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The article presents information about several awards presented by the American Society of Naturalists. The President's award of the American Society of Naturalists is given to the best paper that appeared in the journal "American Naturalist" in the preceding calendar year. The Edward Osborne Wilson Naturalist Award was established in 1997 on the occasion of Professor Wilson's retirement in recognition of his lifetime of outstanding contributions in the areas of ecology and evolutionary biology, including the study of social insects, biodiversity, and biophilia. The Sewall Wright Award, which recognizes a senior-level active researcher for significant and continuing contributions to the objectives of the American Society of Naturalists, was awarded in 2005 to Robert E. Ricklefs. The Young Investigators' Prizes recognize outstanding and promising work by investigators who received their doctorates in the three years preceding the application deadline or are in their final year of graduate school. The prizes include presentation of a research paper at the annual meeting of the American Society of Naturalists, reimbursement for travel to the annual meeting, and a $500 honorarium.

The article reports on the activities that happened in 2006 for the American Society of Naturalists. The executive meeting held June 23, 2006 emphasized on the success of the three-editor system and electronic papers of the society's publication. The business meeting of the society focused on the presentation of the anti-wedge document to the Joint Council, which establishes medium-term and long-term goals to defend and promote the teaching of evolutionary biology. The next meeting of the joint committee pointed on the support of the Joint Council to the anti-wedge document.

People of Mexican origin in the United States have long experienced discrimination in wages, housing, and schooling, which directly impacts their participation in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) workforce. Using interviews of Latina scientists and teachers, autoethnography, family and newspaper archives, and history and social science research, I reflect on key aspects of Mexican and Mexican American history that contribute to the challenges faced by Latinos in the US educational system today. Analysis of my own educational trajectory reveals the hidden part that teacher role models in my community and in my family played in my journey to becoming a scientist. Latina teachers and faculty, middle school science programs, and the provisioning of stipends for undergraduate researchers are emphasized as strategies for increasing student retention and success. The article concludes with several suggestions for how the ecology and evolutionary biology community can amplify the educational success of Latinos in STEM by supporting the training of Latino and other minoritized science, math, and computer science teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents reports related to the American Society of Naturalists (ASN) chronicling the activities of the society. The secretary's activities this year were focused on conducting the annual election. Balloting was strictly electronic. Michele Dudash presented the 2004 Treasurer's Report. She reported that the ASN's investments, now managed by Betsy Etges of Morgan Stanley, are performing as well as can be expected given the current financial market and the size of the funds. Kari Roane of the University of Chicago Press presented the business report. Circulation of the journal "The American Naturalist" is on a downward trend and has fallen 10% this past year, reflecting the trend in other membership-based societies. Michael Whitlock presented the 2005 American Naturalist editor's report. Betsy Etges of Morgan Stanley presented an ASN financial report. The society's previous arrangement involved multiple investments and eroding finances; ASN now has a consistent and committed broker and CPA, and fees have been halved. The issue of student travel awards was revisited. Michele Dudash proposed that for 2006 and future domestic meetings, ASN will offer 10 awards of $300 each to students.

The article presents announcements related to activities of the American Society of Naturalists (ASN). The 2007 joint meetings of the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the ASN will be held in Christchurch, New Zealand on June16-20, 2007. The applications for the Young Investigators' Prizes will be due on January 31, 2007. The deadline for the nomination for the Edward O. Wilson Naturalist Award which focused on the area of ecology and evolutionary biology will be on March 1, 2007.

The article presents information related to various developments in the field of natural history in the United States. The 2007 annual meetings of the American Society of Naturalists will be held in Christchurch, New Zealand on June 16-20, 2007. Applications are invited from investigators for the Young Investigators' Prizes which recognize outstanding and promising work by investigators who received their doctorates in the three years preceding the application deadline or who are in their final year of graduate school.

The hollow-shaped species abundance distribution (SAD) and its allied rank abundance distribution (RAD)—showing that abundance is unevenly distributed among species—are some of the most studied patterns in ecology. To explain the nature of abundance inequality, I developed a novel framework identifying environmental favorability, which controls the balance between reproduction and immigration, as the ultimate source and species stress tolerance as a proximate factor. Thus, under harsh conditions, only a few tolerant species can reproduce, while some sensitive species can be present in low numbers due to chance immigration. This would lead to high abundance inequality between the two groups of species. Under benign conditions, both groups can reproduce and give rise to higher abundance equality. To test these ideas, I examined the variability in the parameters of a Poisson lognormal fit of the SAD and a square root fit of the RAD in diatom and fish communities across US streams. Indeed, as environmental favorability increased, more sensitive forms were able to establish large populations, diminishing the abundance disparity between locally common and rare species. Finally, it was demonstrated that in diatoms, the RAD belonged to the same family of relationships as those of population density with body size and regional distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides updates on the programs of American Society of Naturalists. Society for the Study of Evolution, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the American Society of Naturalists 2007 joint meeting will be held in New Zealand. The Young Investigators' Prizes honors outstanding and promising work by investigators who received their doctorates in the three years preceding the application deadline.

Ecosystems driven by wildfire regimes are characterized by fire size distributions resembling power laws. Existing models produce power laws, but their predicted exponents are too high and fail to capture the exponent's variation with geographic region. Here we present a minimal model of fire dynamics that describes fire spread as a stochastic birth-death process, analogous to stochastic population growth or disease spread and incorporating memory effects from previous fires. The model reproduces multiple regional patterns in fire regimes and allows us to classify different regions in terms of their proximity to a critical threshold. Transitions across this critical threshold imply abrupt and pronounced increases in average fire size. The model predicts that large regions in Canada are currently close to this transition and might be driven beyond the threshold in the future. We illustrate this point by analyzing the time series for large fires (>199 ha) from the Canadian Boreal Plains, found to have shifted from a subcritical regime to a critical regime in the recent past. By contrast to its predecessor, the model also suggests that a critical transition, and not self-organized criticality, underlies forest fire dynamics, with implications for other ecological systems exhibiting power-law-like patterns, in particular for their sensitivity to environmental change and control efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We integrate climatic niche models and dated phylogenies to characterize the evolution of climatic niches in Oenothera sections Anogra and Kleinia (Onagraceae), and from that we make inferences on diversification in relation to climate. The evolution of climatic tolerances in Anogra + Kleinia has been heterogeneous, across phylogenetic groups and across different dimensions of climate. All the extant taxa occur in semiarid to arid conditions (annual precipitation of 10.1-49.1 cm and high temperatures in the warmest month of 28.5°-40.1°C), but there is striking variation among taxa in their climatic tolerances, especially temperature (minimum temperatures in the coldest month of -14.0° to 5.3°C) and summer versus winter precipitation (precipitation in the warmest quarter of 0.6-19.4 cm). Climatic disparity is especially pronounced in two subclades (californica, deltoides) that radiated in the southwestern United States and California, apparently including both divergent and convergent evolution of climatic tolerances. This niche evolution is remarkable, given the probable timescale of the radiation (~1 million years). We suggest that the spatiotemporal climatic heterogeneity of western North America has served as a driver of diversification. Our data are also consistent with Axelrod's hypothesis that the spread of arid conditions in western North America stimulated diversification of arid-adapted lineages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on the annual meetings for 2002 of the American Society of Naturalists and the American Society of Mammalogists.

Presents a study which examined spatial and temporal variation in the associational defense employed by the decorator crab Libinia dubia along the east coast of the United States. Importance of geographic variation in the interactions among species; Methodology used; Results and discussion.

The article announces the applications for various awards of the American Society of Naturalists (ASN) in the U.S. and nominations for its election. Applicants for its Student Research Awards are required to send a two-page proposal that advances the goal of the society. ASN members are invited to submit nominations for the election of its Executive Committee. The organization requires a letter of nomination and a curriculum vitae including a publication list for its 2012 Sewall Wright Award.

The article presents announcements of the 2009 nominations for various awards related to ecology in the U.S. These awards include the Sewall Wright Award, the most prestigious award given by the American Society of Naturalists (ASN), the E. O. Wilson Naturalist Award which given to those active investigators who had made and outstanding contributions for the protection of ecosystem and the organism. And lastly, the ASN election which conducted for the 2009 set of officers.

The article offers information on different awards given by the American Society of Naturalists in the U.S. The Sewall Wright Award is given annually by the society to a senior who is active investigator and who is making fundamental contributions to the Society's goals. The E. O. Wilson Naturalist Award is given by the society to an active investigator in midcareer who has made significant contributions to the knowledge of a particular ecosystem. The Young Investigators' Prizes is intended to recognize outstanding and promising work by investigators who received their doctorates in the three years preceding the application deadline.

The article reports on various announcement in the U.S. The Sewall Wright Award given by the American Society of Naturalists honors a senior but active investigator who is making fundamental contributions to the society's goal such as promoting the conceptual unification of the biological sciences. The Edward O. Wilson Naturalist Award is given to an active investigator in midcareer who has made significant contributions to the knowledge of a particular ecosystem or group of organism. Members of the American Society of Naturalists (ASN) are invited to submit nominations for the ASN Executive Committee.

Announces events organized by associations in the field of natural science in the U.S. Location of the 2005 annual meeting of the American Society of Naturalists; Participants of the second annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge; Topics to be addressed at the 8th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists.