AIBS News April 2007

• AIBS Announces Awards to Brewer, Eldredge, Levin, and Murdoch

  The AIBS Board and Awards Committee are pleased to announce the recipients of the following awards, which will be presented at 1:30 p.m. on 14 May during the AIBS annual meeting:

  • Education Award: Carol A. Brewer, University of Montana, Missoula
  • President’s Citation Award: Niles Eldredge, American Museum of Natural History, New York
  • Distinguished Scientist Award: Simon A. Levin, Princeton University
  • Outstanding Service Award: William Murdoch, University of California, Santa Barbara

  Recipients of the Print Media Award and the Broadcast Media Award will be announced later.

  To register for the AIBS annual meeting, please visit www.aibs.org/annual-meeting/annual_meeting_2007.html.

• AIBS Emerging Public Policy Leader Award Winners Named

  AIBS is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2007 Emerging Public Policy Leader Award: Amber Szoboszlai, of California State University, and Sarah Wright, of the University of Wisconsin.

  Szoboszlai and Wright receive an AIBS membership, including a subscription to BioScience, and will travel to Washington, DC, to participate in a congressional visits event on 18–19 April, sponsored by the Biological and Ecological Sciences Coalition and the Coalition on Funding Agricultural Research Missions. They will meet with members of Congress and their staffs and attend briefings on federal funding for research by senior members of the science policy community.

  Amber Szoboszlai is a graduate student in marine science at the California State University’s Moss Landing Marine Labs at Monterey Bay, California. In research for her master’s degree, which she expects to complete in May 2007, Szoboszlai is examining how some species of algae growing in the intertidal zone may modify environmental conditions to promote the settlement and growth of the juvenile stages of another coexisting algal species. Szoboszlai was awarded a 2007 California Sea Grant State Fellowship with the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS) to coordinate biological research projects conducted at MBNMS with management needs and goals. Following her fellowship in September 2007, she will begin her PhD research in marine ecology at the University of California, Davis.

  Sarah Wright is a doctoral candidate in botany at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2006 for her dissertation research examining the effects of climate change on the range limits and timing of the life cycle of wild lupine, the only host plant of the endangered Karner blue butterfly. Wright is engaged in a number of science education and outreach activities, including the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Biology Education Adult Role Models in Science Program and the National Phenology Network Implementation Team’s Citizen Science and Outreach working group. She intends to pursue a career in science education after she completes her PhD.

  “AIBS is committed to improving the public understanding of science and communicating its value to society,” said AIBS executive director Richard O’Grady. “We are pleased to recognize Amber Szoboszlai and Sarah Wright for exemplifying this commitment through their work.”

  Kyle Brown, a doctoral candidate in organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University, and Jennifer Jadin, a doctoral candidate in behavior, ecology, evolution and systematics at the University of Maryland, received honorable mention.

• Initial NEON Candidate Core Sites

  NEON, Inc., has announced the initial group of 20 candidate core sites across the United States that will be included in the NEON Project Execution Plan.

  The NEON, Inc., observing strategy and site selection process is based on systematic sampling across the largest scales of ecological variability to provide a basis for “scaling up” analyses across the nation. NEON has divided the United States into 20 climate domains to capture ecoclimatic representativeness. The conterminous United States and Puerto Rico comprise 17 domains, and Alaska and Hawaii add three more. (See the detailed NEON domain map at http://research.esd.ornl.gov/~hnw/neon/withindomainrep2.)

  The NEON core wildland sites (largely natural vegetation, not intensively managed) form the stable, fixed elements of observatory design, which also includes relocatable gradient sites and mobile (truck-mounted) laboratories. The core sites will be in place for 30 or more years, have extensive sampling capacity and instrumentation, and serve as a base for staff operating the sites and associated gradient and mobile laboratories.

  The following summary of NEON core sites by region offers highlights of how the candidate sites fit into the continental-scale network. Preliminary site visits now under way will enable NEON to further evaluate the scientific and logistical issues associated with proposed locations. For further details about NEON science gradients and research themes, and a USGS map showing the locations of the core sites, see www.neoninc.org.

  East
  Northeast: The core site located at Harvard Forest anchors gradients for nitrogen deposition and urban-to-rural research. Mid-Atlantic: Ecological research, studies in genetic diversity and endangered species, and biodiversity monitoring are features of the Smithsonian Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia. Appalachian/Cumberland Plateau: A nitrogen deposition gradient extends from the Walker Branch Reserve to the Northeast Domain gradient. Ozarks Complex: The core site located at Talladega National Forest focuses on agricultural abandonment/paleo-human impacts and nitrogen deposition. It also anchors an ecohydrology gradient. Southeast: Forest management research and a hydrologic gradient study are features of a site supported by the Ordway-Swisher Biological Station.

  Midwest
  Great Lakes: Upper Midwest forest management is the focus of the core site located at Trout Lake Station. Prairie Peninsula: The Konza Prairie Biological Station site anchors an intensive agricultural transect. Northern Plains: Research on biofuels production and an agricultural transect are supported by the Woodworth Field Station. Central Plains: A site in the Pawnee Grasslands includes an agriculture-to-urban transition and is part of the Continental Divide peak-to-prairie elevation transect. Southern Plains: Sentry points for invasive species and infectious disease are features of the site located in the Kerr Wildlife Management Area.

  West
  Northern Rockies: A site located in the Yellowstone Northern Range offers an exurban development gradient adjacent to a major intact ecosystem. Southern Rockies/Colorado Plateau: An endangered alpine ecosystem and dust deposition study are features of the site at Niwot Ridge. Desert Southwest: A core site located in the Santa Rita Experimental Range offers an arid urban–rural transect and a sentinel point for invasive species and infectious diseases. Great Basin: The site at Onaqui-Benmore features a management gradient for invasives and a research region for dust source and deposition. Pacific Northwest: The northwestern forest management transect is located in the Wind River Experimental Forest. Pacific Southwest: Gradients for climate change and ecohydrology are features of the site located in the San Joaquin Experimental Range.

  Outside the continental United States
  Alaska Tundra: The site located at Toolik Lake features a climate change ecohydrologic gradient and is part of the Pacific climate change transect. Alaska Taiga: A permafrost gradient is anchored by the site located at Caribou-Poker Creek. Pacific Tropical: A site located in the Laupahoehoe Forest Unit supports a Pacific invasive species transect. Atlantic Neotropical: Land use and a dry/wet tropical transect pairing with Hawaii are features of the Guanica Forest site in Puerto Rico.

• NEON Selects Mathematician to Be Project Manager

  Minnesota native Karin A. Remington has been named project manager for the National Ecological Observatory Network. Her initiation into the NEON planning effort was immediate.

  “My first day on the job was at the Boulder site selection meeting in February 2007, and it was a terrific introduction to the design process and the level of engagement with the scientists who will be both supporting and using NEON,” said Remington, who brings experience in large-scale scientific data collection and analysis to NEON, as well as an interest in microbial ecology. “I’m really excited by the scope of this project, and the extent of community involvement.”

  Remington earned her master’s and PhD degrees in mathematics from the University of Kentucky before receiving a two-year appointment as Householder Fellow in Scientific Computing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She then joined the Mathematical Software Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, before moving to the Informatics Research group at Celera Genomics.

  Following the sequencing of the Drosophila, human, mouse, and mosquito genomes, Remington joined Craig Venter at his then fledgling Venter Institute in 2002, where she built a team of computational scientists and software engineers working in genome assembly, environmental genomics, and comparative genomics. Her work there ranged from a detailed comparative analysis of the dog, mouse, and human genome sequences to the comprehensive analysis of environmental samples from the Sargasso Sea.

  Remington and the entire staff at the Project Office are now focusing their efforts on preparations for the NSF Preliminary Design Review of NEON, scheduled for 30 April–4 May 2007.

• Change Your Bookmarks!

  The AIBS Virtual Library, repository of video recordings of plenary lectures given by some of the world’s most eminent biologists at AIBS annual meetings since 2000, has been renamed the Media Library. The new URL is www.aibs.org/media-library. Access to the AIBS Media Library is free to all visitors.

• Recent Articles Online at www.actionbioscience.org

  Original article in English
  

  • “Talking Past Each Other: Genetic Testing and Indigenous Populations,” by Ikechi Mgbeoji, associate professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Canada

  Lesson for classroom activities
  

  • “Life on Mars?” lesson by Abigail A. Salyers, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to accompany her article “Looking for Life on Mars and Beyond”

  Spanish translations of previously posted articles
  

  • “Los Animales: Trazando su Herencia” [Animals: Tracing Their Heritage], interview with Nicole King, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California–Berkeley
  
  
  • “La Evidencia y la Explosión del Cámbrico” [Evidence and the Cambrian Explosion], interview with Jeffrey S. Levinton, Department of Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York

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