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Other Systematics Associations
Société Française de Systématique
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Swiss Systematics Society
Willi Hennig Society
Society of Systematic Biologists
Society of Australian Systematic Biologists
In addition, the Systematics Association maintains especially strong links with the Linnean Society of London.
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Launch of the Systematics & Taxonomy (SynTax) Research Scheme
12th of November 2009, 6.00pm
The Linnean Society of London
The Research Councils are launching a new funding scheme for research in systematics and taxonomy. The Systematics and Taxonomy (SynTax) scheme is designed to provide short-term funding for preliminary research that will form the basis of novel responsive mode proposals with a substantial systematics/taxonomy component.
The scheme aims to stimulate high quality taxonomy and systematics-related research proposals to the UK's Research Councils. The scheme follows on from the Collaborative Systematics (CoSyst) scheme, through which a number of projects have gone on to receive responsive mode funding. The launch event will provide details of the SynTax scheme and will showcase successful projects funded under its predecessor CoSyst.
Speakers
SynTax Scheme
Amanda Read, BBSRC
CoSyst Showcase:
- Genomic tools for studying the Origin of Species
Professor Vincent Savolainen, Imperial College London - Hydatellaceae: a key to reassessing morphological evolution in angiosperms
Dr Paula Rudall, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew - Molecular diversity of microbial eukaryotes using a large-scale parallel tag sequencing strategy
Dr Tom Richards, University of Exeter
Posters are invited from CoSyst grantholders.
Tea will be served in the Library from 5.30pm and the lecture will be followed by a wine reception and poster session. This meeting is free and open to all; registration is not necessary.
Professor Christopher J. Humphries, 1947-2009
It is often the sad task of a President to report the death of a past-President, but it is rare that the two incumbencies in question are separated by as little as three years. The fact that Chris Humphries had been ailing for some time, suffering from heart problems and having survived (barely) a liver transplant, in no way lessened the blow of his death on July 31st, at the ridiculously young age of 62. The recent publication by Chris's long-time colleagues at the Natural History Museum, David Williams and Charlie Jarvis, of an excellent factual obituary for Chris (www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/science-obituaries/6039183/Chris-Humphries) leaves me free to pen a more personal valediction.
I first met Chris in the early 1980s, when he was arguably at the height of his very considerable powers. During the previous decade he had played a key role in catalysing the cladistics revolution, alongside such luminaries as Colin Patterson. Together with Kåre Bremer and Vicki Funk, he had successfully promoted new-fangled cladistic methods of phylogeny reconstruction within the botanical community. Having laid these essential foundations, he then explored the full range of biologically relevant applications to which parsimony could be applied, rattling off in short order co-authored or edited volumes on ontogeny, biogeography and conservation prioritisation before co-authoring a classic textbook on cladistic methods. All of these books justly became classics. Supported by numerous well-cited peer-reviewed papers and conference talks across the globe, these outputs undoubtedly had a profound impact throughout systematic biology.
Plaudits for Chris's pioneering intellect came relatively rapidly within the expanding cladistics field, leading to extensive citation and the Presidency of the Willi Hennig Society in 1989-91. However, bouquets arrived rather more slowly from the wider systematics/taxonomic community, which was not entirely certain that it wished to entertain this growing cadre of fractious young(ish) whippersnappers with their logical rigour, complex terminology and often aggressive proselytising. Nevertheless, Chris was soon warmly regarded in both the Linnean Society and the Systematics Association. His Vice-Presidency of the Linnean Society (1994-8) was followed by the Presidency of the Systematics Association (2000-3) and the award of the Linnean Gold Medal (2001), together reflecting the mutually beneficial symbiosis that existed between Chris and both organisations. He was also awarded a visiting Chair and Individual Merit status by BBSRC. Many of us felt that Fellowship of the Royal Society would have been just reward for his earlier innovations, but this goal was probably made more difficult by Chris's admirable combination of certainty of purpose and disarming honesty (anyone doubting either quality should, for example, consult Chris's critical analysis of the SA Biennial conference over which he presided in South Kensington in 2001: Systematist 18 (January 2002), pp. 1-3).
Chris was, in addition, a committed bon viveur and genuine polymath. The depth and breadth of his general knowledge was breathtaking; it was a brave person who challenged Chris on topics as disparate as the history of science on the one hand versus modern art or jazz on the other. I used to chide Chris that the one topic for which he rarely found sufficient time was botany itself, but in truth, he viewed educating people as a higher calling. He would boldly inform senior (sometimes dangerously senior) colleagues of the error of their ways if they had not yet subscribed to hard-core cladistics. The roll-call of junior colleagues who benefited considerably from Chris's boundless advice and encouragement is long and ultimately prestigious - like Miss Jean Brodie, Chris had the ability and charisma to acquire many life-long protégés. Moreover, unlike Miss Jean Brodie, Chris was happy to interact with the wider populus; the tower in which he resided in later years at the Natural History Museum was certainly not built of ivory.
So, I return full circle to recount my earliest meetings with Chris, which occurred when I was a part-time undergraduate (and committed pheneticist) determined on pursuing a career in sedimentary geology. The encounters did not take place in pubs or involve drafting indecipherable diagrams on the backs of beer mats - that came later. No, I first met Chris in the herbarium of the Natural History Museum at its centenary exhibition in 1981. Bracketed by expositions of phenetics and authoritarian evolutionary scenarios, Chris was selling cladistic methods with the style and vigour of a Pettycoat Lane stallholder. Once lured to his stall I was treated by Chris to a thick wad of photocopied articles from Nature detailing the furore caused by the Museum's recent switch to cladistics-dominated exhibits. Scratching my head over these peculiar articles on the train back to St Albans, I decided that I wanted to know more. Thus, the scene moved to the Friends Meeting House in Hemel Hempstead, one Saturday afternoon several months later, where Chris had kindly agreed to lecture the heterogeneous membership of the Hertfordshire Natural History Society on the importance of recognising that the lungfish and the cow are more closely related to each other than either is to the salmon.
Few authorities of Chris's calibre would have wasted their valuable time on such a parochial gathering, yet his enthusiasm and commitment shone through and thereby nudged my professional life in a subtly different, yet irrevocable, direction. I am confident that Chris's influence on both systematics and systematists was - and remains - profound.
Richard Bateman
Two Leverhulme funded PhD Studentships in the Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath
Applications are invited for a studentship on Fossils and the Tree of Life.
- Can we infer the true Tree of Life without fossils?
- Are fossil characters phylogenetically biased, and if so, does it matter?
- Is the phylogeny of some groups really much more intractable than others?
- Are ghost ranges much more common in some groups, and if so, why?
Closing Date: 18 May 2009
Further details
Applications are invited for a studentship on Macroevolutionary Trends.
- Is the early evolution of maximal disparity of form a rule?
- Do clades go extinct because better-adapted ones displace them?
- Is increasing complexity in animal groups inevitable?
- Are reductions in complexity misleading phylogenetic analyses?
Closing Date: 18 May 2009
Further details
Plant conservation for the next decade: a celebration of Kew's 250th anniversary
October 12th-16th, 2009
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
www.kew.org/science/anniversary-conference/
Call for Papers
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is hosting a celebratory scientific conference from October 12th-16th 2009, to mark the occasion of its 250th Anniversary. The programme will include three days of scientific sessions in the Jodrell laboratory, showcasing Kew's conservation research and inviting leading international research scientists to present papers in six sessions entitled:
- Plant conservation: policies and politics
- Plant conservation: management and restoration
- Plant conservation and human cultures
- Plant conservation and agriculture
- Frontiers of plant conservation technology
- Plant conservation: what can we afford to lose?
Keynote speakers include Dr Peter Raven, Dr Judy West, Professor Hongwen Huang, Professor Michael E Kane, Dr Saw Leng Guan, Professor Richard Hobbs, Ms Sara Oldfield, the current Director of Kew Professor Stephen Hopper and previous Directors Professor Sir Peter Crane and Professor Sir Ghillean Prance.
We now invite interested parties to submit abstracts for posters and oral presentations, to be considered for inclusion in this exciting conference. Participating authors are also invited to contribute to a special issue of Kew Bulletin, subject to standard scientific review.
Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words, excluding the title, and the deadline for abstract submission is April 9th, 2009. Details of online abstract submission and registration, and general information about the conference, can be found at:
www.kew.org/science/anniversary-conference/
The Second Annual Biodiversity Policy Lecture in Association with the Systematics Association
16 April 2009, 6:00pm at the Linnean Society
Biodiversity in a Changing World
Professor John Beddington, Government Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office for Science
Prof John Beddington will deliver a talk on biodiversity in a changing world, which will include the interrelated issues of climate change, food, water and energy security. He will also discuss the importance of understanding biodiversity further, which amongst other things will help the UK Government in its efforts to meet its national and international biodiversity policy targets.
Registration for this event is essential, please contact Kate Longhurst to book a place:
Tea will be served in the Library from 5.30pm and the lecture will be followed by a wine reception.
NICHE EVOLUTION
A unifying concept for systematics, ecology, palaeontology and conservation biology
3-4 July, 2009. Excursion on 5 July.
Zurich, Switzerland
MOTIVATION
Evolution of ecological niches, in their various
guises, has become a central theme in several research fields of biology. We argue
that niches, how they evolve, and the consequences of their evolution, affect a wide
range of disciplines in organismal and evolutionary biology, and as such could be
seen as a unifying thread.
In this meeting we will explore the interdisciplinary impact of evolving niches, and so bring together systematists, invasion biologists, biodiversity specialists, ecologists, and palaeontologists. We want to explore the commonality of evolving niches. The focus is more on concepts than methods (although, of course, the methods used will impact massively on the concepts). The emphasis is more on how to understand the evolution of a niche, rather than the definition of the niche. There will be some talks on the basics of niches to set the stage for the topics of niche evolution. The idea is to bring people together working in this field and to provide a forum to discuss developments, prospects and needs with various users and specialists. Therefore, the program is structured to provide ample time for discussions between and after the sessions.
PLACE
The meeting will take place at the Institute of Systematic
Botany of the University of Zurich, situated in the botanical garden of the University
of Zurich, within easy reach of public transport.
TALKS
Only invited talks will be given, and contributions
as posters are welcome. There will be an evening poster session.
Invited speakers include William Bond, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Alastair Culham, Catherine Graham, Antoine Guisan, Sabine Jakob, Jennifer Lau, Peter Linder, Signe Normand, Peter Pearman, Townsend Peterson, Bob Ricklefs, Nicolas Salamin, Walter Salzburger, Harald Schneider, Jonathan Silvertown, Wilfried Thuillier and Niklaus Zimmermann.
POST-CONFERENCE ONE-DAY EXCURSION
There will be an excursion
for Sunday, 5 July, into the Alps. We will cross the Susten Pass (2'250 m). On Susten
Pass we will visit the Steingletscher glacier, which has shown a dramatic reduction
in the past decades, thus exposing much new habitat. We will be able to see the plant
successions into these newly exposed habitats. This shows very dramatically the effect
of climate change, and the potential new habitats exposed.
ORGANISERS
Peter Linder, Alexandre Antonelli, Rafael Wüest
(Systematic Botany, University of Zurich), Niklaus Zimmermann and Peter Pearman
(Institute of Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, WSL, Zurich), Harald Schneider
(Natural History Museum, London), Frank Blattner (IPK Gatersleben) and Nicolas Salamin
(Computational Phylogenetics, University of Lausanne)
REGISTRATION IS OPEN, at www.systbot.uzh.ch/niche
Dr Alexandre Antonelli
Institute of Systematic Botany
Zollikerstrasse 107
CH 8008 Zürich
Switzerland
Ph: +41 (0)44 634 8416
Fax: +41 (0)44 634 8403
House of Lords Science and Technology Committee
The Government provided its Response to the Systematics and Taxonomy: Follow-up report on 6 November 2008. Visit the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee pages for additional details.
EVOLUTION 150
WORKSHOP on "Evolutionary Biology: Evolution 150", celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's The Origin of the Species, Cuenca, Spain 15th - 19th March 2009
The British Council in Spain in collaboration with the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) is organising a series of scientific workshops to provide opportunities for researchers from the UK and Spain to meet face-to-face for the exchange of ideas, knowledge and information on priority topics and to explore future areas of research and collaboration. The next workshop in this series, entitled Evolution 150, will cover the broad field of evolutionary biology and marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of "The Origin of Species".
For further details and an application form contact Rafael Zardoya or Peter Holland
Early to mid career researchers wishing to participate should send a completed application form and CV to before December 15, 2008.
Beyond Cladistics: A Festschrift for Chris Humphries
1st to 3rd of October 2008, at the Linnean Society
As an approach to the discovery of phylogenetic relationships among organisms, cladistics took the systematics community by storm. According to David Hull, in his 1988 account of its history, cladistics was winning out everywhere; according to Colin Patterson, cladistics "began in the late 1960s, accelerated in the 1970s, and was virtually complete by the eighties"; in contrast, Gareth Nelson suggested that cladistics is suffering from "Arrested Development". This symposium, entitled Beyond Cladistics, in honour of botanist Chris Humphries, will address some general issues relating to cladistics: its past, its present and its future - if, indeed, there is anything beyond cladistics itself.
Additional Information
IV International Rubiaceae (Gentianales) Conference
October 19-24, 2008. Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico.
The "Instituto de Biologia, UNAM" and the "Instituto de Ecologia, A.C." are pleased to announce that the fourth Rubiaceae Conference will be held in the Clavijero Botanical Garden of the Institute of Ecology in Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. This meeting will include papers and posters on the taxonomy, phylogeny and classification, morphology and anatomy, floristics, ecology and biogeography within Rubiaceae or other Gentianales. We particularly encourage students to submit the results of their work.
Deadline for abstracts: July 31, 2008.
Please visit www.ibiologia.unam.mx/rubiaceas/index.htm
For further questions, contact
The First Systematics Association-Linnean Society Annual Lecture on Biodiversity Policy
10 April 2008 at the Linnean Society
Biodiversity in a changing world - building a science base to support policy
Prof. Georgina Mace, Imperial College (Silwood Park)
New pressures on biodiversity from climate change and land-use change continue to deplete natural species and communities, and lead to increased risks to people and the economy from environmental damage and loss of natural resources. Yet, despite widespread acceptance of this problem, we still rely on a biodiversity information base that is often patchy, opportunistic and lacks a coherent focus. In this talk I will discuss some ideas and current initiatives that could build on the scientific and research strengths in UK institutions, especially the universities, research institutes and museums, and provide a stronger framework for biodiversity science to support significant policy issues at national and international levels.
10th Symposium of the International Organization of Plant Biosystematists
2 - 4 July 2008
Evolution of Plants in Mountainous and Alpine Habitat
Vysoké Tatry Mts., Štrbské Pleso, Slovak Republic
You are cordially invited to Slovakia to Vysoke Tatry Mts., July 2008, to the next international IOPB symposium.
visit www.guarant.cz/iopb2008/ for further details
Assessing scientific opinion on character quality in phylogeny reconstruction
Dear Colleague,
My name is Josephine Hill and I am a Master's student in Biosystematics at The Natural History
Museum. I am inviting you participate in my first research project exploring character quality in
phylogeny reconstruction.
Recently, there has been much debate as to whether molecular, morphological and even behavioural information differ in quality. For example, does one type of character contain more 'homoplasy' or convergence than another type of character? As part of my first project I wish to survey the opinion of scientists from different fields of research as to whether molecular, morphological and behavioural information differ in quality. I hope the results will give me a greater understanding of any association between area of interest and the reasoning behind personal preference.
The survey date has now passed.
I thank you in advance and please contact me if you have any further queries regarding this study.
Yours sincerely
Josephine
Email:
Climate Change and Systematics
1st - 3rd September 2008
Call for oral and poster presentations
A meeting organised by the
Department of Botany, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
on behalf of the Systematics Association
and the Linnean Society
Please download a flier with further details
To receive subsequent circulars and participate in the meeting
Please complete the form available at http://www.tcd.ie/botany/ and return by email to:
Email: climate@tcd.ie
Subject: conference form
Organising Committee
T. Hodkinson, M. Jones, J. Parnell, S. Ní Sheoin, S. Waldren
Email: climate@tcd.ie
Address: Department of Botany, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland
Fax: +353-1-8961147
Phone: +353-1-8961274
Second round of CoSyst funding
The second round of CoSyst awards were made in March. A total of £74,445 was allocated.
SA response to House of Lords
February 2008: Response to the House of Lords Science & Technology Committee call for evidence: Systematics and taxonomy. Read submission
SYNTHESYS
The closing date for proposals has passed.
