Canadian Society for Ecology & Evolution April 2020 Bulletin
Welcome to the CSEE email bulletin. We are hoping you are enjoying this more flexible and effective way to communicate news about ecology & evolution in Canada to CSEE members. Comments and suggestion are welcome, as are links to program announcements, blog posts and other news that you think it appropriate to share. Send it all to csee.newsletter@gmail.com
A message from the President and Vice-President
We’re pleased to see this Bulletin going out to our membership – thanks to CSEE Councillor Julia Mlynarek for taking over editorship. Remember that you can submit material for a future Bulletin at any time (csee.newsletter@gmail.com).This Bulletin comes at an interesting time in the world, with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. For CSEE, the most obvious consequence has been the cancellation of our 2020 annual meeting, which would have been in Edmonton – and which would have been fantastic! We’d like to offer our thanks to the 2020 LOC: Dave Coltman, Heather Proctor, JC Cahill, and a legion of others who worked hard to organize what we can now think of as The Meeting That Wasn’t. Planning is now in full swing for a 2021 meeting in Vancouver, BC – and we look forward to seeing everyone there.The pandemic has changed, and will change, nearly everything we do as scientists and as citizens. We recognize that many among our membership will be struggling with these changes – some, inevitably, more than others. We welcome suggestions about how your Society could help. We also see opportunities for the post-pandemic world to be different from the pre-pandemic one – and for some of these differences to be positive, and to be informed by the continuing work of our members. In the meantime: stay safe, and be kind.
- Isabelle Côté (president) and Steve Heard (vice-president)
2019 Conference Summary
CSEE’s 2019 annual conference was in Fredericton, NB from August 18-21. There were about 660 registered delegates at our meeting in the still-quite-new Fredericton Convention Centre. As usual, there was lots of terrific science, and just as importantly new friendships and collaborations were formed and old ones were refreshed. This year’s conference was joint with the Entomological Society of Canada and the Acadian Entomological Society, and many delegates remarked on the value of expanding our networks in this way. One highlight of the meeting was a spectacular Public Plenary by Jacquelyn Gill (University of Maine), who talked about the value of paleoecology in shaping our thinking about climate change – and who inspired attendees with a message of hope in the face of our climate emergency. In addition, there were fascinating scientific plenaries, a wide variety of organized symposia, workshops ranging from geospatial statistics to bookbinding, and a terrific SWEEEET (Symposium for Women Entering Ecology, Evolution, and Entomology Today) exploring intersectionality in academia and more broadly. The 2019 Local Organizing Committee was co-chaired by Chandra Moffat, Julia Mlynarek, Rob Johns, and Steve Heard. Normally, we’d now say something about next year’s meeting, like “See you all at CSEE 2020 in Edmonton”. Well as you all know, the world had other plans, and the 2020 Edmonton meeting was one of the many casualties of the pandemic. However, planning is well underat for a spectacular CSEE 2021 in Vancouver. As they say: We shall meet again!
President’s Musings about CSEE 2019
I still feel a buzz from EcoEvoEnto2019! Congrats to Stephen Heard and the LOC for putting on a first-class event!
Looking back on it, it is clear to me that our annual conference is more than just a showcase of scientific excellence. It is also a concrete display of the principles of diversity and inclusivity that define us as a Society. This year’s conference was again guided by a strong code of conduct, and code-of-conduct advocates were trained, visible, and ready to help people being subject to or witnessing unacceptable behaviour. [No one availed themselves of their services during the conference.] We also support early career researchers in tangible ways. We keep registration fees for students at a break-even level. This year, we distributed $25,000 in travel grants to post-docs, graduate and undergraduate students. Our Excellence in Graduate Research awards might be the only ones in the world that so clearly emphasize diversity (i.e., their official name is the CSEE Diversity and Excellence in Doctoral Research Awards). We strive to go ever further to make science inclusive, and sometimes the smallest gestures have disproportionate impacts. A case in point is this Twitter thread (minus the cool gifs) from Anna Hargreaves, one of our 2019 Early Career Award winners:
This is a giant shout out to @CSEE_SCEETheir generous EC award (thanks again!) included a travel grant to the @CSEE_Meetings. I was single parenting my 3yo so had to bring him if I was going to attend…not only did @CSEE_SCEE let me use my travel award to cover his ticket (sounds obvious right? you’d be surprised…) but they paid for his ticket on. top. of. my. award.Barrier smashedThat is how you do equity and diversity for real people - yes training and seminars are important but so are resources that reduce barriers.So thanks @CSEE_SCEE for putting your $ where your mouth is to support early career researchers & especially #WomeninStem.
You’re welcome, Dr Hargreaves! Speaking of Twitter, it’s a little known fact that CSEE2019 had five tweeting ambassadors. These scicomm-savvy graduate students led the live-tweeting charge. I don’t have the complete data but the last half of the conference generated some 900 posts by more than 350 users, who reached nearly a half-million people around the world (and made 1.5 million impressions). Lots of noise from a small corner of New Brunswick!
New Honorary Life Member: Dr. Anne Innis Dagg
Honorary life membership to the CSEE is conferred on individuals who have demonstrated a lifetime of research excellence or distinguished service in the fields of ecology and/or evolutionary biology. The Society currently has awarded three honorary life memberships to date: Dr Harold Harvey, Dr C.S. Holling (now deceased), and Dr Chris Pielou (now deceased). At the last AGM, CSEE voted unanimously to confer this honour onto Dr Anne Innis Dagg. What follows is modified from the nomination letter submitted by Charles Krebs, Kathy Martin and Judy Myers.
Dr. Anne Innis Dagg is a Canadian zoologist, feminist, and author of numerous books, and is one of the world’s foremost experts on the biology of giraffes. She was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour in the wild, and is credited with being the first to study free-living African giraffes beginning in 1956 (pre-dating Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas, the most globally-recognized primate women researchers). Dr Dagg’s work on giraffes led to her PhD at University of Waterloo in 1967. She was an assistant professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of Guelph from 1968 to 1972. Despite her early accomplishments (20 peer-reviewed scientific papers by 1972), Dr. Dagg was denied tenure under circumstances that can only be described as gender-biased. Nevertheless, she pursued an important career through writing books and scientific papers about mammal behaviour, while based at the University of Waterloo, where anti-nepotism rules denied her a faculty position.Dr. Innis Dagg is a committed and prominent feminist, and is particularly notable for calling out the gender biases inherent in human interpretations of animal behaviour. She has researched and written extensively about the gender bias in academia and the failure of academic work environments to support female researchers.Over a period of 60 years (1958 to 2014), Dr Dagg’s research resulted in over 60 refereed scientific papers on such subjects as homosexuality, behavior of mammals, sociobiology, feminism, sexism at universities, and the rights of animals. She has also written 20 books and over 100 articles on these topics. In 1972 she started Otter Press in Waterloo, Ontario. Dr. Dagg has been featured twice by the Canadian Museum of Nature as a pioneering Canadian woman scientist, and received the lifetime achievement award from the International Giraffid Conference, which subsequently named the award in her honour in perpetuity. Dr. Dagg’s life and career are the focus of a 2018 feature-length documentary The Woman Who Loves Giraffes.Dr. Anne Innis Dagg is one of Canada’s eminent, but overlooked, ecologists and her work forms an important part of the legacy of ecological contributions by Canadians.
CSEE 2020 Merchandise
For those who were looking were looking forward to getting shirts or mugs with the CSEE-SCEE 2020 logo on them, the organizers have created a ‘store’ on Zazzle. To commemorate the pandemic, they have incorporated cartoons of SARS-CoV-2 into two modified designs. Choose the ‘transparent’ option if you want to have the shirt or mug colour show through.
Welcome New Councillors!
CSEE councillors serve terms that begin and end with our Annual General Meetings (which happen during our annual conferences). At the 2019 AGM, we welcomed three new councillors and bade farewell to three who completed their terms. Joining council are Julia Mlynarek, Dan Kraus, and Xueqi (Sharon) Wang (student/postdoc councillor). Julia is a Research Scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Dan is the National Conservation Biologist with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and Sharon is Ph.D. student at the University of Guelph. We are excited to work with all of them and grateful for their willingness to serve. Wrapping up terms on Council are Ken Thompson (student/postdoc councillor), Alison Derry, and Chris Eckert – if you see these folks, please thank them for their service to your Society. Happily, we’re pretty sure this won’t be the last we see of them! By the way: As this Bulletin in published, we’re about to elect another new set of Councillors. Expect an annoucement, an voting, very soon!
The Biological Survey of Canada (BSC: https://biologicalsurvey.ca/) recently completed the massive undertaking of publishing overviews of taxon richness of all groups of terrestrial arthropods in Canada. These family level summaries were published early in 2019 as “The Biota of Canada: Terrestrial Arthropods”in the journal ZooKeys (https://zookeys.pensoft.net/issue/1251/). This 520 page special issue contains 32 papers on insects, arachnids and myriapods. In addition to listing known species-richness per family, most of the articles include estimates of how many species have yet to be found in Canada, plus number of DNA Barcode Index Numbers (BINs) associated with Canadian specimens in the Barcode of Life Data System database (BOLD). These summaries will assist reporting on the status of biodiversity in Canada and should spur future genus- and species-level compendia for arthropods. The BSC also hopes that they will inspire biodiversity scientists who work with other eukaryote taxa to contribute to the ambitious Biota of Canada publication series.
Treasurer’s Report
Yolanda Morbey (Western University)
The CSEE is in excellent financial standing. In 2018, total revenue was $75,367, which included $33K from membership fees, a surplus of $33,320 from the 2017 meeting in Victoria, and $1390 in interest from a GIC. Expenses in 2018 totalled $61,181 (see pie chart). At the end of 2018, our short-term assets included $60,560 in cash and $81,390 in a 15 month. GIC. In 2019, we received a large surplus of $48,045 from the 2018 meeting in Guelph. At the AGM, we approved expenses of $81 K in the 2019 budget. Unanticipated meeting surpluses in recent years have really helped to support and extend core activities. Specifically, over several years we have increased allocations to student travel grants, student-led networking events at the CSEE meeting, graduate student and postdoc award amounts, and website maintenance and upgrading. We continue to discuss how to optimize our use of future surpluses.Financial Statements of the CSEE are available upon request to the Treasurer (ymorbey@uwo.ca).
News from NSERC
There’s lots of good news on the funding side for E&E. The effects of the 2018 budget are being felt. $400M were added to the Discovery grants pot last year, with a $588M addition in 2019. All funded ECRs got a Discovery Launch supplement of $12.5k to top up their first NSERC. The Canada Graduate Scholarship Program was given $114 million to create 500 more annual Master’s level awards and about 500 more three-year doctoral awards by 2021-22. There have been a number of new initiatives of direct interest to the E&E community, including:
- The ‘Advancing climate change science in Canada’ initiative
- A program to study the resilience of Arctic ecosystems in the face of climate change, and another to protect endangered whales
- The Discovery Frontiers: Anti-microbial resistance in the environment program
- Four CREATE training programs related to the environment/sustainability
- The New Frontiers in Research competition, which is now open to everyone
- The Discovery Development grants – to help support researchers at small university – which has been made permanent
The 2019 conference gave the CSEE Council the opportunity to crowd-source opinions about NSERC’s Research Tools and Instruments (RTI) program, at NSERC’s request. Thank you to those of you who stuck post-it notes on our shabby poster! We got good comments on things to fix, including the apparent arbitrariness of decisions and the urgent need to fund equipment like field vehicles, and well as suggestions for improvements. You can see the letter sent to NSERC on the CSEE website.If you have any questions you want us to ask NSERC on your behalf, please email anyone on Council.
We Have a New Award!!
Excellence in Societal Engagement
We are pleased to announce the creation of a new CSEE award: the President’s award for excellence in societal engagement. This award will be given in even years to an individual in recognition of outstanding contributions to public and/or policy engagement related to ecology or evolutionary biology in Canada.In doing so, we highlight the importance of two of the four objectives of the CSEE, which are ‘to raise public awareness about the importance of ecology and evolution to Canadian society’ and ‘to facilitate communication between members of the Society and decision-makers in the public, private, and non-governmental sectors’. The creation of this award was triggered by a suggestion from CSEE member Aerin Jacobs.
And our Inaugural Winner!!
The inaugural winner of the CSEE Excellence in Societal Engagement Award is Dr. Justina Ray. Dr. Ray is the co-founder, president, and senior scientist of the Windlife Conservation Society (WCS) Canada. She is an indefatigable advocate for caribou. She has played key roles in strengthening federal impact assessment and in the conceptual development and identification of Key Biodiversity Areas in Canada. She is also an exceptional mentor who is helping to train the next generation of Canadian conservation scientists. Congratulations Dr. Ray!
Facilitation and Conflict Resolution
Canada’s Liber Ero Fellowship Program
The Liber Ero Fellowship Program offers two-year post-doctoral fellowships to emerging conservation leaders as they bridge the divide between university research and applied conservation science in Canada. Fellows partner with academic and conservation mentors to tackle pressing applied conservation biology issues in Canada, as well as develop valuable networks and build key skills to support their future careers. Our spring retreat on “Facilitation and Conflict Resolution” was held late April/early May 2019 on Galiano Island (BC). Fellows took part in training and discussions on effective group facilitation, led by Julian Griggs from Dovetail Consulting; and participated in learning exercises focused on conflict engagement and the cultural aspects of conflict, led by Michele LeBaron from the University of BC’s Allard School of Law. Our retreat in fall 2019 was held in Iqaluit, NU, and focused on learning about Nunavut Inuit knowledge, Arctic biodiversity issues, community events, and networking with college students, hunters, and researchers participating in the Northern Research Institute’s Northern Contaminants Workshop in Iqaluit. Calls for proposals for Fellows come annually, with deadlines typically in November. Outstanding post-doctoral researchers from any country are eligible to apply; however, research projects should be based at a Canadian institution. For further information please contact us at info@liberero.ca.
