LATEST NEWS

Earlier this year, the SSE Evolution Journal Taskforce distributed a survey to members of SSE and the European Society of Evolutionary Biologists (ESEB) to collect feedback from the community on authors' perspectives on the journal Evolution and priorities when choosing where to publish. Your feedback is now being used to devise new initiatives to increase quality submissions from existing and new audiences and improve the journal reputation and author experience. Thank you to all who participated! 

Review the full data, or read the text summary here.

Evolution Letters seeks to fill three positions to begin early 2022: Communications Editor, Preprints Editor, and Associate Editor. 

1. The Communications Editor will work with our authors to help promote new research to wider audiences. The role will be particularly well suited to an early career evolutionary biologist with a keen interest in science communication.


2. The Preprints Editor help identify exciting preprints that fit the journal’s remit and scope. The role will be suited to a mid-career evolutionary biologist with a keen eye for the best research across the field of evolutionary biology and a reputation for producing high-quality research.


3. The Associate Editor should be an individual whose research expertise includes experimental evolution. The role will be suited to an early-, mid- or late-career group leader who has a reputation for carrying out cutting-edge research using any experimental evolution system.

Applications are due Friday, 17 December. Continue reading to learn more.

The SSE Diversity Committee (DC) seeks to add two new members starting in late January of 2022. The DC works to support members from all backgrounds through several main actions: by broadening representation to the SSE Executive Council, by pursuing initiatives that support historically excluded groups, and by creating an inclusive, accessible environment at the Evolution conference and in evolutionary biology in general. 

Applications are due December 20. Continue reading to learn more.

We are pleased to announce the results of this year’s election for SSE Council. Please join me in welcoming Kelly Zamudio (President-Elect), Courtney Murren (Treasurer), Hanna Kokko (Non-North American Vice President), and Councilors Angélica Cibrián-Jaramillo, Daniel Bolnick, and Regina Baucom. These positions will start January 1, 2022. Thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s election!

The Evolution Joint Meeting Committee is pleased to welcome two new Assistant Chief Meeting Organizers: Brian Hollis and Alex Wong. With Chief Meeting Organizer Howard Rundle, the new organizers will help plan and run the annual Evolution meeting, including producing the scientific program and interfacing with the society councils and the professional conference organizer. Thank you Dr. Hollis and Dr. Wong for your commitment!

The Stephen Jay Gould Prize recognizes, promotes, and rewards individuals who have increased public understanding of evolutionary biology and its place in modern science. Nominations will be due January 15, 2022. Learn more and apply here.

The ASN/SSE/SSB Inclusiveness, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Award is given to a person or group at any career stage who has strengthened the ecology and evolutionary biology community by promoting inclusiveness and diversity in our fields. Nominations will be due January 15, 2022. Learn more and apply here.

The Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize recognizes the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding young evolutionary biologist. Nominations will be due January 31, 2022. Learn more and apply here.

The SSE Presidents’ Award for Outstanding Dissertation Paper in Evolution recognizes an outstanding PhD dissertation paper published in an issue of the journal Evolution during a given calendar year. Nominations will be due January 31, 2022. Learn more and apply here.

As part of SSE Council’s 2020 commitment to actions to increase inclusion of and support for members of historically excluded groups, the ASN, SSB, and SSE Diversity Committees will be distributing a survey to our members to identify areas where the societies could work to be more inclusive and better serve our diverse memberships. The survey, created by the Diversity Committees and McKinley Advisors, was crucially shaped by input from interviews with a small group of tri-society community members. Your responses to this survey will inform our efforts to make our ecology and evolutionary biology community more welcoming and inclusive. Members, keep an eye out for the survey in your inbox soon!

The Evolution Highlights series showcases some of the interesting and varied papers published within the last few years in Evolution. The goal of these Evolution Highlights is to let our readers learn more about how the highlighted study came into existence and to invite the authors to share stories and tips from the perspective of a recently published author. We welcome nominations and self-nominations for this series.

Here we highlight "Quantifying the relative contributions of the X chromosome, autosomes, and mitochondrial genome to local adaptation." Evolution Highlight by Clementine Lasne.

The Evolution Highlights series showcases some of the interesting and varied papers published within the last few years in Evolution. The goal of these Evolution Highlights is to let our readers learn more about how the highlighted study came into existence and to invite the authors to share stories and tips from the perspective of a recently published author. We welcome nominations and self-nominations for this series.

Here we highlight "Virulence-driven trade offs in disease transmission: A meta-analysis." Evolution Highlight by Miguel Acevedo.

The deadline for the Graduate Research Excellence Grant - Rosemary Grant Advanced Award has been extended to Tuesday, September 28 at 5:00 PM Eastern (GMT-4:00). 

Apply or update your application on the SSE awards site.

These awards provide up to $3500 USD in research funds to PhD students in the later stages of their programs. Learn more and confirm your eligibility here. Contact communications [at] evolutionsociety.org with any questions or concerns.

Did you miss the Virtual Evolution meeting this summer? It’s not too late the view talks! You can now register for just $10 (USD) to view all the live and pre-recorded talks. Visit https://www.evolutionmeetings.org/registration.html to register. Once you have registered, sign in here, click on “Profile Home”, then “Evolution 2021 Virtual Platform.” All videos are available to view through the platform through December 2021. You can also watch the Presidential, IDEA Award, and Gould Prize plenary talks and Story Collider videos for free on the Evolution Meeting Youtube page.

Most applicants to our Graduate Research Excellence Grants hear about these grants through word of mouth, and many eligible students remain unaware that these awards exist. The SSE Diversity Committee is working to address bias in the applicant pool by directly contacting institutions with eligible applicants. Want to help? Add your institution’s contact information to this form. We seek submissions of all degree-granting institutions - not limited to the US.

We are pleased to announce the 2021 Rosemary Grant Advanced Award competition. These awards are part of our Graduate Research Excellence Grants, and provide funding for PhD students in the later stages of their programs. Proposals are due September 22, 2021.

Congratulations to our three recipients of the W. D. Hamilton Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Presentation, Liming Cai, Sarah Khalil, and Arianna Kuhn! Because this competition was not held last year, this year’s competition included applicants who were eligible last year. Thank you to all of our finalists who presented their work in the Hamilton Award symposium at the Virtual Evolution meeting!

Congratulations to the 22 recipients of the 2021 Graduate Research Excellence Grant - R. C. Lewontin Early Award!

Awarded in memory of George W. Gilchrist*:
Tais Ribeiro, University of Maryland. Advisor: Anahi Espindola

Philip Bentz, University of Georgia. Advisor: Jim Leebens-Mack
Austin Calhoun, Illinois State University. Advisor: Ben Sadd
Maria Colt, University of Maryland. Advisor: Heidi Fisher
Danielle De La Pascua, University of California Davis. Advisor: Jennifer Gremer
Erik Iverson, The University of Texas at Austin. Advisor: Justin Havird
Matthew Kelbrick, University of Liverpool. Advisor: Siobhán O’Brien
Laura Leventhal, Stanford University. Advisor: Moises Exposito-Alonso
Jasen Liu, University of California, Davis. Advisor: Santiago Ramírez
Meghan Maciejewski, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Advisor: Alison Bell
Kelly Martin, University of Idaho. Advisor: Christine Parent
Kelly McCrum, University of Georgia. Advisor: Jill Anderson
Lisa Mesrop, University of California, Santa Barbara. Advisor: Todd Oakley
Kasey Pham, University of Florida. Advisor: Douglas Soltis
Raunak Sen, Cornell University. Advisor: Kerry Shaw
Rebecca Tarnopol, University of California - Berkeley. Advisor: Noah Whiteman
Colton Unger, University of Calgary. Advisor: Campbell Rolian
Veronica Urgiles Penafiel, Utah State University. Advisor: Molly Womack
Athmaja Viswanath, University of Toronto. Advisor: Asher Cutter
Emma Vtipilthorpe, North Carolina State University. Advisor: Seema Sheth
Gabrielle Welsh, University of Denver. Advisor: Robin Tinghitella
Xuening Zhang, Cornell University. Advisor: Anurag Agrawal

*This award was funded in part by donations to the George W. Gilchrist Student Support Fund.

The SSE Education and Outreach Committee is pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 T. H. Huxley Award, Dr. John Jungck and Dr. Sam Donovan. This award recognizes and promotes the development of high quality evolution education resources. Dr. Jungck and Dr. Donovan are recognized for their activity, "Beagle Investigations Return with Darwinian Data (BIRDD) project." In the activity, students engage in evolutionary problem solving and explore their own research questions using primary scientific data from the Galapagos Islands and Darwin’s Finches. Read more here.

The Evolution Highlights series showcases some of the interesting and varied papers published within the last few years in Evolution. The goal of these Evolution Highlights is to let our readers learn more about how the highlighted study came into existence and to invite the authors to share stories and tips from the perspective of a recently published author. We welcome nominations and self-nominations for this series.

Here we highlight "Antibody-mediated crosslinking of gut bacteria hinders the spread of antibiotic resistance." Highlight by Anne-Florence Bitbol and Claude Loverdo.

The Evolution Highlights series showcases some of the interesting and varied papers published within the last few years in Evolution. The goal of these Evolution Highlights is to let our readers learn more about how the highlighted study came into existence and to invite the authors to share stories and tips from the perspective of a recently published author. We welcome nominations and self-nominations for this series.

Here we highlight "Comparing individual and population measures of senescence across 10 years in a wild insect population." Highlight by Tom Tregenza.

2021 SSE Presidents’ Award for Outstanding Dissertation Paper in Evolution

Congratulations to Dr. Gabriel Jamie, recipient of the 2021 SSE Presidents’ Award for Outstanding Dissertation Paper in Evolution, for his paper, “Multimodal mimicry of hosts in a radiation of parasitic finches,” Evolution (2020) 74: 2526-2538. 

In this paper, Dr. Gabriel Jamie and co-authors investigated host-specific multimodal mimicry by nestlings of brood-parasitic Vidua indigobirds and whydahs to assess their role in adaptation to novel hosts. The premise was that imprinting of parasitic nestlings on their hosts promotes the maintenance of specialized host-parasite associations over generations. This exposes lineages to consistent selection from host species that could allow host-specific nestling adaptations to evolve. Over four rainy seasons in Zambia, Dr. Jamie and his research assistants recorded aspects of nestling morphology and behavior, and developed a new methodology to quantify phenotypes. Remarkable matching was found in the patterns and colors of the parasitic nestlings and the nestlings of their different host species, whose diverse appearances can be seen in the cover photo of the issue (74:11). The team also found matching in the sounds and postural movements of the nestlings. This study shows that imprinting can lead to the evolution of host-specific mimetic adaptations that can generate pre- and post-zygotic isolation and contribute to sympatric speciation. Dr. Jamie earned his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, where he is now a BBSRC-funded post-doctoral research associate. He is also a research associate of the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at the University of Cape Town.

2021 Dobzhansky Prize
Congratulations to the 2021 Dobzhansky Prize winner, Dr. Katja Kasimatis! Dr. Kasimatis is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cutter and Rowe labs in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the evolutionary consequences of sex-specific selection and sexual conflict, specifically the impact on genome evolution. She pursues this research using a wide variety of approaches including molecular genetics, proteomics, genomics, bioinformatics, experimental evolution, and theoretical population genetics. Her work expands our understanding of sexual conflict and furthered nematodes as a model system for reproductive dynamics. While pursuing her research, she works to foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community both within and beyond her department.
 

2021 Dobzhansky Prize Honorable Mentions
Congratulations to the 2021 Dobzhansky Prize Honorable Mentions, Dr. Rosana Zenil-Ferguson and Dr. Amanda Hund. Dr. Zenil-Ferguson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Hawaii Manoa. Her research focuses on evaluating the role of polyploidy across angiosperms through the development of stochastic models and statistical tools. While conducting her research, she focuses on promoting diversity and creating space for early career scientists within the macroevolution modeling field through mentorship and workshops. Dr. Hund is a JSMF Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota and is starting as an Assistant Professor at Grinnell College next year. Her research focuses on understanding how parasites shape the evolution of their hosts, and has broad applications for understanding interactions between the environment and developmental processes. In her work, Dr. Hund focuses on promoting effective undergraduate mentorship through courses and research experiences. 

Congratulations to Dr. Adriana Briscoe, recipient of the second annual ASN/SSE/SSB Inclusiveness, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Award. Over her entire career, Dr. Briscoe has shown a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion that has resulted in the recruitment and retention of diverse scientists in the evolution workforce at all professional levels. Dr. Briscoe also contributes to international inclusion, regularly publishing research with co-authors from global south countries. Her DEI work also includes published scholarship and popular media related to her outreach. Dr. Briscoe has also been recognized for her research excellence and contributions to education by the largest STEM diversity organization in the country, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS). Thank you to Dr. Briscoe for your commitment and contributions to the community!

The SSE Graduate Student Advisory Council (GSAC) is in search of three student members to serve in the 2022 cohort. The GSAC represents student and postdoc interests to the SSE Council and facilitates interaction among students and postdocs, and between students, postdocs, and mentors. Their goal is to be a source of information for students and postdocs during their graduate school career and as they make career transitions, and to provide an early-career perspective to the rest of the SSE council. GSAC members must be graduate students at the time of application, at least one year into their PhD program, and members of SSE. Applicants should be organized, possess leadership skills, and be interested in working with SSE council and members to contribute to the Society. We strongly encourage those with non-traditional pathways to graduate school, those from non-R1 universities, and those from outside the United States to apply. Learn more on the GSAC page and submit your application by April 22, 2021.