2013-2014 Section Newsletter
With the 2014 Annual Meeting within a month, here’s the update from the past year’s activities:
(1) Update on 2013 annual meeting:
At the 2013 meeting in Minneapolis, MN August 5-9, the following officers were elected or took office:
Philip Higuera became chair
Jacqueline Gill was elected vice-chair of the section
John Calder was elected secretary
Melissa Chipman was elected to the relatively new student liaison position
Ryan Kelly was elected as the new Deevey Award coordinator
Deevey Award winner – SEE WEBSITE FOR FULL STORY
(Contributed by Kendra McLauchlan, former Deevey Award coordinator)
The 2013 winner of the Deevey Award was William John Calder, a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Wyoming, for his presentation: “The influence of spatial scale on detecting climatic controls of wildfire in subalpine forests for the last 2000 years in northern Colorado.”
(2) ESA Paleoecology Section Web Presence: www.esa.org/paleoecology
We have finally moved over our old web site to the new WordPress platform, supporting most of ESA’s web site. The new platform offers significantly more efficient web editing and the opportunity for posting section updates and announcements; you will find all of this information in this e-mail on the web site as well. You can also follow and contribute to the Paleoecology Section on Twitter (@esa_plaeo).
Work on the web site is ongoing, and you can help spruce up the new web page by contributing your photos to be features in the banner. We’re looking for photos that are related to your paleoecological work (field, lab, or otherwise), and ideally associated with a publication. Send photos to esa-paleoecology-section@nullgooglegroups.com (these will not be sent out to the entire section). Photos should be appropriate for the banner format, and need to be around 200 dpi resolution. Please include the author of the photo, a brief description, and any associated publication(s). We make no promises that all photos will be used.
(3) 2013-2014 Section and ESA updates:
Finances for the Paleoecology Section as well as ESA are in good shape. In January, ESA council member voted to establish a new “Disease Ecology” section, initiated with a petition of 90 ESA members in support of the section. The purpose of the Disease Ecology Section “shall be to promote research and education regarding epidemiology, evolution, and ecology of host-pathogen and host-parasite…interactions and disease.”
2015 Centennial Meeting:
In 2015, the Ecological Society of America will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Planning is in full swing for the ESA’s centennial meeting. As part of this meeting the Historical Record Committee is asking all sections to gather as much information on past section activity as possible. Suggested items include:
1. The rationale for establishing the section.
2. A list of the symposia or other sessions sponsored by your section.
3. A summary of any notable trends in the focus of those sessions.
4. A list of other actions taken by the section and, if known, their outcome.
5. A list of section officers, their affiliations, and the years in which they were in office.
If you are coming to the 2014 annual meeting in Sacramento and hold knowledge on the deep history of this section, please give these items some thought and share any information with us at the Section Meeting. Or e-mail your thoughts to esa-paleoecology-section@nullgooglegroups.com
(4) Before the 2014 Meeting next month:
Please sign up to be a judge for the 2014 Deevey Award competition and encourage your students to enter the competition! Details may be found on the section web site.
Have a look at the relevant events at the upcoming ESA meeting in Sacramento on the section web site. The two key events are listed below:
COS 13 – Paleoecology
Monday, August 11, 2014: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
Carmel AB, Hyatt Regency Hotel
ESA Paleoecology Section Business Meeting