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2013

 

2013 Theoretical Ecology Section ReportThe Theoretical Ecology Section of the ESA was formed in 1993 to (1) foster theoretical research in all areas of ecology; (2) sponsor meetings for the presentation of results; (3) foster communication and research collaboration between theoreticians and experimental/field ecologists; (4) encourage the application of ecological theory to the resolution of societal problems.

Mixer and Business Meeting

The Section will host its annual Mixer and Business Meeting on Monday, August 5th, from 6:30- 8 pm at the ESA Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN, USA (Room 200I, Minneapolis Convention Center).

Awards

The Theoretical Ecology Section awards the Alfred J. Lotka and Vito Volterra prizes for the best presentations given by students during the Annual Meeting of the ESA. The award is open to graduate or undergraduate student members of the ESA who, as sole or first author, present a talk or poster at the ESA Annual Meeting on original research in theoretical ecology.   Prizes are awarded on the basis of merit, originality, and clarity of presentation. The winner of the 2012 Lotka award for the best poster was Emily Moberg from MIT/WHOI for her poster “The cost of protecting biodiversity in harvested metacommunities” (coauthored by Michael Neubert) .  The winner of the 2012 Volterra award for the best talk was Colin Olito from the University of Calgary for his talk “Using a bottom-up model of plant-pollinator interaction networks to investigate the role of foraging decisions vs. topological constraints in determining network structure ” (coauthored by Stephen Hausch) .Â
Thank you to all section members who evaluated presentations for this competition.

The Section also sponsors an annual award for an outstanding recent published paper in ecological theory.  The recipient of the 2013 award is “Nitrogen and Phosphorus Limitation over Long-term Ecosystem Development in Terrestrial Ecosystems” by Duncan Menge, Lars Hedin, and Stephen Pacala. This paper appears in PLoS One (2012) vol. 7(8) e42045.

Symposia

At the 2013 ESA Annual Meeting, the Theoretical Ecology Section is not sponsoring a symposium. No sponsorship was requested.

Officers

Katia Koelle will step down as Chair at the conclusion of the Section’s business meeting in Minneapolis, MN. Bruce Kendall (the current Vice Chair) will serve as the Section Chair for 2013-2014. Marissa Baskett will serve as the Section Vice Chair for 2013-2014. Jennifer Nelson will step down from her 2-year term as Secretary, and Masami Fujiwara will start his 2-year term as Secretary. Colin Kremer will step down as Student Section Liaison to the Theory Section, and Emily Moberg will become the next Student Section Liaison. Students interested in getting involved should meet with Emily at the 2013 Mixer and Business Meeting.

Sponsorship

The Section thanks Elsevier and Sinauer for donating journal subscriptions and books as prizes for the Lotka and Volterra awards.