either registration or housing costs
in exchange for a day of service. The application for support is
simple and it can save you money! The due date for registration is
Dec 3. When registering, don't forget to indicate that you are a
member of the division of invertebrate zoology (DIZ). Including this
information indicates that you are competing for the DIZ best student
paper or poster award - good luck.
In addition to
deadlines, there are several student/postdoc events you should be
aware of. The student "first timer" orientation (TBA) is
an excellent introduction to SICB, and what to expect at a large
international scientific meeting. The student/postdoc luncheon
provides a free meal, and time to meet and interact with fellow
students and postdocs. It will be held on Wed., the 5th
at noon. The SICB society-wide evening social in honor of students
and postdocs will be held on Fri., the 7th at 7:30 pm.
These events provide an excellent opportunity to gain skills and
interact with other students. I hope to see you all in January.
If you have any
suggestions, please email them to me at: bgminer@ucdavis.edu
Good luck with
your studies and research!
Message from the Student
Awards Committee Chair
Sara Lindsay
Greetings! The deadline for abstract submission is past, and 20 students have signed up to participate in the DIZ Best Student Paper program, so I will
certainly need help judging presentations in San Diego. I look forward to hearing from DIZ members who will be attending the annual meeting and who are willing to serve. Please
drop me a quick note so I can add you to my list of volunteers. Past
judges, I welcome your continued participation. DIZ students have
research in many different disciplines, so we really need a panel of
judges with a combined broad expertise. I expect to work out the
scheduling details in November when the meeting schedule is
available. If you have questions about the program, either as a
student participant or as a potential judge, please feel free to
contact me: slindsay@maine.edu
Message
from the Libbie H. Hyman Memorial Scholarship Committee
Message
from the past Chair, Amy Johnson
We had a
particularly strong group of candidates for the Hyman Scholarship
this year and the choice was difficult. The recipient chosen showed
real excellence and will genuinely benefit from this award. This
year the scholarship was awarded to Heidi Weiskel, a first year Ph.D.
student in ecology at the University of California at Davis. Heidi
has been making an unusual transition from a background in marine
policy, including a stint working with the Pew Oceans Commission, to
a strong science-based interest in biological invasions that includes
a focus on invertebrate biology and marine conservation. The Hyman
Scholarship supported her work in the Marine Invertebrate Zoology
course at Friday Harbor Labs this past summer ('04). The selection
committee felt that instilling in a policy-related individual a
passion for the animals that they are concerned with via hands-on
knowledge of organisms would be especially promoted by a field
station setting.
The Libbie
Hyman Memorial Field Scholarship Committee (myself, Isidro Bosch,
and Beth Okamura) would like to thank the Auction Committee and all
those who donated materials to the auction as well as all those who
participated in the Auction for the great success of the Libbie
Auction at SICB this past January. Thank you. Between the auction
and matches to the auction, over $12,000 was raised for the fund,
which increases the principal by over 60%! This fund has been helping
to send students, including myself, to first field station
experiences for over 20 years. It is good to know that we can
increase the support for this goal. A future goal of DIZ and SICB
should be to raise the principal to the level of endowing this
important fund and potentially increasing the number of awards that
can be given out to two per year.
In support of
these goals, as well as that of maintaining the continuity of the
scholarships, Monetary contributions, large or small
may be sent, to: SICB Business Office, Libbie H. Hyman Memorial
Scholarship Fund, 1313 Dolley Madison Blvd., Suite 402, McLean, VA
22101. Checks should be made payable to SICB and marked as a
"Contribution to the Libbie H. Hyman Memorial Scholarship Fund."
All contributions are tax deductible.
This
scholarship, in memory of Libbie H. Hyman, one of America's foremost
invertebrate zoologists, provides assistance to students to take
courses OR to do research on invertebrates at a marine, freshwater or
terrestrial field station. The Hyman scholarship is intended to help
support a first field station experience for a first- or second-year
graduate student or an advanced undergraduate student.
Completed
applications, which must be submitted on-line, must include:
A one to two
page description of the proposed coursework or research
Two (2) letters
of recommendation from faculty members
Transcripts of
both undergraduate and (if applicable) graduate course work.
Deadline: MARCH
3, 2005
Notification of
Awards: APRIL 3, 2005.
Application
forms and further information are available on the web at:
http://sicb.org/grants/hyman/
For more
information contact:
Dr. Isidro
Bosch
Chair, SICB
Libbie Hyman Scholarship Committee
Department of
Biology
SUNY Geneseo,
NY 14454
Phone
585-245-5303
Fax 245-5007
bosch@geneseo.edu
Link to officer list on DIZ page