RECAP OF THE 88TH ANNUAL MEETING IN VENTURA, CALIFORNIA
The 88th meeting of the Western Society of Naturalists was held November 8 – 11, 2007 at the Marriott in Ventura, California. The meeting was attended by over 550 members and was one of the highest turnouts in recent memory. Highlights of the meeting included a presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Award to Paul Dayton of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, an award and presentation by WSN Naturalists of the Year Genny and Shane Anderson of Santa Barbara City College and UCSB, the AAH with hand-picked kegs of beer by local chair Hunter Lenihan, and the banquet and Presidential Address delivered by outgoing President Larry Allen. The WSN Auction was presided over by Rafe Sagarin, and donations by members raised $6,098 for student travel. The prized “tequila and trophy”, won by CSU Long Beach last year, was again bid on heavily and eventually won by CSU Northridge. The student committee raised another $2,530 in sales of t-shirts and other merchandise. The contributed papers and posters were again filled with many excellent presentations.
Elections, Nominations, and Other Society Business
A number of decisions were made at the 2007 business meeting:
• Bob Carpenter, of CSU Northridge, was nominated and unanimously elected as President-Elect.
• Lara Ferry-Graham announced the end of her term as WSN treasurer. Taking her place will be Andrew Brooks of UC Santa Barbara.
• Todd Anderson, Matt Edwards, and Kevin Hovel announced that 2008 will be the end of their six year term as WSN Secretariat. Taking their place will be Gwen Goodmanlowe, Chris Lowe, Bruno Pernet from CSU Long Beach.
Additionally,
• Lara Ferry-Graham provided a treasury report on the society’s finances.
• Jarrett Byrnes provided a report on the student committee.
Travel Awards
Travel awards totaling six thousand dollars were given to students who presented papers at the Ventura meeting. Although we are not able to fund all students who have applied, and these awards cannot cover the majority of their expenses, students are encouraged to apply for these awards in order to attend future meetings. All members are encouraged to contribute to the travel fund when they pay their annual dues. Details on applying for student travel awards are available on the WSN website.
Student paper and poster awards
From the student papers presented at the 88th Annual Meeting, awards for Best Student Paper were given in three categories: 1) Ecology and Conservation (Mia Tegner Award), 2) Genetics and Population Biology 3) Physiology and Organismal Biology. WSN also presented a Best Student Poster Award. The Best Student Paper/Poster Award Committee was chaired by Bonnie Becker and Rebecca Vega Thurber, who did an excellent job of organizing the judging and helping to evaluate the presentations; many thanks for their efforts!
As always, there were numerous outstanding papers that deserved awards, but this year was particularly difficult for the judges due to the huge number of papers and posters of excellent quality. Here are the winners and those receiving honorable mention in each category:
Best Student Papers
Ecology and Conservation (Mia Tegner Award)
Winner: Graham Ferrier, “Chemical cues and the keystone species hypothesis”
Honorable Mention: Kim Anthony, “Translocation and homing behavior of platform-associated fishes from offshore oil platforms in the Santa Barbara channel”
Genetics and Population Biology
Winner: Darren Johnson, “Big daddies make better babies: genetic links between adult size and larval quality in a marine fish”
Honorable Mention: Susanne Plank, “The population genetic structure of the round stingray (Urobatis halleri) in Southern California”
Physiology and Organismal Biology
Winner: Laurel Johnston, “Influences of temperature and salinity on adhesive properties of cement from the barnacle, Balanus amphitrite”
Honorable Mention: Jaqueline Padilla-Gamino, “Exploring coral reproduction in the field: do size and morphology influence the reproductive output of the hermatypic coral Montipora capitata (spawner)?
Best Student Poster
Co-winners: Jenn Gowan, “Secondary effects of Acanthaster planci predation on survivorship of resident damselfish”
Stephanie Horii, “resource partitioning between two species of cleaner wrasse – Labroides biocolor and Labroides dimadiatus”
MESSAGE FROM OUR OUTGOING TREASURER, LARA FERRY-GRAHAM
Financially, the Ventura meeting was a success. Great job to our Secretariat! Thanks everyone for letting me serve. I am very proud to have been elected and allowed to serve for 4 years in this important role. I know Andy Brooks will do a great job and I hope everyone supports him as much as they supported me. I am sure that you all will!
-Lara Ferry-Graham
STATE OF THE SOCIETY AND MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL REMINDER
The membership in WSN stands at over 650 current members. Please continue to help promote the society by encouraging your colleagues and students to join WSN as we continue to grow the membership. Because the society now operates almost exclusively by e-mail, it is very important that you contact us with changes to your e-mail address and other contact information so that we can update our database. Please note again that you now have TWO ways to make a donation in support of the society: 1) a donation to the Student Travel/Dave Montgomery Endowment Fund and 2) a donation to help support the day-to-day costs of running the society. Thank you for supporting WSN and we hope to see you at the upcoming meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia this November!
