Your 1998 Membership Renewal Form is enclosed. Please return this form with your dues to Treasurer Fran Webster. Note that you can pay by credit card if you wish - VISA, Mastercard, or Discover card.
Tanks to those members who have sent me photos, news items, notices of upcoming meetings, etc. to include in the Newsletters. Please keep them coming! The Newsletter will only be as good as the information in it, and to provide good information, I need your help. Specifically, news items in several general areas would be welcome:
Please send to me by Email or regular mail.
President Jim Tumlinson presided over a short business meeting, during which he formally announced the election of Thomas Hartmann as Vice-President, and thanked Alan Renwick for putting on a splendid meeting at short notice.
Treasurer Webster reported that the Society incurred a loss for the 1997-98 year due to student travel and other costs associated with the Vancouver meeting being higher than anticipated, the up-front costs associated with setting up an investment account for the Society's capital, and clearing up several miscellaneous outstanding bills. The membership roles are now in good shape, and former members who have not paid dues for the past two years have been dropped from the membership roles. Income to the Society included dues, donations from individuals, and a donation from Plenum Press for the Silver Medal award.
Secretary Millar reported that the website is functioning well, and is receiving on average 320 visits/day. New functions are being added, such as job postings, downloading forms for meetings, etc. The Newsletter is also running smoothly, although obtaining input of items from the membership for inclusion in the Newsletter continues to be slow. Millar also reported that the updated ISCE brochure would be available within a few weeks for recruitment and fundraising efforts.
Meeting host Alan Renwick reported that 170 people had registered for the meeting, and that everything was running smoothly. He also reported that a substantial fraction of the meeting expenses had been covered by a grant from a local foundation, which wished to remain anonymous.
David Jones reported for the editors of the Journal of Chemical Ecology. In 1997, about 260 manuscripts were received, with an overall rejection rate of about 20%, and a turn-around time of 8-9 months. Jones commented on the editors' concerns over the possible misapplication of statistical tests in submitted manuscripts. Jones also summarized the reorganization of the Journal's editorial board, with 16 new members replacing members who are retiring or stepping down.
President Tumlinson reported on several items. First, the Executive Committee has proposed a change in the Bylaws to create a new "Special Membership" category in cases of financial hardship (see details elsewhere in the Newsletter). Second, Tumlinson announced that Jim Nation and John Romeo had been granted Honorary Membership for long service to the Society. Third, Tumlinson reported that nominations for the Silver Medal and Silverstein-Simeone awards will not be accepted for ISCE executive committee members or councilors during their terms of office, to avoid conflicts of interest. Finally, Tumlinson reported that plans for the 1999 meeting in Marseille and the 2000 meeting in Brazil are well under way, and confirmed that the 2001 meeting will be at Lake Tahoe in the US.
President Tumlinson then briefly introduced incoming President John Hildebrand. There being no other business, the meeting was adjourned.
Jocelyn Millar, Secretary
At the splendid annual meeting in Ithaca, the privilege, honor, and responsibility of serving as President of the International Society for Chemical Ecology was transferred to me by my friend and colleague, Jim Tumlinson. Along with the symbols of office -- the gavel and infamous yellow necktie (which Koji Nakanishi tried but failed to make disappear through his magic) -- Jim left to me and my fellow officers a Society made stronger during his term of office. I wish to congratulate Jim on his successful efforts as President and to assure him that I will try to follow his excellent example while drawing (with characteristic importunity) on his experience and good will as Past President.
Congratulations and thanks are due as well to Alan Renwick and his colleagues at Cornell University for their efforts in organizing and securing grant support for a most memorable and stimulating Annual Meeting on relatively short notice. I am sure that all who attended the 1998 meeting in Ithaca share my lasting sense of excitement about the full range of outstanding presentations to which we were treated.
With my fellow officers and Councilors, I have the pleasure of serving a Society that is on track. We are continuing efforts to strengthen the financial condition of the ISCE. For example: Treasurer Fran Webster has purged the membership roster of chronic delinquents and guided the officers in a prudent budgeting process; the Fund-Raising Committee (chaired by Walter Leal) is vigorously seeking sponsorship for the Silver Medal Award and other activities of the ISCE; and Secretary Jocelyn Millar has produced a beautiful new edition of the ISCE brochure for use in fund-raising and recruitment of new members.
A policy of planning Annual Meetings at least two years -- and ideally up to five years -- in advance has become well established. The next meeting will be hosted by Jean-Luc Clément in Marseille, France, on 13-17 November 1999, and the meeting in 2000 is being organized by Evaldo Vilela and Walter Leal, to be held at Poços de Caldas (near Sao Paolo), Brazil, on 15-19 August 2000. In 2001 the meeting will be organized by Gary Blomquist and held at Lake Tahoe, USA. Plans for the 2002 Annual Meeting are just beginning to take shape and will be announced in the near future.
In connection with the Annual Meetings, the ISCE will continue to present its annual Silverstein-Simeone Award and ISCE Silver Medal to meritorious scientists in the field of chemical ecology. Calls for nominations for these awards for the year 2000 appear elsewhere in this Newsletter. Please nominate deserving colleagues for these significant honors.
Finally, I urge all of you to join me in encouraging our young colleagues -- students, postdoctoral trainees and newly independent investigators -- to join the ISCE and be active members. The future vitality of the field of chemical ecology, and of the ISCE, depends on their involvement and energetic contributions.
I am happy to have the privilege of serving the ISCE as its President, and I look forward to seeing you at the 1999 Annual Meeting in Marseille!
John G. Hildebrand, President, ISCE
I am happy to report that the new ISCE brochure is available, updating the first Society brochure which was put together about 10 years ago. Many thanks to Mark Hay and Scott Camazine for contributing some of the great photos. The brochure is intended as a tool to introduce potential new members to the Society, and its philosophy and functions. The brochure is also intended as a fundraising aid, so that potential donors can get a quick overview of the Society, and the types of research and activities that their donations would be supporting. If you need some brochures for recruiting or fundraising efforts, please contact me at the address above. Alternatively, the officers of the Society have been sent brochures, so they can probably spare a few.
The ISCE website has been expanded to include postings of positions available, as a service to members only. Please send any postings with a concise but complete description of the position (e.g., project description, qualifications, salary range, duration, contact information, etc.) to me at my Email address on the masthead.
At the executive committee meeting, it was also decided to include the names and contact information of all members in the membership database unless members specifically request that they not be included because the printed membership list is quite out of date, particularly re. Email addresses. Please note that the Society does NOT sell or give its membership list to commercial organizations, and it is not set up in a way which would be easily amenable for someone to generate a mass mailing list. Thus, the on-line membership directory should be useful for members trying to contact each other, while leading to no increase in junk mail or spam. However, if you still do not want your contact information included, please contact the Treasurer, Fran Webster, who maintains the membership directory. His Email is fwebster@mailbox.syr.edu.
I would like to thank Adam Trickett, who has done a wonderful job of setting up and maintaining the new Society webpage here at Riverside (www.isce.ucr.edu). There is a link to the membership list (www.esf.edu/ISCE).
Jocelyn Millar, Secretary
For fiscal year 1997, the Society lost US$4,287, due primarily to two causes. First, the Vancouver meeting cost the Society US$11,087, not in direct costs for the meeting (the meeting actually made money), but in travel costs for the executive committee and for students. Second, the investment of the "Student Travel Endowment" by Merrill Lynch had up front costs in 1997 which meant virtually no income from interest or income for 1997. See below for more information about the investments.
Membership in the Society remained steady for 1997, but with new stricter dues enforcement for 1998, there is a positive trend seen so far in 1998. The membership web site, which is maintained in Syracuse, has been redesigned and updated. The redesign was not undertaken for aesthetic reasons, but rather so that it can be updated easily and quickly multiple times each year. The updating process is currently scheduled to coincide with label preparation for the Newsletter. In other words, when the membership database is queried for a Newsletter mailing, a Word file is produced that is converted directly to HTML for the webpage.
As directed by the executive committee during the Vancouver meeting, arrangements have been made to invest Society funds using a professional portfolio manager. After some research, Merrill Lynch was selected and the funds are in a "Working Capital Management Account"; Mr. Kerry P. Tallon is the Society’s "Financial Consultant". Currently, there is about US$67,000, in the following funds:
The investments are doing well and the Society can expect reasonable returns. The outlook for the Society is good in this aspect, especially because the organizing committee for the Ithaca meeting secured a substantial grant to help cover costs of the meeting.
At the executive commitee and business meetings during the Ithaca meeting, several significant changes to Society affairs were made or are being contemplated, as follows.
It was unusually hot weather for Ithaca in June, so the 170 participants at the 15th annual meeting were even more enthusiastic about attending all the sessions in a comfortably air-conditioned auditorium at Cornell University. Scientists from 22 different countries were able to enjoy a wide variety of 67 oral presentations that covered everything from historical perspectives to future directions and applications of chemical ecology. In addition to many excellent papers on pheromones, plant-herbivore interactions, tritrophic relationships and functions of bioactive molecules, the program included fascinating presentations dealing with microbial diversity and the scary defensive chemistry of cone snails. Other highlights included the Silverstein-Simeone Award lecture by Ian Baldwin, and the final presentation linking chemical ecology to human health, by Charles Arntzen.
The 54 posters were available for viewing throughout the meeting, and a special poster session that included a host bar on Monday evening was particularly popular. Many participants took advantage of free time for touring the picturesque Finger Lakes area, visiting wineries, sailing and admiring the waterfalls. Those members who stayed an extra day for the post-conference tours braved some violent morning thunderstorms to enjoy a day of hiking in the gorges or to sample some of the local wines. The winery tour participants were even treated to a spectacular rock slide when they made a stop to see the Taughannock Falls.
The final official event of the meeting was the banquet. After dinner, entertainment was provided by Koji Nakanishi in the form of a magic show. His tricks were truly amazing, but his threat to make John Hildebrand disappear never materialized. The several opportunities for members to sample the wines of the region should have prepared their palates for the French experience as we look forward to next year's meeting in Marseille. Thanks go out to the local program committee members and the many volunteers who helped to make this meeting a big success.
Alan Renwick
Dr. Ian Baldwin was the winner of the ISCE's 1998 Silverstein-Simeone award. This award, sponsored by Plenum Press, is given in recognition of outstanding cutting-edge research in chemical ecology.
Dr. Baldwin is one of the founding directors of the new Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, where he currently heads the Department of Molecular Entomology. He received his PhD from Cornell University in 1989, from the Section of Neurobiology and Behavior, and promptly joined the Department of Biology at the State University of New York in Buffalo as an assistant professor. He left SUNY Buffalo as a full professor in 1996 to take up his current position. He is the author or co-author on more than 50 papers, and is the co-author with Rick Karban of the recently published book "Induced Responses to Herbivory".
Dr. Baldwin's group currently focuses on the transformation of native plant species (especially Nicotiana) with genes that code for ecologically relevent defense traits (alkaloid production, volatile emissions, wound signal transduction cascades). The phenotypes of the transformed plants are characterized and their effects on Darwinian fitness are tested in field and glasshouse environments under controlled abiotic and biotic regimes.
Dr. Baldwin's award lecture described his multiyear study of Nicotinia attenuata in the sage-juniper habitats of the Great Basin desert of the western US. Seeds germinate after brushfires in response to chemical cues generated by the fire. Wounding of the young plants by herbivores induces increased production of nicotine, using ammonium salts in the soil. In older plants, inducible synthesis of nicotine declines, and instead the plant reallocates nicotine from older leaves to young leaves and reproductive structures. Furthermore, the plants attract nocturnal pollinators by releasing benzyl acetone from the outer parts of the flowers, while simultaneously withdrawing nicotine into the base of the corolla, below the nectar pools. Overall, Dr. Baldwin's lecture summarized how the use of an expensive alkaloid as a chemical defense has had a number of consequences on other aspects of the plant's natural history.
On behalf of the ISCE, I would like to reiterate our thanks for an outstanding lecture, and our congratulations for being selected as the recipient of the Silverstein-Simeone Award for 1998.
Congratulations to the winners of the 1998 Student Travel Awards, used to assist with attendance at the Ithaca meeting. The award winners are listed below, along with their affiliations and the titles of their presentations. Their abstracts can be found on the ISCE webpage.
The 1998-99 Student Travel Award Committee consists of Murray Isman, Monica Hilker, and Jean-Luc Cléent.
The 16th annual meeting of the International Society of Chemical Ecology will be held 13-17 November in Marseille, France. The meeting will take place at Hotel Concorde Palm-Beach located right on the beach, with a wonderful wiew over the Baie du Prado, les îles du Frioul, le chateau d'IF et le Massif des Calanques.
The programme committee is composed of Pr. J. L. Clément (Marseille), Pr. J. M. Jallon (Orsay), Pr. J. Huignard (Tours), Dr. R. Brossut (Dijon) and Dr. M. Pham-Delègue (Bures sur Yvette). The programme committee has selected six sessions. Each session will be presented by invited speakers.
The meeting will begin with an opening reception on the evening of Saturday 13 November, with the Scientific program commencing the next morning. The program will consist of a mixture of oral presentations and poster sessions, and will run from Sunday morning through Tuesday afternoon. Poster presenters will be asked to introduce their posters in a series of brief 2-minute synopses immediately before the poster sessions. On Monday evening, there will be a reception and concert at Marseille City Hall, and the conference banquet will be on Tuesday evening. The business meeting is planned for noon on Tuesday. Information on submission of abstracts, registration, and other conference details will appear in subsequent Newsletters. For more information, also check www.lnb.cnrs-mrs.fr/FRENCH/activ/Congress_ISCE.html and here on this site. Please note that the conference fee will include:
Marseille Provence international airport is connected to Paris airport by a shuttle every 30 minutes, and by high-speed train (TGV, 4 hours). For more information check www.lnb.cnrs-mrs.fr/ENGLISH/infos/acces.html.
You will be able to book sightseeing tours of the French Riviera and many local attractions at the conference desk. For tourist information check: www.lnb.cnrs-mrs.fr/ENGLISH/infos/loisirs.html.
The Silverstein-Simeone lecture and award was established by the ISCE in 1995 to honour Milt Silverstein and John Simeone for their contributions to the field of Chemical Ecology and for their long service as founding editors of the Journal of Chemical Ecology. It is presented each year to a scientist conducting innovative research on the "cutting edge" of science. The recipient of this award is asked to present a plenary lecture at the annual meeting of the ISCE and to publish a paper on the same topic in the Journal of Chemical Ecology. The expenses of the award recipient to attend the annual meeting are paid by the society through the generous sponsorship of Plenum Press. The first four scientists to receive this award were:
Please help the society by nominating someone who is doing innovative research in chemical ecology for the Silverstein-Simeone award for the year 2000. Selection of the 1999 awardee is already underway. All that is required is a nomination letter explaining why your nominee deserves to be recognized for his/her innovative research, a Curriculum vitae, and a list of publications pertinent to the research on which the nomination is based. Send your nominations to J. G. Hildebrand, President, ISCE, ARL Division of Neurobiology, 611 Gould-Simpson Building, P.O. Box 210077, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ 85721-0077, USA by 1 April 1999.
The officers of the ISCE welcome nominations for the 2000 ISCE Silver Medal Award, sponsored by the Fuji Flavor Company, Ltd. (Tokyo). This award recognizes outstanding long-term scientific achievement in the field of Chemical Ecology. Previous winners have been Professors Silverstein, Blum, Rothschild, Roelofs, Schneider, Meinwald, Eisner, Harborne, Rosenthal, Janzen, Francke, Mori, Pasteels, Fenical, and Hartmann. The process of selecting the 2000 Silver Medalist will be completed at the 1999 ISCE meeting in Marseille. Nominations therefore must be received by 1 April 1999, so that the Executive Committee and Councilors will have time to review the nominations and reach a timely decision. Executive committee members and councilors are excluded from nomination during their terms of office.
We are confident that there are several scientists who richly deserve this prestigious award. Please help to ensure that these colleagues are recognized through nomination for the award. The nomination procedure is very simple: we require only the nominee's Curriculum vitae and list of publications and a letter of nomination that explains the accomplishments of the nominee that qualify her/him for the award. Please submit nominations by 1 April 1999 to: Dr. Thomas Hartmann, ISCE Vice President, Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology, Technical University of Braunschweig, Mendelssohnstrasse 1, D-38106 Braunschweig, Germany.
Dr. Kenji Mori, chemistry professor of Tokyo Science University, Emeritus Professor of Tokyo University, former ISCE President, and first President of the Asia-Pacific Association of Chemical Ecology (APACE), was honored by the Fujiwara Foundation for his work on "Chemical Syntheses of Pheromones and Other Bioactive Natural Products". The Fujiwara Award is one of the most prestigious awards in the Japanese academy. Since winning the Agricultural Chemistry Award in 1965, Professor Mori has received numerous honors, including the Japan Academy Award, the Agricultural Societies Prize, and the ISCE Silver Medal. After the ceremony, Professor Mori was congratulated by members of the Prime Minister's cabinet, colleagues, former students, and friends. Professor Mori has pledged part of the award monies to the newly founded APACE to further promote chemical ecology in the Asia-Pacific region.
Professor John G. Hildebrand, Regents' Professor and Director of the Arizona Research Laboratories Division of Neurobiology at the University of Arizona ( Local Website), has been elected to membership in the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina. Founded 350 years ago and based in Halle, the Leopoldina is the world's oldest academy of sciences in continuous existence. Two-thirds of the members of the Leopoldina come from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, with the remaining third from the rest of the world. Election is based on accomplishments in scientific research.
Professor Jeremy McNeil, a former president of the ISCE, was awarded the 1998 McNeil Medal for the Public Awareness of Science, given by The Royal Society of Canada. The medal is awarded to a candidate who has demonstrated outstanding ability to promote and communicate science to students and public within Canada. The medal, established in 1991 by the McNeil Consumer Products Company, highlights the important role that science plays within our society and encourages the communication of science to students and the public. In addition to his responsibilities as a faculty member at Laval University, Professor McNeil makes presentations to over 1500 children each year at schools and youth organizations, and to the public, in both French and English, across Canada and internationally.
Professor Harry Shorey, Adjunct Professor of Chemical Ecology in the Department of Entomology, University of California at Riverside, was killed in a tragic traffic accident on 17 August 1998, while setting up a field experiment. Dr. Shorey was one of the pioneers of insect pheromone research. He received his Ph.D. in Entomology from Cornell University in 1959, from whence he joined the faculty at UC Riverside as an assistant professor the same year. He was one of the first scientists to recognize the enormous potential of pheromones for use in insect control, and conducted some of the first large scale mating disruption trials with pink bollworm. He was awarded the J.E. Bussart Award from the Entomological Society of America in 1976, and in 1977, was the co-winner of the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Award for his work on insect pheromones and their application to agriculture. He left UC Riverside in 1978 to start his own business, before returning to the University of California in 1985 as director of the Kearney Agricultural Center. He subsequently worked as a research entomologist at UC Berkeley and UC Davis, before transferring back to UC Riverside in 1995. Since his return to the University of California, Dr. Shorey had focused his efforts on developing practical methods of managing insect pests with semiochemicals. He was particularly interested in developing remote controlled pheromone dispensers ("Puffers") based on aerosol cans linked to mechanical timers for use in mating disruption. At the time of his death, this technology, which Dr. Shorey had developed and tested over ten years in numerous crops totalling many thousand acres, was on the verge of being commercialised. Professor Shorey was a extraordinary scientist and a remarkable man, and he will be greatly missed.
Dr. Shorey is survived by his wife Ellen, his daughters Jennifer, Michele, and Diane, and his sons Russell, Tom, and Hal.
Two reference books entitled "Methods in Chemical Ecology: Vol 1: Chemical Methods" (ISBN 0-412-08071-0), and "Vol. 2: Bioassay Methods" (ISBN 0-412-08041-9), edited by Jocelyn Millar and Ken Haynes and published by Chapman & Hall, are now available from Kluwer Academic Publishers, www.wkap.nl. The volumes represent compilations of useful techniques and references, and are specifically written from the viewpoint of the chemical ecology practitioner. The volumes describe apparatus and methods, and provide detailed discussions of the advantages and limitations of various techniques. The first volume includes chapters on extractions and rough fractionations; chromatographic, spectroscopic and microchemical methods; resolution of enantiomers; and electroantennographic methods. The second volume describes robust methods of bioassaying compounds to determine their natural functions in mediating interactions between organisms. It includes chapters on most of the major taxa, including micro-organisms, fungi and plants, and terrestrial and marine animals of all types.
The website for the recently formed APACE, to which many of our Pacific Rim members belong, is now up and running at aginfo.snu.ac.kr/apace. The webpage will serve as a source of general information about the Association, as well as providing information on upcoming meetings, the first of which is scheduled for November 1999. See the back page of this Newsletter for further information.
Johannes Steidle passed on the address of a useful website, which provides the statistical methods for analysis of behavioral sequences (e.g., mate location, mating, oviposition) where one behavior is followed by another. The website is at caspar.bgsu.edu/~software/java/grinders.html.
President Hildebrand has appointed four new councilors to replace outgoing councilors Drs. Yasumasa Kuwahara, Nancy Targett, Beatta Gabrys, Glenn Prestwich, Louise Vet, and Jeremy McNeil. The new councilors are:
Councilors serve three year terms and are appointed from various geographical and disciplinary areas, and advise the ISCE Executive Committee. Further details can be found in the Society's bylaws.
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[Webmaster's note: Additional meeting information of an even more general interest can be found at the ISCE website meetings page]
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Dr. Jocelyn G. Millar ISCE - Secretary Department of Entomology University of California RIVERSIDE, CA 92521 United States of America |
Tel: +1 909-787-5821 Fax: +1 909-787-3086 jocelyn.millar@ucr.edu Millar Home page |
