Call for Symposia for the 2023 Evolution Meeting

ABOUT

The 2023 annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) is planned for June 21-25, 2023 in Albuquerque, NM, USA. The SSE Council invites proposals for one sponsored symposium at the meeting that highlights new topics, provides new perspectives, or generates new syntheses. This symposia will consist of six half-hour talks. 

SSE Council seriously considers the diversity of participants as a criterion for symposium funding. Symposium organizers are expected to take into account gender, seniority, nationality, and other axes of diversity traditionally underrepresented in Society symposia, and to describe their efforts in the proposal. SSE will accept requests for additional funds for dependent care costs if this would allow a speaker to accept an invitation to speak in a sponsored symposium.

The Society provides travel support for organizers and participants in sponsored symposia up to $9000 per symposium, plus any applicable costs.

HOW TO APPLY

Symposium proposals may be submitted by any SSE member and must include:

• A title and list of organizers, with affiliations.
• A synopsis of the symposium theme (one page). This synopsis should clarify what is novel or synthetic about the symposium and why it would be of interest to the membership of the society.
• A statement that the symposium and its participants are unique among recent SSE sponsored symposia (one paragraph). Symposia from the past several SSE meetings should be consulted to ensure that there have not been recent related symposia (see below). In case of overlap, the proposal must differentiate itself clearly from recent symposia. If the proposed topic helps fill a gap in the areas covered by past SSE symposia (e.g., in terms of sub-field or taxonomic focus), this should be highlighted.
• A list of invited speakers, including institutional affiliations, career stage (i.e., student, postdoc, junior scientist <10 years post-PhD, senior scientist), and tentative title. Organizers may or may not be speakers.
• A description of how the topic of each speaker’s proposed talk fits together with the theme of the proposal (one page). This is particularly important in cases where the connection of a title to the topic and/or to the field of evolution is less clear. This section should provide a rationale for how the talks will fit together to support the theme of the symposium.
• A statement that all potential speakers have been contacted and agree to participate in the symposium.
• A diversity statement detailing the ways in which the organizers have ensured that the speakers reflect an array of perspectives (one paragraph). Symposium organizers are expected to take into account gender, seniority, nationality, and other aspects historically excluded in Society symposia when preparing proposals.
• A reference section.

Proposals should be sent by email to Andrea Case (execvp@evolutionsociety.org) as a single attachment in PDF format (under subject heading: SSE Symposium Proposal). Please expect and request confirmation of receipt of the proposal.

DEADLINE

To be assured of full consideration, proposals must be received by midnight Eastern Standard Time on September 1, 2022. Deadline extended to September 15, 2022.

Decisions will be sent to applicants no later than October 15, 2022. 

2022 Sponsored Symposium

Evolution in the tropics: 70 years since Dobzhansky (Oscar Vargas, Kathleen Kay)

Tropical diversity has long fascinated biologists, but most research to-date has addressed the ecological mechanisms maintaining diversity rather than evolutionary mechanisms generating diversity. The last review of Dobzhansky’s biotic selection hypothesis from an evolutionary perspective is now a decade old. This symposium seeks to synthesize the evolutionary history and importance of biotic and abiotic selective factors to diversification in the tropics, and to set the stage for advancing the field. Our symposium encompasses several sub-disciplines, including (but not restricted to) ecology, phylogenetics, and biogeography, and selected speakers have varied taxonomic foci, including a broad range of plants and animals.

Speakers:

• Kathleen Kay (University of California Santa Cruz) Dobzhansky, Janzen, and speciation research in the tropics
• Jonathan Rolland (University of British Columbia) Macroevolutionary approaches and the construction of the latitudinal diversity gradient
• Oscar Vargas (University of California Santa Cruz) Testing hypotheses for neotropical plant diversification using comparative methods
• Kimberly Sheldon (University of Tennessee) Janzen’s mountain passes and diversification in the tropics
• Michael Harvey (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) Standing species richness shapes the tempo and mode of avian speciation across the Neotropics
• Phyllis Coley (University of Utah) The role of plant-herbivore interactions in the maintenance and origin of tropical tree diversity

Past Sponsored Symposia

2019: Evolution 2019, Providence, Rhode Island

• Integrating ecological interactions into macroevolution [Organizers: David Hembry, Marjorie Weber]
• Outside the models for understanding the evolution of sex chromosomes and sex determination: insights from fishes, amphibians, and reptiles [Organizers: Max Lambert, Rob Denton, John Malone]

2018: [Not applicable. Joint meeting with ESEB.]

2017: Evolution 2017, Portland, Oregon

• Evolution in Urban Ecosystems [Organizers: Emily Puckett and Jason Munshi-South]
• The Impact of Stress on Genetic Variation [Organizer: Laurie Stevison]

2016:

• How and why? Towards an evolutionary physiological synthesis [Organizer: Chris Muir]
• Co-evolving genomes: Cooperation and conflict in cytonuclear interactions [Organizers: Justin Havird, Geoffrey Hill, and Daniel Sloan]

2015:

• Epigenetics and Evolutionary Processes [Organizers: Joshua Banta and Christina Richards]
• The multiple dimensions of biodiversity science [Organizers: Ana Carnaval and Christopher Dick]
• When Gene Flow Really Matters: Gene Flow and Applied Plant Evolutionary Biology [Organizer: Norman C. Ellstrand]