Enhancing communication and collaboration among ecologists at #ESA2016
Once again PLOS will be present at one of our favorite disciplinary conferences, the Ecological Society of America 2016 Annual Meeting, happening this August 7-12 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
For the basics of where to find us, and what’s going on, including daily Meet-the-Editor sessions with PLOS ONE associate editor for ecology, Gina Alvino, check out the official PLOS conference page here.
We advise you come by our booth (#508) early so you can pick up one of the new PLOS Ecology Community t-shirts, featuring the endangered Madagascar Lemur — available free to PLOS Ecology community members, while supplies last.
Attention PLOS academic editors and authors! On Tuesday, August 9th, you’re invited to join us from 4:30 to 6:30 pm for a celebratory PLOS Ecology community meetup, complete with tea and cookies. We hope you’ll come by to say hello and tell us what you’re working on, while we share some PLOS news — and lift your spirits (and blood sugar levels).
PLOS Ecology passes a milestone
This year, we’re marking the second anniversary for our PLOS Ecology Community, launched one year ago at ESA 2015 in Baltimore. That’s where we met and brought on board two members of our current stellar roster of community editors, Sasha Wright and Jeff Atkins, who, with Mary Bates and Jens Hegg, now offer weekly original blog posts covering new research and news from the field aimed at researchers working in all aspects and at all levels of ecology and climate science on the PLOS Ecology blog.
We’re fortunate this year that Jeff is returning to lead PLOS Ecology’s special coverage of ESA 2016. As Jeff wrote in a recent letter to community members…
The theme for this year’s Ecological Society of America annual meeting, “Novel Ecosystems in the Anthropocene,” is near-and-dear for many of us. As ecologists, we’re intimately aware of the fact that we live in a world where climate is rapidly changing and few if any places exist that are not affected by humanity. In short, there are many, many stories for us to tell. And, as a research community, we must accelerate the sharing of novel insights and models that might lead us to discover new conservation and adaptation strategies.
In this spirit, I’d like to highlight three ways that PLOS and the PLOS Ecology Community are working to enhance communication and collaboration among working ecologists…
- A new 2015-16 update of the PLOS Ecological Impacts of Climate Change Collection has just been curated by Jeff and his fellow PLOS Ecology Community Editors, for presentation at ESA 2016. This update features PLOS-published research articles addressing the 2016 meeting theme along with a series of PLOS Ecology Community blog posts discussing key findings in these 16 papers. Read Jeff’s introduction to the collection update here.
- Live ESA 2016 meeting coverage from Ft. Lauderdale. Jeff’s blog team will include five early career ecologists who’ve been chosen as PLOS Ecology ESA 2016 Reporting Fellows. Keep an eye on this PLOS Ecology Community blog and @PLOSEcology Twitter stream for our fellows’ timely reports starting August 7th. Here are our fellowship recipients with their home institutions and areas of focus as early career ecologists: Kelsey Graham (Tufts) – @woolcarderbee – behavioral ecology, pollinators, invasives; Uma Nagendra (Univ Georgia) @atinytornado; Daniel Winkler (UC-Irvine) @DanielEWinkler – phenology, climate change, water mgmt, invasives; (Boston University); Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie – plant phenology, climate change, conservation, and the intersection of citizen science and science policy
@CaitlinInMaine ; and, Elizabeth Kimbrough (Tulane) @lizkimbrough diverse career paths, wetlands, microbial ecology. Congratulations all!
- In advance of ESA 2016, a special August 3 ecology-themed PLOS Science Wednesday “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) on Redditscience featuring PLOS ONE author Ken Tape (University of Alaska) discussing his recent article,
Range Expansion of Moose in Arctic Alaska Linked to Warming and Increased Shrub Habitat — which is also part of the 2016 PLOS Ecological Impacts of Climate Change Collection update. Read the PLOS ONE article here. And go to redditscience (/r/science) to register as a redditscience user (if you haven’t yet) so you can ask questions on Wed, August 3 (1pm ET) — or simply go to this page to read along with the live discussion at any point during or after the AMA.
We’re looking forward to a great ESA 2016. If you’ll be there and would like to contribute to our meeting coverage by live tweeting and/or blogging for PLOS Ecology, please send an email to ecologycommunity@plos.org or just come by booth #508 during meeting exhibition hours and introduce yourself.