IALE-North America Newsletter
SUMMER 2020 | VOLUME 35
The IALE-North America Newsletter is a biannual publication containing updates on the industry, the Association, and the Annual Meeting. Previously, the newsletter was in PDF format (view the archives). Beginning in the Fall of 2017, the Newsletter highlights are emailed to our subscribers (join our mailing list) and the complete newsletter can be viewed online here.
IN THIS ISSUE:
President’s Message
Nancy McIntyre
Dear landscape ecology community,
Although the coronavirus pandemic meant that we could not gather in person as planned in Toronto, it did provide us with a perfect opportunity to make lemonade from the lemons we were given: we had been planning on offering remote-access attendance options to minimize our carbon footprint and to increase conference accessibility. The pandemic meant that these had to be operationalized on a larger scale sooner than we had originally planned. But Helene Wagner (Local Host and Committee Chair), Yolanda Wiersma, Jochen Jaeger, Patrick James, Jeff Bowman, Tenley Conway, Felipe Torres Vanegas, Namrata Shrestha (members of the Program Committee), Mariana Ostache (liaison with the Univ. of Toronto-Mississauga), Tom Edwards (tech advisor), Kristin Braziunas and Kate Hays (Student Reps), and Leslie Pelch (Delaney Event Management), along with our sponsors and the staff at the University of Toronto at Mississauga (and probably some more behind-the-scenes people I’m forgetting!), were able to pull off this monumental achievement and make our annual meeting not just possible but also informative and enjoyable. We owe them our gratitude for making a perfect start to our expanded identity as the International Association for Landscape Ecology-North America chapter: they have shown that by being proactive, thinking creatively, and working together across borders, we can solve what initially seem to be insurmountably complex applied problems! I am so proud to be a part of this organization.
I am very excited to assume the role of President of IALE-North America as we expand our horizons. I’d like to extend a personal and huge THANK YOU to outgoing president Janet Silbernagel for her mentoring over the past year, and to the Executive Committee and all of the standing and ad-hoc committees for all that they’ve accomplished. This is truly a group effort, and I am very appreciative of the outgoing officers Kristin Braziunas (Student Rep), Tom Edwards (Councillor-at-Large), Jessica Price (Treasurer), and Jelena Vukomanovic (Councillor-at-Large), as well as ongoing members Steve Matthews (Secretary), Kristin Byrd (Councillor-at-Large), Yessica Rico (Councillor-at-Large), and Kate Hayes (Student Rep). I am looking forward to working with newly elected members Li An and Betty Kreakie (Councillors-at-Large), Jeff Hepenstall-Cymerman (Treasurer), and Caitlin Cunningham (Student Rep).
Since our 2019 meeting in Fort Collins, we had several notable achievements:
Some topics we will address/things we wish to achieve during the coming year include the following:
As the COVID-19 pandemic showed, big accomplishments require support and collaboration. So to accomplish these and other goals, we need help from our members. If there are any areas where you’d particularly like to participate, please send me an email at [email protected]. The Executive Committee and I would be grateful. We are part of an amazing organization, and we have a lot to learn from and offer to each other.
Please remember to follow IALE-North America on social media:
Next year’s meeting will be 10-16 April in Reno, Nevada. I hope to see everyone there; until then, stay in touch and stay safe.
Sincerely,
Nancy McIntyre
President, IALE-North America
Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409-3131 USA
[email protected]
Although the coronavirus pandemic meant that we could not gather in person as planned in Toronto, it did provide us with a perfect opportunity to make lemonade from the lemons we were given: we had been planning on offering remote-access attendance options to minimize our carbon footprint and to increase conference accessibility. The pandemic meant that these had to be operationalized on a larger scale sooner than we had originally planned. But Helene Wagner (Local Host and Committee Chair), Yolanda Wiersma, Jochen Jaeger, Patrick James, Jeff Bowman, Tenley Conway, Felipe Torres Vanegas, Namrata Shrestha (members of the Program Committee), Mariana Ostache (liaison with the Univ. of Toronto-Mississauga), Tom Edwards (tech advisor), Kristin Braziunas and Kate Hays (Student Reps), and Leslie Pelch (Delaney Event Management), along with our sponsors and the staff at the University of Toronto at Mississauga (and probably some more behind-the-scenes people I’m forgetting!), were able to pull off this monumental achievement and make our annual meeting not just possible but also informative and enjoyable. We owe them our gratitude for making a perfect start to our expanded identity as the International Association for Landscape Ecology-North America chapter: they have shown that by being proactive, thinking creatively, and working together across borders, we can solve what initially seem to be insurmountably complex applied problems! I am so proud to be a part of this organization.
I am very excited to assume the role of President of IALE-North America as we expand our horizons. I’d like to extend a personal and huge THANK YOU to outgoing president Janet Silbernagel for her mentoring over the past year, and to the Executive Committee and all of the standing and ad-hoc committees for all that they’ve accomplished. This is truly a group effort, and I am very appreciative of the outgoing officers Kristin Braziunas (Student Rep), Tom Edwards (Councillor-at-Large), Jessica Price (Treasurer), and Jelena Vukomanovic (Councillor-at-Large), as well as ongoing members Steve Matthews (Secretary), Kristin Byrd (Councillor-at-Large), Yessica Rico (Councillor-at-Large), and Kate Hayes (Student Rep). I am looking forward to working with newly elected members Li An and Betty Kreakie (Councillors-at-Large), Jeff Hepenstall-Cymerman (Treasurer), and Caitlin Cunningham (Student Rep).
Since our 2019 meeting in Fort Collins, we had several notable achievements:
- We finalized the expansion to IALE-North America, with approval of IALE-International. Many thanks to our legal counsel Kristy Cook, Janet Silbernagel, and Jessica Price for getting all of the necessary paperwork squared away.
- With our expansion, we added a 4th Councillor-at-Large to the Executive Committee and welcomed Yessica Rico Mancebo del Castillo to that role.
- In response to membership needs, we formed a new Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Committee to put forth a sound effort in increasing representation among our members, with Kristin Byrd as chair and Li An, David Bell, Kristin Braziunas, Kusum Naithani, Georgina Sanchez, and myself as members. This committee developed a draft statement of diversity, equity, and inclusion that was disseminated in April; feedback on this draft was solicited via a “town hall” meeting that was part of our annual conference. Based on that feedback, a revised version is being finalized.
Some topics we will address/things we wish to achieve during the coming year include the following:
- We will formally adopt a statement of diversity, equity, and inclusion for our Handbook, which is being thoroughly updated and revised.
- We will implement action plans developed by the Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Committee.
- We will work to increase conference accessibility to members from non-G7 countries.
As the COVID-19 pandemic showed, big accomplishments require support and collaboration. So to accomplish these and other goals, we need help from our members. If there are any areas where you’d particularly like to participate, please send me an email at [email protected]. The Executive Committee and I would be grateful. We are part of an amazing organization, and we have a lot to learn from and offer to each other.
Please remember to follow IALE-North America on social media:
- Twitter: @iale_na
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ialenorthamerica
- Webpage: http://www.ialena.org
- Membership email list-serve: IALENA-L
Next year’s meeting will be 10-16 April in Reno, Nevada. I hope to see everyone there; until then, stay in touch and stay safe.
Sincerely,
Nancy McIntyre
President, IALE-North America
Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409-3131 USA
[email protected]
2020 Meeting Update: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The Local Hosts and Program Chairs would like to thank all who attended or contributed to the IALE North America 2020 remote virtual meeting in May. It was great to see our community come together to take on this challenge during the Covid-19 lockdown. This meant considerable extra work for all presenters and symposium organizers. You showed an admirable openness to explore new ways of communicating science and interacting with colleagues, and great resilience in the face of the inevitable hiccups. Thank you!
Even during a pandemic and a last-minute switch to a virtual event, the IALE community participated! 320 registrants attended and presented, made up of 37% students, and 35% non-members. They represented 13 countries and 51% said it was their first time attending.
The conference included 14 symposia presented synchronously via Zoom, 4 online workshops and over 230 asynchronous presentations via the iPoster Platform. The iPoster format allowed presenters in the General Contributed Sessions and the Poster Session to create an interactive digital poster show casing their work. Symposium presenters also used their iPoster slot to archive their talk or put supplemental material online. The full iPoster gallery remains available to paid conference participants up to the next meeting. Individual presenters are free to share a direct link to their iPoster to their own personal websites and social media feeds. We also had three excellent plenary panels who provided inspirational, innovative, and integrated perspectives. Day 1 featured 3 speakers discussing Indigenous perspectives on Landscape Ecology, featuring Deb McGregor (York University) and Jon Johnson (University of Toronto) and moderated by John Crouch (University of Toronto). Day 2 was a discussion of cross-border conservation initiatives by Jessica Levine (The Nature Conservancy) and Glenn Benoy (Fisheries and Oceans Canada). Day 3 provides perspectives on our new IALE-North America chapter, from 3 ecologists representing Canada (Mike Moss), the United States (Nancy McIntryre) and Mexico (Yessica Rico), and ably moderated by Marie-Josée Fortin (University of Toronto).
We would like to thank all respondents to the post-conference survey for their thoughtful comments. Respondents overwhelmingly indicated that they hope future IALE North America meetings will be organized as hybrid conferences (79%), over in-person only (17%) or remote conferences (4%). Please continue to support the organizers of our upcoming meetings in Reno, 2021, and beyond, as they strive to combine the best of two conference worlds.
Even during a pandemic and a last-minute switch to a virtual event, the IALE community participated! 320 registrants attended and presented, made up of 37% students, and 35% non-members. They represented 13 countries and 51% said it was their first time attending.
The conference included 14 symposia presented synchronously via Zoom, 4 online workshops and over 230 asynchronous presentations via the iPoster Platform. The iPoster format allowed presenters in the General Contributed Sessions and the Poster Session to create an interactive digital poster show casing their work. Symposium presenters also used their iPoster slot to archive their talk or put supplemental material online. The full iPoster gallery remains available to paid conference participants up to the next meeting. Individual presenters are free to share a direct link to their iPoster to their own personal websites and social media feeds. We also had three excellent plenary panels who provided inspirational, innovative, and integrated perspectives. Day 1 featured 3 speakers discussing Indigenous perspectives on Landscape Ecology, featuring Deb McGregor (York University) and Jon Johnson (University of Toronto) and moderated by John Crouch (University of Toronto). Day 2 was a discussion of cross-border conservation initiatives by Jessica Levine (The Nature Conservancy) and Glenn Benoy (Fisheries and Oceans Canada). Day 3 provides perspectives on our new IALE-North America chapter, from 3 ecologists representing Canada (Mike Moss), the United States (Nancy McIntryre) and Mexico (Yessica Rico), and ably moderated by Marie-Josée Fortin (University of Toronto).
We would like to thank all respondents to the post-conference survey for their thoughtful comments. Respondents overwhelmingly indicated that they hope future IALE North America meetings will be organized as hybrid conferences (79%), over in-person only (17%) or remote conferences (4%). Please continue to support the organizers of our upcoming meetings in Reno, 2021, and beyond, as they strive to combine the best of two conference worlds.
2021 Meeting Update: Reno, Nevada, USA
Reno/Tahoe region to host IALE-NA 10-16 April 2021
A host delegation of 8 (and counting) are thrilled and honored to announce Reno, Nevada, USA as the location for the 2021 IALE-North America Annual meeting! We are excited for a variety of reasons: we’ve lined up a great venue in downtown Reno where we’ll have a building to ourselves (Silver Legacy Resort & the Reno Ballroom), we have a fun and delicious city to be in (Reno was just named #1 small city in the USA), and we are one of the more affordable and accessible major conference destinations around.
Meeting Theme: Landscapes on the Edge
First and foremost, however, we wanted to host IALE-NA 2021 because Reno/Tahoe has some amazing landscapes we want our colleagues to experience. With landscape ecologists so focused on gradients and change, what struck us was how often we encounter edges in the Reno/Tahoe region: a rainshadow desert, but with cooler montane conditions nearby (ahem – Lake Tahoe!); a tectonically active area with horst adjacent to graben; and a landscape dotted with evidence of far more moist conditions in the recent past. The edge concept applies to cultural landscapes of the region as well, with multiple Native nations, two states, a growing, diverse population, and sharp red-blue contrasts to be found at multiple scales.
Next steps: planning and in-person and virtual meeting
We are organizing this meeting fully aware of the fact that uncertainties exist surrounding COVID-19 and the international travel climate. We are planning for an in-person meeting that will be augmented with virtual registration options. Our friends from Toronto set a high bar under extremely challenging conditions and we are working hard to learn from their experiences and take advantage of a bit more time to plan in this climate. Our Call for Symposia and Workshops will go out in early September.
Please stay tuned for more information on calls, abstracts, workshops, field trips, and registration and scheduling details.
See you in Reno in April! ¡Nos vemos pronto en Reno! A bientôt à Reno!
Your Reno host committee – Thomas Albright, Brett Dickson, Ken Nussear, Lauren Phillips, Jamie Trammell, Alexandra Urza, Robert Washington-Allen, and Peter Weisberg
A host delegation of 8 (and counting) are thrilled and honored to announce Reno, Nevada, USA as the location for the 2021 IALE-North America Annual meeting! We are excited for a variety of reasons: we’ve lined up a great venue in downtown Reno where we’ll have a building to ourselves (Silver Legacy Resort & the Reno Ballroom), we have a fun and delicious city to be in (Reno was just named #1 small city in the USA), and we are one of the more affordable and accessible major conference destinations around.
Meeting Theme: Landscapes on the Edge
First and foremost, however, we wanted to host IALE-NA 2021 because Reno/Tahoe has some amazing landscapes we want our colleagues to experience. With landscape ecologists so focused on gradients and change, what struck us was how often we encounter edges in the Reno/Tahoe region: a rainshadow desert, but with cooler montane conditions nearby (ahem – Lake Tahoe!); a tectonically active area with horst adjacent to graben; and a landscape dotted with evidence of far more moist conditions in the recent past. The edge concept applies to cultural landscapes of the region as well, with multiple Native nations, two states, a growing, diverse population, and sharp red-blue contrasts to be found at multiple scales.
Next steps: planning and in-person and virtual meeting
We are organizing this meeting fully aware of the fact that uncertainties exist surrounding COVID-19 and the international travel climate. We are planning for an in-person meeting that will be augmented with virtual registration options. Our friends from Toronto set a high bar under extremely challenging conditions and we are working hard to learn from their experiences and take advantage of a bit more time to plan in this climate. Our Call for Symposia and Workshops will go out in early September.
Please stay tuned for more information on calls, abstracts, workshops, field trips, and registration and scheduling details.
See you in Reno in April! ¡Nos vemos pronto en Reno! A bientôt à Reno!
Your Reno host committee – Thomas Albright, Brett Dickson, Ken Nussear, Lauren Phillips, Jamie Trammell, Alexandra Urza, Robert Washington-Allen, and Peter Weisberg
Image courtesy of Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority
Student News & Notes
Greetings from the IALE-North America Student Representatives, Kate Hayes and Caitlin Cunningham. IALE-NA has always had a strong focus on supporting students at the annual meeting, and our very first remote IALE-NA meeting was no exception. The meeting brought together 118 students, along with 320 researchers and professionals from around the country and abroad. Thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s virtual experiment and a warm welcome to the students new to IALE-NA!
Our virtual format allowed for a variety of remote networking and professional activities for our student community. While we were unable to host some of our traditional student activities, including our annual walking tour and student social, our shift to online platforms allowed for some creative new ways to network and build connections within our landscape ecology community. 79 attendees signed up to attend the student-mentor lunch over zoom, in which students and mentors were grouped based on mutual interests for a semi-structured discussion of career goals, research interests, and professional expectations and opportunities.
Following the meeting, we held an election for the new student representative. The votes came in, and Caitlin Cunningham was elected as our incoming student representative. Caitlin is a PhD student at Dalhousie University working at the intersection of urban and conservation planning, investigating how cities can be better designed to support biodiversity conservation goals. She obtained a master’s from Dalhousie and an undergraduate degree from Lakehead University where she developed a passion for landscape ecology working on a variety of projects in conservation biology. Congratulations to Caitlin and thank you to the other candidates for running!
As the 2021 annual meeting approaches, keep your eyes out for additional information regarding electing your next IALE-NA Student Representative. As we embark on our second year as IALE-NA and look forward to meeting in Reno, we are specifically asking students who are citizens of Canada, Mexico, or another non-United States country in the continent of North America to run for student representative. We will be officially seeking nominations at the Reno meeting to replace outgoing representative Kate as she finishes her 2-year term. Student representatives serve as voting members on the executive IALE-NA board, representing the best interests of the broader students of Landscape Ecology. Each serves for a 2-year term, with the newly-elected representative overlapping with the current representative. If you’ve enjoyed student activities in the past meetings, want to get more engaged in your professional organization, and/or want more opportunities to network and shape the IALE-NA student activities, this is your chance!
In closing, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any feedback on student activities or involvement with IALE-NA. And share your landscape ecology successes with us on Facebook or Twitter, so we can celebrate how awesome our students are!
Your Student Representatives,
Kate & Caitlin
(Kate Hayes - [email protected], Caitlin Cunningham - [email protected] )
Our virtual format allowed for a variety of remote networking and professional activities for our student community. While we were unable to host some of our traditional student activities, including our annual walking tour and student social, our shift to online platforms allowed for some creative new ways to network and build connections within our landscape ecology community. 79 attendees signed up to attend the student-mentor lunch over zoom, in which students and mentors were grouped based on mutual interests for a semi-structured discussion of career goals, research interests, and professional expectations and opportunities.
Following the meeting, we held an election for the new student representative. The votes came in, and Caitlin Cunningham was elected as our incoming student representative. Caitlin is a PhD student at Dalhousie University working at the intersection of urban and conservation planning, investigating how cities can be better designed to support biodiversity conservation goals. She obtained a master’s from Dalhousie and an undergraduate degree from Lakehead University where she developed a passion for landscape ecology working on a variety of projects in conservation biology. Congratulations to Caitlin and thank you to the other candidates for running!
As the 2021 annual meeting approaches, keep your eyes out for additional information regarding electing your next IALE-NA Student Representative. As we embark on our second year as IALE-NA and look forward to meeting in Reno, we are specifically asking students who are citizens of Canada, Mexico, or another non-United States country in the continent of North America to run for student representative. We will be officially seeking nominations at the Reno meeting to replace outgoing representative Kate as she finishes her 2-year term. Student representatives serve as voting members on the executive IALE-NA board, representing the best interests of the broader students of Landscape Ecology. Each serves for a 2-year term, with the newly-elected representative overlapping with the current representative. If you’ve enjoyed student activities in the past meetings, want to get more engaged in your professional organization, and/or want more opportunities to network and shape the IALE-NA student activities, this is your chance!
In closing, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any feedback on student activities or involvement with IALE-NA. And share your landscape ecology successes with us on Facebook or Twitter, so we can celebrate how awesome our students are!
Your Student Representatives,
Kate & Caitlin
(Kate Hayes - [email protected], Caitlin Cunningham - [email protected] )
Awards Update
Congratulations to the following award winners from the first virtual IALE- North America Annual Meeting.
Best Student Presentation
The Best Student Presentation Award recognizes scientific merit and presentation skill of a student at the annual meeting. This year we had 14 student entrants: 5 from Canada, 6 from the US, and 1 each from China, Japan, and India. The winner of the Best Student Presentation for the 2020 meeting was Dalal Hanna (McGill University) for “Assessing the Relationship Between Water Quality and Watershed Protection.” We also had one honorable mention recipient: Caitlin Cunningham (Dalhousie University) for her presentation “Developing a method to examine changes in effective mesh size across a landscape: A case study of Nova Scotia, Canada.”
The Awards Committee would like to thank to this year’s judges, who graciously donate their time to evaluate the talks and posters: Thomas Albright, Ginger Allington, Eric Gustafson, Jeffrey Hepinstall-Cymerman, Jennifer Holzer, Nancy McIntyre, Paul Millhouser, Emily Minor, Anita Morzillo, Melanie Murphy, Brett Patton, Bill Peterman, Kevin Potter, Kathleen Quigley, Gordon Reese, Brian Sturtevant, Sophie Taddeo, Michael Treglia, Suraj Upadhaya, and Klara Winkler.
Student Travel Awards
Ten Student Awards were supported this year with funding provided by IALE-NA. These awards included $700 for attending and presenting at the virtual conference and were selected from an applicant pool of 23 students. The 2020 recipients were:
Outstanding Paper in Landscape Ecology Award
The purpose of the Outstanding Paper in Landscape Ecology Award is to recognize papers published during the past two years that make an outstanding contribution to the field of landscape ecology. Papers are nominated by the IALE-NA membership. The recipient of the 2020 Outstanding Paper Award was Ian McCullough and coauthors for the paper “Do lakes feel the burn? Ecological consequences of increasing exposure of lakes to fire in the continental U.S.” in Global Change Biology 25.9 (2019): 2841-2854.
Distinguished Landscape Practitioner Award
The objective of the Distinguished Landscape Practitioner Award is to recognize outstanding applications of the principles of landscape ecology to real-world problems. The recipients of this year’s award was Dr. Sarah Gergel. In addition to her innovative research and contributions to teaching landscape ecology, the third pillar of Dr. Gergel’s long-term impact is her contribution to equity, diversity and inclusion in landscape ecology and other fields. Dr. Gergel is the Associate Dean of Equity and Diversity within the Faculty of Forestry at UBC and is pioneering approaches and programs to increase the involvement of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), as well as working to ensure a more diverse, equitable and welcoming university environment for LGBTQ+ people and underrepresented minorities. While landscape ecology is often viewed as being a field with reasonable gender parity, related fields such as GIS, remote sensing, forestry, math, biometrics and spatial data science are not. Her work in this area thus dovetails into her research by actively demonstrating that gender and other equity issues must be addressed in all fields, especially those that feed into quantitative landscape ecology.
Distinguished Service Award
The award for Distinguished Service recognizes individuals who have contributed exceptionally to IALE-NA in terms of time, energy, and dedication that advanced the mission of IALE-NA in an extraordinary manner. The recipients of this year’s award was Dr. Steven Walters. Dr. Walters spent eleven years running the Graduate Student Best Presentation Award. Coordinating the student participants, the judges, and the assignments is an enormous task, with many moving pieces. Even after Steve stepped down from this position the burden was much eased by the detailed records and notes that Steven provided his successor: everything from lists of previous participants to email templates for every stage of the process. An amazing level of organization and thought that went into it, and the continued efficiency and success of the program is entirely due to Steven’s legacy. Steven ably managed anywhere from 13 to 32 (mean of 21) student presentations each year, along with three volunteer judges for each, tallied up the scores, and presented the final results. These numbers are known because of his detailed record-keeping.
Distinguished Landscape Ecologist
The Distinguished Landscape Ecologist Award recognizes individuals whose long-term scientific contribution has helped to define the field of landscape ecology. The recipient of this year’s award was Dr. Thomas Spies. Dr. Spies received his BS, MS, and PhD from the University of Michigan, where he served as teaching assistant and lecturer for courses focused on soils, plans, and forests. Since then, he served as a Research Associate at Oregon State University, and as a Research Forester for the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station while also maintaining a Courtesy Faculty appointment with Oregon State University. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 publications focused on diverse aspects of landscape-level forest ecology and management, several of which have been cited hundreds (250 to 450+) of times. He has both advised and mentored numerous graduate students, many of which went on to have distinguished careers in landscape ecology and related fields. He has completed an exhaustive number of scientific presentations for many audiences, including 10 keynote presentations at national and international meetings. The competitive grants he has received easily surpass $8 million, from a variety of sources including the National Science Foundation, NASA, and BLM Joint Fire Science Program, among others. Editorial accomplishments have included Board of Directors for the Journal of Sustainable Forestry (1995-2002) and Coordinating Editor for Landscape Ecology (2005 to 2012). Among his numerous honors and awards are an IUFRO (International Union of Forestry Research Organizations) Scientific Achievement Award (1995) for distinguished individual achievement in forestry research, and the Forest Service Chief’s Superior Scientist award (2002) for contributions to the ecology and management of old-growth forests.
---The 2020 IALE-NA Awards Committee
Betty Kreakie (chair), Jennifer Costanza, Sarah Goslee, Dan Kashian, Ilona Naujokaitis-Lewis, and Emily Minor
Best Student Presentation
The Best Student Presentation Award recognizes scientific merit and presentation skill of a student at the annual meeting. This year we had 14 student entrants: 5 from Canada, 6 from the US, and 1 each from China, Japan, and India. The winner of the Best Student Presentation for the 2020 meeting was Dalal Hanna (McGill University) for “Assessing the Relationship Between Water Quality and Watershed Protection.” We also had one honorable mention recipient: Caitlin Cunningham (Dalhousie University) for her presentation “Developing a method to examine changes in effective mesh size across a landscape: A case study of Nova Scotia, Canada.”
The Awards Committee would like to thank to this year’s judges, who graciously donate their time to evaluate the talks and posters: Thomas Albright, Ginger Allington, Eric Gustafson, Jeffrey Hepinstall-Cymerman, Jennifer Holzer, Nancy McIntyre, Paul Millhouser, Emily Minor, Anita Morzillo, Melanie Murphy, Brett Patton, Bill Peterman, Kevin Potter, Kathleen Quigley, Gordon Reese, Brian Sturtevant, Sophie Taddeo, Michael Treglia, Suraj Upadhaya, and Klara Winkler.
Student Travel Awards
Ten Student Awards were supported this year with funding provided by IALE-NA. These awards included $700 for attending and presenting at the virtual conference and were selected from an applicant pool of 23 students. The 2020 recipients were:
- Ellen Audia - Iowa State University, Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management
- Morgan Crowley - McGill University, Department of Natural Resource Sciences
- Steven DiFalco - University of Connecticut
- Adam Dixon - University of Maryland, Geography & Environmental Systems
- Tyler Hoecker - University of Wisconsin-Madison, Integrative Biology
- Lauren Lynch - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences
- Ian McGregor - North Carolina State University, Center for Geospatial Analytics
- Kirsten Reid - Memorial University of Newfoundland, Department of Geography
- Zachary Robbins - North Carolina State University, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources
- Julian Wittische - Université de Montréal, Département de Sciences biologiques
Outstanding Paper in Landscape Ecology Award
The purpose of the Outstanding Paper in Landscape Ecology Award is to recognize papers published during the past two years that make an outstanding contribution to the field of landscape ecology. Papers are nominated by the IALE-NA membership. The recipient of the 2020 Outstanding Paper Award was Ian McCullough and coauthors for the paper “Do lakes feel the burn? Ecological consequences of increasing exposure of lakes to fire in the continental U.S.” in Global Change Biology 25.9 (2019): 2841-2854.
Distinguished Landscape Practitioner Award
The objective of the Distinguished Landscape Practitioner Award is to recognize outstanding applications of the principles of landscape ecology to real-world problems. The recipients of this year’s award was Dr. Sarah Gergel. In addition to her innovative research and contributions to teaching landscape ecology, the third pillar of Dr. Gergel’s long-term impact is her contribution to equity, diversity and inclusion in landscape ecology and other fields. Dr. Gergel is the Associate Dean of Equity and Diversity within the Faculty of Forestry at UBC and is pioneering approaches and programs to increase the involvement of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), as well as working to ensure a more diverse, equitable and welcoming university environment for LGBTQ+ people and underrepresented minorities. While landscape ecology is often viewed as being a field with reasonable gender parity, related fields such as GIS, remote sensing, forestry, math, biometrics and spatial data science are not. Her work in this area thus dovetails into her research by actively demonstrating that gender and other equity issues must be addressed in all fields, especially those that feed into quantitative landscape ecology.
Distinguished Service Award
The award for Distinguished Service recognizes individuals who have contributed exceptionally to IALE-NA in terms of time, energy, and dedication that advanced the mission of IALE-NA in an extraordinary manner. The recipients of this year’s award was Dr. Steven Walters. Dr. Walters spent eleven years running the Graduate Student Best Presentation Award. Coordinating the student participants, the judges, and the assignments is an enormous task, with many moving pieces. Even after Steve stepped down from this position the burden was much eased by the detailed records and notes that Steven provided his successor: everything from lists of previous participants to email templates for every stage of the process. An amazing level of organization and thought that went into it, and the continued efficiency and success of the program is entirely due to Steven’s legacy. Steven ably managed anywhere from 13 to 32 (mean of 21) student presentations each year, along with three volunteer judges for each, tallied up the scores, and presented the final results. These numbers are known because of his detailed record-keeping.
Distinguished Landscape Ecologist
The Distinguished Landscape Ecologist Award recognizes individuals whose long-term scientific contribution has helped to define the field of landscape ecology. The recipient of this year’s award was Dr. Thomas Spies. Dr. Spies received his BS, MS, and PhD from the University of Michigan, where he served as teaching assistant and lecturer for courses focused on soils, plans, and forests. Since then, he served as a Research Associate at Oregon State University, and as a Research Forester for the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station while also maintaining a Courtesy Faculty appointment with Oregon State University. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 publications focused on diverse aspects of landscape-level forest ecology and management, several of which have been cited hundreds (250 to 450+) of times. He has both advised and mentored numerous graduate students, many of which went on to have distinguished careers in landscape ecology and related fields. He has completed an exhaustive number of scientific presentations for many audiences, including 10 keynote presentations at national and international meetings. The competitive grants he has received easily surpass $8 million, from a variety of sources including the National Science Foundation, NASA, and BLM Joint Fire Science Program, among others. Editorial accomplishments have included Board of Directors for the Journal of Sustainable Forestry (1995-2002) and Coordinating Editor for Landscape Ecology (2005 to 2012). Among his numerous honors and awards are an IUFRO (International Union of Forestry Research Organizations) Scientific Achievement Award (1995) for distinguished individual achievement in forestry research, and the Forest Service Chief’s Superior Scientist award (2002) for contributions to the ecology and management of old-growth forests.
---The 2020 IALE-NA Awards Committee
Betty Kreakie (chair), Jennifer Costanza, Sarah Goslee, Dan Kashian, Ilona Naujokaitis-Lewis, and Emily Minor
Foreign Scholar Travel Award Committee Update
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The purpose of the FSTA is to provide support for landscape ecologists from foreign countries to attend the annual IALE-NA symposium and to foster international exchange about advances in landscape ecology. Winners are selected based primarily on high quality scientific endeavors that advance landscape ecology, but early career scientists with demonstrated financial need also receive high priority. Please consider applying for the 2021 symposium in Reno, Nevada, USA (April 11-15, 2021); the application deadline aligns with that of the conference abstract deadline (deadline date TBD: January 2021). More details on eligibility and the selection criteria can be found on the IALE-NA website (http://www.ialena.org/foreign-scholar-award.html).
We received 9 applications this year representing 8 countries: Austria, Brazil, India, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Poland, and Venezuela. Special thanks to Robert Corry (Univ. of Guelph), Deahn Donner (USFWS), Kathy Vigness-Raposa (Inspire Environmental) and Tammy Wilson (National Park Service) of the FSTA Committee for taking the time to carefully review and rank the applications. Majid Amanibeni (Iran) and Zehidul Hussain (India) were awarded US$1200 to help with their Visa application and other expenses incurred before the 2020 Toronto, Ontario, Canada symposium moved to a virtual online meeting. Congrats to these stellar foreign scholars! Looking ahead to the 2021 symposium, we will be holding the annual Silent Book and Software Auction. Please remember to donate any books you may have on your shelves…old and new are greatly appreciated. There will be tables at registration for you to drop off your goodies. Also, don’t forget to bid early and often on the great items that will be available at the auction. All proceeds from sales directly fund the FSTA scholarships. Anne Kuhn-Hines Chair, Foreign Scholar Travel Award Committee |
Majid Amanibeni
Zehidul Hussain
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Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Committee Update
In May, the Equity, Inclusion and Diversity committee completed the Draft Statement of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE) - North America Regional Chapter, which can be found on our website here. We held a town hall at the 2020 Remote Virtual Conference on May 11, when we presented the draft statement to conference attendees and sought feedback on the statement as well as action items that should be prioritized by the committee. We have also received feedback through our listserv, emails and social media. In the coming months we will finalize the statement and start to develop a committee strategic plan. If you have suggestions for action items that IALE-NA should pursue to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, please email Kristin Byrd, [email protected].
Kristin Byrd
Chair, EID Committee
Kristin Byrd
Chair, EID Committee
Communications Committee Update
The communications committee continues to have a strong presence on social media, with thanks to Carly Ziter (Concordia University), who is the “thumbs” behind the Twitter Account. As well, we work with our web manager at Delaney to make sure the content of the website is as up-to-date as possible.
We are looking for a few volunteers to join us! This a committee that does not meet formally very often, but has various roles and tasks that can best be shared among various people. We are specifically looking for people with the following skills, who could help with one or more of the following:
Yolanda Wiersma
IALE-North America Communications Committee Chair
We are looking for a few volunteers to join us! This a committee that does not meet formally very often, but has various roles and tasks that can best be shared among various people. We are specifically looking for people with the following skills, who could help with one or more of the following:
- If you enjoy working with social media, we would love to get a volunteer to curate our Facebook feed on a regular basis!
- If you are fluent in either Spanish or French, we’d love to have you help us translate some of communications content. Now that we are IALE-North America, we would like to have some of materials in all the official languages of the continent
- If you have podcast or multi-media skills, we would love to develop some multimedia content for the website page “What is landscape ecology?” to profile different landscape ecologists. Note – these can be presented in English, French or Spanish!
- If you like writing, and would like to contribute to the newsletter, we would love to have you!
- If you have experience with media relations, we are always looking for ways to increase the profile of IALE-North America and to help distribute press releases about our annual conference and Award winners.
Yolanda Wiersma
IALE-North America Communications Committee Chair
Stay in Touch!
- Website: www.ialena.org
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ialenorthamerica
- Twitter: @iale_na
- IALE Website: www.landscape-ecology.org
- IALE Current Newsletter: www.landscape-ecology.org/services/publications/iale-bulletin/new-iale-bulletin-out-now.html