Blog post by ESA President Osvaldo Sala On April 9, I represented ESA in a meeting with Joanne Tornow, NSF assistant director for the NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO). Tornow organized the Zoom meeting to listen to concerns of scientific society leaders and to inform us of NSF’s COVID-19 pandemic response. The other attendees were presidents and CEOs of…
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) will present the 2020 awards recognizing outstanding contributions to ecology in new discoveries, teaching, sustainability, diversity, and lifelong commitment to the profession during the Society’s Annual Meeting August 2-7. ESA is weighing whether to hold an in person meeting in Salt Lake City that includes a virtual option or whether to hold a totally…
By Martha Downs, Frank Davis, Jenn Caselle, Julien Brun, and Kristen Weiss Like marine fog that blankets one community while leaving a nearby neighborhood in sunshine, COVID 19 crept up on us at an uneven pace. In California, awareness and action to halt its spread came quickly, with in-person instruction at UC Santa Barbara, where the LTER Network Office is…
ESA’s fellowship program recognizes the many ways in which its members contribute to ecological research and discovery, communication, education and pedagogy, and management and policy.
Dear ESA Members, ESA is thinking about all those who are affected by the disruption to daily life caused by the COVID-19 (coronavirus). We are concerned about the impact that the spread of this disease will personally have on members of the ecologic and the greater scientific community. We hope you remain safe and that daily operations return to normal…
Dear ESA Members, Today, I am writing to you regarding the Ecosystem Recovery Fund that the Ecological Society of Australia is launching to help with ecological recovery efforts from the unprecedented fires that have devastated an enormous extent of Australia’s ecosystems. I am sure you have seen the news and are aware of the substantial impact that this tragedy had…
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is honored to announce this year’s Katherine S. McCarter Graduate Student Policy Award (GSPA) recipients. This award provides graduate students with the opportunity to receive policy and communication training in Washington, D.C. before they meet lawmakers. ESA selected twelve students to receive the award: Tiffany L. Betras (University of Pittsburgh), Callie R. Chappell (Stanford…
By Bruce A. Byers Just north of what is now Frankfort, Kentucky, the capital of the state, the Kentucky River, flowing north at that point, makes a right-angle bend to the west. Sandbars developed at that turn, creating a shallow ford where bison crossed the river on annual migrations from east to west and back. Daniel Boone passed here, following…
Blog post by ESA Executive Director Catherine O’Riordan This week I traveled to Northern Ireland for the first time to represent ESA at the British Ecological Society meeting in Belfast. Traveling to Belfast directly from the U.S. is difficult, as most flights go through London, so I flew to Dublin and took a two-hour bus ride across the border. Fortunately…
Osvaldo Sala, ESA President Jessica Gurevitch, ESA Secretary Evan DeLucia, ESA Vice President for Finance Over the past year, the ESA Governing Board has been working to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of the Society’s governance, with efforts resulting in proposed changes to our governing documents. Many changes have occurred in the 23 years since the most recent constitution and…
New Application Deadline: Jan. 27, 2020 The Ecological Society of America is seeking applicants for the position of Editor-in-Chief of its journal Ecological Applications. David Schimel, who has led this journal since 2001, will be stepping down as Editor-in-Chief in December 2020. Ecological Applications focuses on the applications of ecological science to environmental problems. It publishes papers that develop scientific…
By ESA President Osvaldo Sala, The landscape of science is changing, and the Society strives to be flexible and evolve to serve its members. Over the past year, I was charged as President-Elect to lead the Governing Board members and staff to thoughtfully craft the ESA’s Strategic Plan for 2019-2021 to meet the needs of ecologists. In-person and Zoom meetings…