NEWS

ESA Soil Ecology Section Newsletter Winter 2008

1. On July 19, 2008 an ambitious new exhibit on soils will open in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. This 5,000 square foot exhibition will be on display in Washington DC for a year and a half and then travel to other venues throughout the country. There is still time to comment on the design of this exhibit. If you are interested in getting involved, please contact Patrick Megonigal, Lead Curator, megonigalp@si.edu; Telephone: (443) 482-2346.
2. SOIL ECOLOGY TEACHING WORKSHOP: A soil ecology teaching workshop has been accepted for inclusion in the 2008 ESA meeting program. The workshop, to be led by Rachel Thiet and Loren Byrne, will focus on integrating research and hands-on activities into the teaching of soil ecology across grade levels (K-12, college). Additional details (including the workshop’s date and time) are forthcoming on the ESA meeting website and in our next section newsletter.
3. STUDENT TRAVEL AWARDS – The section has been awarded an ESA grant which will provide a $600 travel grant to the ESA meeting for students studying soil ecology. Please help us spread the word by telling your students and colleagues. Interested students will be asked to write a short essay about their interests in soil ecology and complete a short application form indicating their current student status, financial needs, and other relevant information. Watch your e-mail and the ESA website for more details about the application requirements.
4. STUDENT PRESENTATION COMPETITION – Once again, the section will sponsor a student presentation competition for undergraduate and graduate students at the annual ESA meeting. Students should send their abstracts to Loren Byrne (lbyrne@rwu.edu) to be included in the competition. Also, we will need judges to help rank student presentations; please submit your name to Loren if you are willing to help in this important section activity.
5. 2009 SYMPOSIUM – It’s not too early to begin planning for a soils-themed symposium for the 2009 ESA meeting. Symposia proposals are usually due in mid-September which does not allow much time for preparation following the 2008 meeting. Thus, doing some initial brainstorming and planning before the meeting can increase the possibility that a symposium is submitted and accepted. Here are some symposium ideas for 2009: 1.) Temporal Scale Patterns in Soil Ecology, 2.) Chemical ecology of decomposition, 3.) Links between soil structure and function: have we moved beyond simple correlation? If you would like to participate in planning a symposium on one of these topics, or any other topic, please contact the section leaders.
6. Come to the 2008 meeting prepared to make nominations for a chairperson, vice chair, and secretary. If you cannot attend the meeting, but would like to make nominations you can e-mail names to one of the section leaders. Election of new officers will be conducted through an e-mail ballot following the meeting.
7. If you have any announcements or ideas that you would like to share in the next section newsletter, please pass them along to one of us! Nancy Johnson (Nancy.Johnson@nau.edu), Jennifer Pett-Ridge (pettridge2@llnl.gov), and Loren Byrne (lbyrne@rwu.edu)

ESA 2007 meeting, San Jose, CA

7:00 “Pizza Pub” mixer held in conjunction with Physiological Ecology Section; first 60 soil ecology section members received a coupon for a free drink
Business meeting called to order at 7:35 pm; Approximately 50 people present Section president Nancy Collins Johnson opens by welcoming attendees and thanking them for their support. She thanked the previous officers: Julie Whitbeck, president, Deb Neher, vice chair, Serita Frey, secretary. New officers serving the term September 2006-September 2008 were introduced: Nancy Johnson, president, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, vice president, Loren Byrne, secretary. These new officers were elected by an email vote conducted following the 2006 ESA meeting.

Nancy attended the ESA council meeting on Sunday. There, Cliff Duke, ESA’s Science Director, encouraged all members to submit articles or entries to the ESA’s new views and news blog.

Nancy mentioned the successful teaching workshop conducted by Rachel Thiet (Anticoh University-New England) at the biannual meeting of the Soil Ecology Society in Moab Utah in May 2007. A website is being planned where papers and textbooks will be listed that are appropriate for use in soil ecology courses. The section could interact with the SES by helping support this initiative. Also, another workshop about teaching soil ecology would be appropriate for the 2008 ESA meeting given that the meeting’s theme will be ecological education. Nancy will contact Rachel about the possibility of organizing such a workshop.
In addition, there was discussion of other ways that the section could have a presence at the 2007 meeting by having activities/sessions related to soil ecology education. Jenny Talbot (jtalbot@uci.edu) spoke on behalf of the student section and said that many activities are being planned by the students for the meeting and that she could be contacted if anyone was interested in participating in the planning process.

Nancy mentioned that the ESA has grants available ($2500) for sections which she discussed with Jayne Belnap, an ESA member-at-large. Jayne said that these grants could be used to support student travel to the meetings. A motion was made and seconded to pursue this grant and use it for student travel awards from the section. The “aye’s” won the vote with no “nay’s” heard from the audience. Nancy will take the lead on pursuing the grant application and suggested that the travel award be modeled after the Parkinson travel award given by the SES and that this new award be named after an eminent soil ecologist, perhaps Hans Jenny or Diana Wall, 2 names suggested by attendees.

Loren organized the soil ecology student presentation competition for this year’s meeting. 13 students presented posters and papers and 12 judges were recruited to evaluate their presentations. Loren emphasized that, despite a section-wide call for volunteers, only one person volunteered outright and that he had to actively recruit the others and that more judges would have been preferable to reduce the number of presentations that each person had to judge. Thus, he made the plea for increased volunteerism among section members in the future and encouraged current students to become judges in the future. Based on the judges’ evaluations, one award will be given for the most successful paper and poster presentation. Winning students will receive monetary awards in an amount to be determined based on the section budget following the meeting.

The other main activity of the section members is planning symposia for the ESA meetings. Jennifer called for suggestions for symposia ideas. Due to a time constraint in using the meeting room however, no discussion was held about ideas and Jennifer said that anyone with ideas should email them to her (pettridge2@llnl.gov). Symposium proposals are due to the ESA by Sept 14 and will need to be reviewed by the section leadership if they are to be endorsed by the section.

Jennifer also mentioned the idea of having a “speed-dating” session at next year’s section mixer to facilitate interactions between students and “veteran” soil ecologists and provide a forum for discussing students’ ideas. Although no vote was made, there seemed to be general consensus that this would be a great activity.

Finally, Loren called for a discussion about the format of the mixer. He indicated that this year’s mixer was held in conjunction with the Physiological Ecology section and that one free drink coupon (to the first 60 members) and pizza were provided to attending members. Because the Physiological Section is one of the largest in the ESA and had a very large turnout for the mixer, soil ecologists attending the mixer may have felt “lost” in a large crowd during this mixer and not been able to interact with other section members successfully. Many nodded or said yes in agreement with this sentiment. Also, he asked whether providing free drink coupons was a good way to spend the section’s funds. An alternative is to use the funds to pay for the total bartender fee and have the mixer alone (having a joint mixer helps split food and bartender costs). He asked people to voice their thoughts about how best to conduct next year’s mixer and business meeting. After a few people voiced their thoughts, Loren summarized them verbally for the attendees as follows: the section should meet alone using its funds to pay for all costs rather than for free drinks and sharing the mixer room with another section. Although a formal vote was not taken, general agreement was voiced for this proposition from the attendees.

The business meeting ended at approximately 7:55.
(Need update on funds and money spent.)