AIBS is pleased to welcome the New York Botanical Garden, the Soil Science Society of America, the Estuarine Research Federation, and the Society for Economic Botany under the AIBS umbrella. The number of member societies and organizations (MSOs) in the AIBS federation grew to 64 when these four organizations were recently approved for membership by the AIBS Board of Directors.
New York Botanical Garden. A national historic landmark, the 250-acre grounds of the New York Botanical Garden include wetlands, ponds, a cascading waterfall, and a 40-acre tract of the original forest that once covered New York City. Among the horticultural attractions are 16 specialty gardens, including the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, the Rock Garden, and the Jane Watson Irwin Perennial Garden, as well as collections of day lilies, orchids, hardy ferns, flowering trees, conifers, and cherry trees.
NYBG is home to the nation’s largest Victorian glasshouse, the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a New York City landmark that has showcased NYBG’s distinguished tropical, Medi ter ranean, and desert plant collections since 1902. Other notable historic buildings at NYBG include the Snuff Mill (1840), the Museum Building (1901), and the Stone Cottage (1840).
Data collected by NYBG research scientists are used by conservationists, policymakers, biologists, and private industries to locate endangered plants, manage land, promote sustainability of plant resources, and determine new sources of foods, fuels, and medicines. The New York Botanical Garden Press disseminates research results to the scientific community and to the general public through publication of journals, monographs, and books. Visit www.nybg.org for more information about education programs, membership, and special events at the Garden.
Soil Science Society of America. The Soil Science Society of America is the home for over 6000 professionals throughout the world who are dedicated to the advancement of soil science. The primary purpose of SSSA is to advance the discipline and practice of soil science by acquiring and disseminating information about soils in relation to crop production, environmental quality, ecosystem sustainability, bioremediation, waste management and recycling, and wise land use.
Established in 1936, the Soil Science Society of America Journal is the society’s official publication. Through the American Society of Agronomy, SSSA offers professional certification in the areas of agronomy, crop science, soil science, soil classification, horticulture, weed science, and plant pathology. A member of the Tri-Society group, which also includes ASA (another member of the AIBS federation) and the Crop Science Society of America, SSSA has divisions in integrated agricultural systems, resident education, student activities, military land use and management, agroclimatology and agronomic modeling, extension education, environmental quality, international agronomy, and agricultural research station management. For more information about SSSA, see www.soils.org.
Estuarine Research Federation. The Estuarine Research Federation is an international organization whose purpose is to promote research in estuarine and coastal waters, conduct meetings, and serve as a source of advice in matters concerning estuaries and the coastal zone. ERF is a multidisciplinary organization of approximately 2200 academic researchers, public sector managers, teachers, consultants, and students who study and manage the structure and functions of estuaries and the effects of human activities on these fragile environments.
Estuaries, ERF’s journal, publishes research on physical, chemical, geological, and biological systems, as well as management of those systems, at the interface between the land and the sea. The interface is broadly defined to include areas within estuaries, lagoons, wetlands, tidal rivers, watersheds that include estuaries, and nearshore coastal waters. More information about the federation is available online at erf.org.
Society for Economic Botany. The Society for Economic Botany was established in 1959 to foster and encourage scientific research, education, and related activities on the past, present, and future uses of plants and the relationship between plants and people, and to make the results of such research available to the scientific community and the general public through meetings and publications.
With more than 1000 members from all 50 US states and more than 64 countries, SEB serves as the world’s largest professional society for individuals who are concerned with basic botanical, phytochemical, and ethnological studies of plants that are known to be useful or that may have potential uses so far undeveloped. The field of economic botany includes all or parts of many established disciplines, including agronomy, anthropology, archaeology, chemistry, economics, ethnobotany, ethnology, forestry, genetic resources, geography, geology, horticulture, medicine, microbiology, nutrition, pharmacognosy, and pharmacology, in addition to the established botanical disciplines.
The official publication of SEB is Economic Botany, an interdisciplinary journal designed to bridge the gap between pure and applied botany by focusing on the uses of plants by people. The journal documents the rich relationship that has always existed between plants and people around the world, encompassing the past, present, and potential uses of plants. For more information about SEB programs and membership benefits, visit www.econbot.org.
