Message from the Chair
David W. Towle
Thanks to everyone who participated in the SICB 1996 Annual Meeting in Albuquerque,
particularly to Lou Burnett, Malcolm Shick, and Nora Terwilliger for their tribute to
Charlotte Mangum, unable to be present because of illness. Charlotte's Past Presidential
address, presented skillfully by Nora, gave clear evidence of her sharp wit and ability to
turn a phrase, stimulating her listeners toward new insights in comparative respiratory
physiology. Thank you, Charlotte.
Thanks also go to symposium organizers Jon Harrison and John Phillips, Allen Gibbs and
Lisa Crockett, and Rich Marsh and John Bertram. The three symposia sponsored or
co-sponsored by DCPB added much to the value of the meeting.
A special moment in the life of the Division is the recognition of the recipient of the
George A. Bartholomew Distinguished Young Investigator Award, presented this year to
Stephen Secor, postdoctoral associate in Jared Diamond's laboratory at UCLA. Stephen gave
a fine lecture in Albuquerque on "Evolutionary Design of Digestive Response." I
am particularly proud to report that the first recipient of the Bartholomew Award, Barbara
Block, recently received a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Grant. I am also pleased to
announce a major addition to the George A. Bartholomew Fund, a $5,000 gift made
anonymously by an admirer of George Bartholomew.
The recipient of the DCPB Best Student Paper Award for the 1996 meeting was Shana K.
Goffredi, University of California, Santa Barbara, for the paper entitled "Sulfide
Acquisition by the Vent Tubeworm Riftia Pachyptila is Via Diffusion of HS- Rather Than
H2S." Thanks to all the participants in the competition and especially to Don Mykles
who chaired the judges committee.
I wish to extend a hearty welcome to the two new officers of the division, Chair-Elect
Tim Bradley and Program Officer Neal Smatresk. Tim will become Division Chair immediately
after the SICB 1998 Annual Meeting in Boston, and Neal is presently serving as Program
Officer. Please contact any of the officers with ideas for future planning. We are very
interested in seeing the Division grow and prosper!
Finally, I wish to offer my utmost thanks to the past Program Officer,
Nora Terwilliger. Nora's energy and imagination in program development were very evident
at Albuquerque and will be clearly evident again in Boston in January 1998. Thank you,
Nora!
Message from the Program Officer
Neal Smatresk
As the new DCPB Program Officer, I would first like to extend our appreciation to the
excellent job done by Nora Terwilliger over the past two years. She has helped guide the
Division through a major transition, and established a high standard for those who follow.
The SICB 1996 Annual Meeting in Albuquerque presented a strong collection of symposia
and contributed papers from DCPB. The meeting received great coverage in Science, the 17
January 1997 issue, with articles covering "Muscle-Bound Dragonflies" from the
symposium organized by Jon Harrison and John Phillips, and "Exotic Deep Sea
Lifestyles" highlighting Lamellibranchia. I congratulate all who helped make this
meeting a success, and encourage the creative minds of the Division to submit proposals
that will allow us to continue to attract this level of attention in upcoming meetings.
The Division has now finalized the program for the SICB 1998 Annual Meeting in Boston.
Tim Bradley and Bill Zamer have organized a symposium on "Evolutionary
Physiology;" Karen Martin and Richard Strathmann will co-chair a symposium on
"Aquatic Organisms, Terrestrial Eggs: Early Development at the Water's Edge" and
Charlotte Mangum and Brian McMahon have put together an interdivisional workshop on the
"Origin and Further Evolution of Circulatory Systems," as part of the
"Major Questions in Animal Biology" mini-series. We hope to have an active
program of contributed papers accompanying these symposia. Abstracts will be due August
22, 1997, so it's time to polish up your data sets and get them ready for submission.
The deadline for submitting symposia to the Calgary IUBS meeting in the summer of 1999
has come and gone, but if any of you have great ideas we will try to get them into the
pipeline. IUBS meetings are great opportunities for intersociety symposia with CSZ or SEB
and they are always great fun, so let's see what we can do.
While it seems far off, plans for the SICB 1999 Annual Meeting in Denver are well
underway. In an effort to make timely decisions and expedite review, SICB Program Officer
Willy Bemis has requested proposals be submitted by April 15th (of course this deadline is
usually a moving target). To date I have received only one proposal. Give me a call at
817/272-2871, or e-mail your ideas to me at smat@albert.uta.edu, and I will give you
further instructions on preparing your proposal. In keeping with the regional theme,
Denver would be a great place for integrative symposia on high altitude or cold
adaptation.
We are still looking for BIG QUESTIONS, to continue the miniseries on
"Major Questions in Animal Biology." The organizers of an interesting proposal
called "Teaching of Biology and the WWW: Successes from the Front Line" are
looking for participants in this workshop from all the divisions. If you are interested,
please contact Michael Blum of DCPB
Annual Report
of the Editorial Staff of Physiological Zoology
Charlotte P. Mangum, Editor-in-Chief, Gregory K. Snyder, Associate Editor
Cheryl Jenkins, Managing Editor and Mark Bedell, Graduate Editorial AssistantThe period
of July 1995 through June 1996 was productive and full of accomplishments. The journal
published 70 manuscripts, some of which were accepted from the Burggren editorship. Of
those published, 40 were from the U.S. and 30 from abroad; with 57 primary research
reports, seven symposia contributions, five Invited Perspectives and one Technical
Comment. In fiscal year 1995-96, 112 manuscripts were submitted, an increase of about 10
percent over the previous year. About half are expected to be published after all
revisions are satisfactory. This is similar to the acceptance rate at Journal of
Experimental Biology. Since SICB now requires symposium organizers to publish in American
Zoologist, future issues may contain few or no symposia.
Among recent and proposed changes, the editorial staff is very proud of the transition
to large-page, double-column format and a new cover which began in January 1997. This
change not only enhances the presentation, but reduces the costs to the University of
Chicago Press (UCP) and the cost of reprints since the number of pages per article/volume
will be smaller. To prospective authors: The editors urge planning of tables and figures
according to the format, by designing them for either single- (preferably) or
double-column width.
Another change, especially welcome to authors, centers on publication lag time. Last
year, 11 months was required between acceptance and publication. Charlotte Mangum
negotiated with UCP to get a temporary increase in the number of manuscripts per volume,
to bring the lag time down to about six months by mid- to late 1997.
For the future, the editorial staff is working with UCP to bring PZ to the electronic
age. A number of steps are involved in this process. First, PZ now has a page with the UCP
web site at http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/PZ which may be reached via the SICB site or
any of the editorial staff sites: http://warthog.cc.wm.edu/biology/ mangum.html or
http://spot.coloradoedu/~snydergk.html. At the mo-ment, basic information is given, but by
the Spring 1997 issue, the table of contents of the most recent issue will be displayed
and a listing of manuscripts accepted for future issues. The editorial staff proposed a
section for "What's New," which will contain news items, information on special
issues, and so on. We note that UCP has published one of their journals electronically.
How soon PZ might appear in this format awaits 1997 discussions. UCP has also agreed to
sponsor two new services with funds to employ statistical consultants and skilled writers
on an ad hoc basis to consult on manuscripts with merit for publication, but lacking in
exposition of data presentation.
Finally, the editorial staff thanks the 10 members who rotated off the Editorial Board
for their many contributions. They are: Marvin Bernstein, Cynthia Carey, Andrew Cossins,
Martin Feder, Jeremy Fields, Manfred Grieshaber, Peter Hochachka, Raymond Huey, Kiyoaki
Kuwasawa and Roger Seymour.
The editorial staff hopes that Division members will think of PZ first
when planning their submissions. We hope we can continue to encourage the large number of
submissions from abroad and that we can enlarge the scope of submissions so that the
journal accurately reflects the diversity of interests of DCPB.
Program Officer's Report
Nora Terwilliger congratulated symposium organizers at this meeting. She asked for
feedback on the interdivisional sessions and the new method of running the poster
sessions, with posters up for a day-and-a-half. She discussed the large number of proposed
symposia for Boston's meeting and the possible problems or conflicts that could arise with
scheduling. In the future, some limit on number of symposia per Division may be imposed;
this year DCPB has five of the 10 symposium proposals. The organizers of next year's
symposia were invited to briefly introduce their topics to the group.
Of special interest is the concept behind the symposium on "Origin
and Further Evolution of Circulatory Systems," initiated by Charlotte Mangum and now
organized by Brian McMahon, that is scheduled for the SICB 1998 Annual Meeting in Boston.
This is the first in what we hope will be a series of half-day, very general symposia on
topics of wide, interdivisional interest and usefulness in teaching. It is hoped that DCPB
will continue to have one each year, and that other Divisions will follow our lead.
Publications
Greg Snyder, Associate Editor of Physiological Zoology, reported (see page 28). David
Towle thanked Martin Feder for his work on the American Zoologist Editorial Board. The new
board member from DCPB is John Phillips.
Peter deFur reported on the Public Affairs Committee, working with media and outside
agencies to increase the visibility and impact of the Society and this Division, and to
promote comparative physiology. Recent successes include an article in Science, the cover
and a two-page interview with Lou Burnett in Science News, articles in Albuquerque papers,
television coverage of meeting topics, and spots on public radio. They also work with the
NSF.
Stacia Sower, National Science Foundation, discussed funding and a
proposed change in integrative biology program, from "Integrative Animal
Biology" to "Comparative Physiology and Endocrinology." This was termed
"a new label on the same can" by some. She welcomes input, questions and
suggestions from members.
Graduate Student Affairs
Tom Vandergon reported on the results of the first research award competition for
support of graduate student research. Seven awards were given from 24 applications,
ranging from $500 to $800. Graduate students are encouraged to apply for next year's
awards by December 1, 1997.
David Towle called for volunteers for a new Graduate Student/ Postdoctoral Affairs
Committee Representative, as Brian Gaschen has graduated.
Kathy Packard explained the goal of the Development Fund, to provide $125,000,
supplemented by the general fund, in order to support student Grants-in-Aid of Research.
The committee will be contacting funding agencies, but she encouraged members to support
this internally as well.
Meeting was adjourned at 6:30 p.m.
Bartholomew Award
DCPB is soliciting nominations for the Bartholomew Award. The Bartholomew Award
recognizes a distinguished young investigator (within seven years post-Ph.D.) in
comparative physiology, comparative biochemistry, and related functional fields. The
recipient presents a special lecture at the Annual Meeting. Past recipients are Barbara
Block, Peter Wainwright, Michael Dickinson and Stephen Secor.
Self-nominations are encouraged and should be accompanied by a current curriculum
vitae, three letters of recommendation, and reprints of three recent publications. Letters
of nomination should include a brief description of the nominee's research
accomplishments. Nominations should be submitted by May 30, 1997, to: Dr. Robert Roer,
Chair
Bartholomew Award Committee
Univ. of N.C. at Wilmington
601 S. College Rd.
Wilmington, NC 28403-3297
E-mail:
The award, which is sponsored by DCPB, was named in honor of George A. Bartholomew, who
championed young students throughout his career. Recently $5,000 was given to the
Bartholomew Fund anonymously by an admirer of George Bartholomew. Please send your
donations to the SICB Business Office in Chicago.