iavs bulletin 2013 2 · 4 in 1990 iavs came for the first time to australia. the legendary dr. john...

IAVS Bulletin 2013 / 2

Annual IAVS Symposium 2013 in Tartu, Estonia

Date of Publication: November 2013

© International Association for Vegetation Science

2

Contents

Preface……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……3 Invitation to the IAVS meeting 2014 Perth, Australia………………………………….………………………………….………. 4 Featured laboratories of IAVS members: The Landscape Ecology Group at Stockholm University………….. 5 Minutes of the Annual IAVS Council Meeting in Tartu, Estonia, 2013………………………………………..……………. 8 Minutes of the Annual IAVS General Assembly in Tartu, Estonia, 2013………….………….………………..………… 16 Amendment of Article 5 of the Bylaws of the European Vegetation Survey…........................................... 20 Financial statement………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 21 IAVS Code of professional ethics……………………………….………...................................................................... 23 IAVS Honorary Membership 2012 to J. Bastow Wilson.............................................................................. 26 Alexander von Humboldt Medal 2013 to David Tilman ………………............................................................ 28 Report of the IAVS Publications Officer: 2012‐2013… ………....................................................................... 32 Annual report of the European Dry Grassland Group ………....................................................................... 34 Annual report of the European Vegetation Survey…. ………....................................................................... 37 Bylaws of the Ecoinformatics Working Group…........................................................................................ 39 Bylaws of the Working Group for Phytosociological Nomenclature.......................................................... 40 Forthcoming meetings............................................................................................................................... 44

Bog in the Endla Nature Reserve, Estonia (photograph by Angela Pannek)

3

Preface

The IAVS Symposium in Tartu was one of the largest (if not THE largest) annual meetings in the history of IAVS: 447 Participants from more than 40 countries presented 183 talks and 191 posters. The meeting was of a high scientific caliber, reflected in the excellent keynote talks and the stimulating honorary lectures of David Tilman, recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Medal 2013, and Bastow Wilson, the latest Honorary member of the IAVS. The mid‐symposium excursions and also the pre‐ and post‐symposium excursions were very well organized and gave a good impression of the Estonian landscape with its Boreo‐nemoral vegetation. We thank the symposium organizers – Martin Zobel and his colleagues and students – for their excellent work and for having the opportunity to visit their beautiful country. Now we are looking forward to the forthcoming symposia in 2014 in Perth, Australia (see invitation in this Bulletin on page 4), and in 2015 in Brno, Czech Republic. Looking further to the future, the IAVS Council at its annual meeting in Tartu decided to accept the invitation from our colleagues in Brazil to host the 2016 meeting in the cerrado region of the country, most likely in the city of Pirenópolis close to Brasilia.

Other important IAVS news about which more detailed information can be found in this bulletin include:

The Council approved a new IAVS Code of Ethics that provides guiding principles of conduct for all members of the association in their scientific activities, and that gives standards to be followed in submission of manuscripts to the journals of the association (page 23).

The Council adopted new bylaws of the two Working Groups for Ecoinformatics (page 39) and Phytosociological Nomenclature (page 40), and also approved a proposal for an amendment

of the bylaws of the European Vegetation Survey (page 20).

Through the work of the Global Sponsor‐ship Committee, the IAVS increased its support to student members enabling them to participate in the annual IAVS symposia (page 10). For the 2013 meeting in Tartu we supported 25 students from 17 countries to cover accommodation, symposium fees and travel (in part).

The Council expressed the need to establish a long‐term strategy to help guide the IAVS in how to spend the assets of the association that have accumulated over the past years. The Governing Board will assign a Special Committee to develop a financial vision for the future.

After many years of service as Chair of the Editors of the IAVS journals, Bastow Wilson retired from his position, and the Council approved the appointment of Valério Pillar for the vacant position. We thank Bastow for his outstanding work for the association! We also wish to warmly thank Nina Smits who has served the IAVS as administrator for 12 years and who steps back from this position after the Tartu meeting.

With deep regrets we have received the message about the death of Prof. Wladislaw Matuszkiewicz, one of the honorary members of our society. We will honor and remember his life and work in an obituary in the first 2014 issue of the IAVS Bulletin. Martin Diekmann President

4

In 1990 IAVS came for the first time to Australia. The legendary Dr. John S. Beard AO organised an IAVS Field Excursion to his adopted homeland of Western Australia. There are many of us (though, unfortunately, not myself as I was just pushing my life reset button in the free West after having escaped communistic Czechoslovakia) who still recall this wonderful trip featuring weird flowers, strange vegetation types, and mesmerising dry landscapes full of eucalypts.

In 2014, IAVS is coming to Australia again – this time to hold its yearly symposium in Perth. For a couple of weeks in August and September Australia will become the focus of vegetation‐scientific interest as the University Club of The University of Western Australia will host the 57th Annual Symposium of IAVS.

Australia is far from almost everywhere, and the ‘tyranny of distance’ drives our lives more than national politics. Despite the distance, we expect to attract many colleagues from over‐seas. We are also committed to make the long trip worth taking for many young people. We want to be it a ‘young’ symposium: dominated by young people with fresh ideas and, therefore, most of the invited key‐note lectures will be given by young up‐coming scientists.

The Local Organising Committee is looking forward to seeing you in Australia and proudly showing you around our country. Four excursions flanking the symposium (two in Western Australia, and two on the East Coast featuring New South Wales and tropical

northern Queensland) will offer ample opportunity to marvel at the beauty of our plants and vegetation.

Come and join us – to push the envelopes of scientific theory, to boost the image of our scientia amabilis, to make new friends and perhaps find a new job or research partner, and at the same time, just to have a hell of a good time. Vegetation scientists like to meet, value a good drink and something (and lot of it!) nice to eat, and talk shop the whole day long. All that, and more, is guaranteed!

Welcome to Australia, welcome to Western Australia – the home of black swan and the home of vegetation science for 2014. Laco Mucina, for the LOC Watch the www.iavs.org for the launch of the official website of the 2014 IAVS Symposium or contact [email protected] if you cannot wait longer.

Invitation to the IAVS meeting 2014Perth, Australia

5

The Landscape Ecology Group at Stockholm University

Head of the research unit is Sara Cousins, member of the Advisory Council of IAVS and Associate Editor of the Journal of Vegetation Science. Written by Alistair Auffret

When I started work on my Ph.D. in March 2008, Sara and I were the only members of our so‐called Landscape Ecology Group. Now, five years later, I have just defended my thesis and we are currently a healthy ten. Our work broadly focuses on the effects of agricultural land‐use change on ecological communities, particularly in semi‐natural grasslands. Most of us in the group work with plants, but we also look at insects, birds ... and elephants.

The region around Stockholm and the south of Sweden has a long history of human influence. For hundreds of years, low‐intensity arable and pasture systems existed across the region. During the summer, livestock would roam huge common outlands, before grazing fields and meadows post‐harvest. During these times, semi‐natural grassland in the form of wooded and open pastures and meadows made up more than half of the landscape around villages. During the late 19th century, improved agricultural technology allowed deeper soils to be ploughed, resulting in a loss of meadows. Later, low‐intensity sustenance farming was replaced with an increasingly intensive, mechanized commercial agriculture. Surplus grassland pasture was abandoned, and semi‐natural grassland extent today is generally around 10% or less of that which existed 200 years ago. In addition to the loss of grassland, there are often only around half as many cows, sheep, horses and people in the landscape today. But, as far as we can tell, there were never any elephants. We can never be sure what the grasslands looked like in the past, but the few that are left today are of great value to biodiversity. A study by several high‐ranking IAVS members assures us that European semi‐

natural grasslands are among the most species‐rich habitats in the world at small scales. Furthermore, they provide important habitats for farmland birds and a range of pollinators.

As a Landscape Ecology Group, we try to consider the influence of the entire surrounding landscape on our communities of interest. In Sweden, we are fortunate that there is a great geographical tradition, and using maps, aerial photography and remote sensing, we are able to consider how both historical and present‐day land use affect biodiversity. However, we would argue that we are not landscape ecologists in the traditional sense, and we all spend a lot of time on our hands and knees in the field or greenhouse counting and collecting the ecological data we need. We believe it is important to work on large spatial and temporal scales, considering the landscape itself and everything in it, and we use whatever data we can to help us better understand the system.

Our research is focused around biodiversity. Despite habitat destruction, our study landscapes are still very species‐rich. Diversity patterns appear to be more related to former land use and grassland extent than today’s, and according to the species‐area relationship, diversity should significantly decline in the future. This extinction debt is now an established concept, and runs behind much of what we do. Moving beyond the identification of an extinction debt in the landscape, we have recently worked to understand how grassland specialists and other grassland species differ in response to landscape change, and the effect of scale in determining extinction debts.

Featured laboratories of IAVS members

A species‐rich semi‐natural grassland just south of Stockholm, which has been found to contain up to 40 species within a 1‐m2 quadrat. In the foreground, a mid‐field islet which can contain remnant grassland populations both in the vegetation and seed bank.

Away from extinctions, we also look at how the surrounding land‐scape has affected the communities in the remaining grassland fragments.

The ability for plants to move across the fragmented landscape is important, and we are interested in the role of both structural and functional connectivity in species responses to fragmentation. We are lucky to be able to work in Stockholm's beautiful archipelago, which makes for a great study system for investigating the roles of land use and connectivity in species turnover. Elsewhere, we have tried to study the many ways in which seeds can disperse through the landscape, as well as looking at how communities can be connected in time through temporal dispersal in the soil seed bank. When studying plant communities in the agricultural landscape, one becomes aware that remaining semi‐natural grasslands are not the only sources of diversity. Small and remnant habitats, such as road verges, field margins, woodland borders and mid‐field islets can also contain a wealth of grassland species. Therefore, we also pay close attention to their role in the extinction debt, dispersal and connectivity when considering the landscape context.

The grassland specialist Gentianella campestris is quite rare in the land‐scape today, but has been found to attach to the clothes of humans working in ancient meadows.

Understandably, much of our work has practical applications and implications. We often have that in mind when writing up our investigations, but now we have some new projects which are somewhat more explicit in this respect. One project is concerned with how the surrounding landscape may influence the success of restored grasslands, with respect to target plant and animal communities. The other looks at how the

confusing regulations regarding number and distribution of trees on grasslands receiving agri‐environment subsidies can impact plants and birds. Finally, a project focused on wetlands in agricultural landscapes is aiming to find out how climate and surrounding land use can affect plants and insects, and the ecosystem services which they may provide now and in the future.

The Stockholm archipelago provides a fantastic environment to study land‐use change and connectivity.

And so to the elephants. One member of our group conducts studies at a scale which dwarfs our Swedish rural landscapes. In the 3 million hectare Malagarasi‐Muyovozi Ramsar site, one of our Ph.D. students is tracking elephant movement. He is interested in how habitat, geology and human activity affect the movement and behavior of a group of elephants.

ELEPHANT!

Not to be outdone, several of the rest of us take part in trans‐European projects and networks, such as FLEUR (http://www.fleur.ugent.be/) and smallFOREST (http://www.u‐picardie.fr/small forest/). This helps put our Swedish work in a more international perspective, and large latitudinal gradients can help us to understand how warming climate may affect ecological communities in rural landscapes.

We're a growing group and we love our jobs and the landscapes we work in. Please visit our web‐site (http://ww2.ink.su.se/landscapeecology) for more information on the individual members of the group and what we do. Don't hesitate to get in contact if you're interested in what we do and want to collaborate!

Thursday, June 27, 17:30-21:15 Location: Dorpat Conference Centre

Participants

Members present: Martin Diekmann (Pres.), Susan Wiser (Secr.), Alicia Acosta (Vice Pres.), Javier Loidi (Vice Pres.), Michael Palmer (Vice Pres.), Robert Peet (Vice Pres.), Valério Pillar (Vice Pres.), Michael Barbour, Sándor Bartha, Elgene Box, Alessandro Chiarucci, Milan Chytrý, Sara Cousins, Guillaume Decocq, Jürgen Dengler, Kazue Fujiwara, Tomáš Herben, Pavel Krestov, Jan Lepš, Ladislav Mucina, Meelis Pärtel, Marcel Rejmánek, Joop Schaminée, Angelika Schwabe‐Kratochwil, Otto Wildi, J. Bastow Wilson, Martin Zobel = 27 votes

Proxy votes: Helge Bruelheide (Milan Chytrý) Deborah Goldberg (Michael Palmer), Jessica Gurevitch (Susan Wiser), Martin Hermy (Guillaume Decocq), Yukito Nakamura (Kazue Fujiwara), János Podani (Ladislav Mucina) = 6 votes.

Absent: Renée Bekker, Sandra Díaz, Klaus Dierssen, Erwin Bergmeier, Ulrich Deil, John Rodwell, Nina Smits

Guests: John Hay (Proposed IAVS 2016 venue: Brasilia, Brasil), Monika Janisova (EDGG), Matt Pacey (representing Wiley). President Diekmann opened the meeting at 17:30.

1) Announcement of proxy votes (Wiser)

Proxy representation of 6 members was report‐ted and approved (see above). Total voting members represented: 27 + 6 = 33.

2) Bylaws of working groups

a) Bylaws of European Vegetation Survey

The Governing Board submitted a proposal to amend the bylaws of the European Vegetation Survey working group that provides specifications regarding the geographic breadth of the steering committee (see Attachment 1).

The proposal was approved unanimously.

Minutes of the Annual IAVS Council Meeting in Tartu, Estonia, 2013

9

b) Bylaws of Ecoinformatics Working group (Wiser)

The Governing Board submitted a proposal to approve the proposed bylaws of the Ecoinfor‐matics Working Group. Susan Wiser explained that the bylaws were based on those of the EVS and were approved by members of the working group in March 2013 (see Attachment 2).


c) Bylaws of the Working Group for Phytosociological Nomenclature

The evolution of these bylaws was explained and the final version was presented by Jean Paul Theurillat (see Attachments 3 and 4).


3) Finances

a) Report for 2012 ‐ review (Diekmann) (see Attachment 5)

Diekmann explained that financial projection was low and the budget showed money remaining at end of year. This included 30K€ allocated for the planned Business Office, but which was not spent. The report also shows that we have income considerably in excess of current expenses.

b) Auditing of financial reports for 2011 & 2012, and of projection for 2013 (Wildi)

The audit was carried out by 2 Council mem‐bers: Otto Wildi and Ulrich Deil. Wildi reported on the audit. He explained how they checked quality and accuracy of the financial records, but not the overall financial situation. The assess‐ment is that the finances are managed carefully and that there are bank receipts for everything. The main issue is that the financial report was a bit difficult to understand as presented. In his report to the Governing Board Wildi made several suggestions to improve readability. Spending has been done according to guidelines of IAVS. He also noted the buildup of considerable financial reserves.

c) Budget for 2013 ‐ update and approval of changes (Diekmann) (see Attachment 5)

Diekmann explained that the accrued interest has been much higher than projected because we have 2 bank accounts and one of them gives us considerably more interest. IAVS still receives some membership dues directly. The in‐come from Wiley has been consistent with the projection. The GB is requesting more funds for travel for editors and GB to attend the annual symposium. No funds are required for travel for the Administrative officer. Office expenses have been less than projected and as the Business Office is still not in place, that expense has been less than projected. The budget needs to be in‐creased a bit for Award winner expenses as two (Wilson: honorary membership and Tilman: Humboldt award) attended the symposium in Tartu. The GB made the decision to allocate more funding to Global Fund to allow more students to attend Tartu meeting.

In the Discussion that followed Dengler made the point that the projection for working groups was less than agreed at Mokpo and this resulted in some working groups being turned down when they applied for funding this year.

Diekmann explained that this was only a projection and that it does not reflect a viewpoint of the GB on funding for working groups. The working group application that was turned down did not conform to the guidelines for funding that the GB was using (see Attachment 3, IAVS Council meeting minutes for 2012).

Wilson moved that the GB reconsider the principles in the wording of the guidelines in consultation with Dengler and distribute revision for next year’s council meeting. Mucina seconded.

The move was approved unanimously.

Diekmann moved that the revision of the 2013 budget be approved. Peet seconded.

The revised budget for 2013 was approved unanimously.

10

d) Budget for 2014 ‐ discussion and approval (Diekmann)

Lepš raised the issue of whether IAVS can pro‐vide financial support to print additional pages to reduce the JVS backlog, which is currently 8 months. Pacey provided an estimate for the cost as an issue worth of content comes out to £3500. Three issues will probably be required to get rid of the backlog at an estimated total cost of £10 500.

Because of uncertainty in the pages required and associated cost Peet proposed authorizing expenditure of up to €20 000 to get rid of JVS backlog.

Wilson pointed out that there will be no need in 2014 for an administrator salary and that the allocation for the business office might need to be increased, but discussion of this was deferred until later in the council meeting (see Agenda item 7)

The budget for 2014 was approved unanimously.

e) Appointment of auditors (Diekmann)

Diekmann suggested Otto Wildi and Ulrich Deil be reappointed as the IAVS auditors.


f) Financial vision of IAVS / new Committee (Diekmann)

Diekmann described how given the positive financial position of IAVS, the GB feels that we need a long‐term strategy or vision to help guide us in how we want to spend our money, both in times when we are rich and times when we are poor. He suggested we develop a committee to do this.

Pillar volunteered to serve, though not as chair. Diekmann asked the Council members to approach the GB with suggested people for this committee within the next few weeks, as the GB would like to appoint the committee by August.

4) Financial support to the Global Sponsorship Committee: Discussion (Acosta) (see Attachment 6)

Diekmann asked for council views on the increase in support to the Global Sponsorship Committee.

There is general support in the Council for this increase as students and young scientists are the future of IAVS. Points raised included a) this reflects a previous recommendation by the membership committee (Palmer); b) once students/young scientists have received support it would be useful to follow up with them to en‐courage them to be more involved with IAVS, including serving on committees etc. (Palmer); c) financial support for the symposium attendance will be especially important for the 2014 meeting in Perth (Minchin).

The question was raised as to whether such sup‐port could be extended to support attendance of students at Working Group meetings (Chytrý). Discussion points raised included a) a proposal has been prepared outlining how this could work (Dengler); b) it is unclear how the approval process would work as Working Group support is approved by the GB whereas IAVS symposium attendance is supported by Global Fund (Wilson); c) support of students by IAVS should be a priority, but a decision needs to be made on the relative amount of support for attendance at the IAVS symposium versus other activities (Zobel); d) those receiving support should be IAVS members (Schwabe‐Kratochwil, general agreement); e) guidance on how to proceed should be part of the scope of the proposed Financial Vision Committee (Diekmann).

The Membership Committee has proposed that the Global Fund support students to attend labs of other researchers (Palmer). Discussion points raised included a) disagreement over the level to which such activities can already be suppor‐ted by non‐IAVS grant schemes (Zobel, Palmer); b) this could be organized as an IAVS award (Chiarucci); c) administration of such an award

11

requires scientific expertise that may be beyond that of the GSC; d) concern that there will be many applicants for a small amount of money and consequent heavy load on those judging the applications; e) need for clarification as to whether support should be for young scientists or scientists at any level.

Diekmann: suggested that these ideas and concerns could be forwarded to the future Financial Vision Committee.

5 Remuneration for meeting atten‐dance of Editors and Governing Board: Discussion (Wiser) (see Attach‐ment 7)

Wilson expressed three concerns: 1) the wording should be changed to reflect that the honorarium is in part a reward for services carried out throughout the year and is an honorarium rather than reimbursement of expenses incur‐red, 2) part of the intent is to reward Associate Editors for the work they do and that they de‐serve to be paid as much as the Chief Editors and the Governing Board, 3) it is inappropriate for the Governing Board to make a decision on what they are paid.

Discussion points following this included 1) the levels of payment were implicit in budgets that have been approved in the past by the Council, 2) if the Council is to approve the level of payment, what is the best mechanism for the Governing Board to communicate with the Council around such decisions. Are electronic votes the solution?

Peet moved to support the policy (Attachment 7) as presented with the wording changes as recommended by Wilson in 1) above. Palmer seconded.

The remuneration policy (with amendment) was approved unanimously by Council with one abstention.

6 IAVS Code of Ethics: Discussion and approval of proposal (Loidi, Diekmann) (see Attachment 8)

Diekmann described the process of developing the Code of Ethics and solicited comments.

Wilson raised the issue of posthumous publications in reference to clause C1d and suggested a wording change to ‘has not agreed if practicable’.

Wilson also mentioned that Wiley has its own code of ethics, which should be examined to en‐sure consistency. Wiser agreed to locate them and so they could be compared with our document to ensure consistency.

Diekmann proposed a vote for approval of the code.

The IAVS code of ethics (with amendment) was approved unanimously with one abstention.

7 IAVS Business Office: Discussion (Peet, Wiser) (see Attachment 9)

Peet introduced the issue with a presentation and the attached document.

Peet pointed out that there are two different issues: 1) The administration of IAVS 2; and 2) Consistent support for future meetings (e.g., website, call for and submission of abstracts, registration, etcetera) so that symposium organizers don’t have to develop new systems every year. There is some urgency to resolving the first issue, given Nina Smits’ departure as administrator.

A number of points were discussed:

Some Council members felt we should continue as we have with a dedicated, part‐time administrator and that the Governing Board should advertise accordingly, rather than using a professional administrative service. This is primarily based on the perception that the latter would incur a significantly greater cost for IAVS. This conflicts with the current view of the

12

Governing Board that there is too much risk in this option because of the reliance on a single person. Although the apparent costs may be lower than having a Business Office, there are hidden costs in supervision by GB members.

Some Council members did not feel that assistance for organizing symposia was desirable. Others pointed out that this was a separate issue and would be considered optional for symposium organizers.

Matt Pacey (Wiley) agreed to provide information about the administrative structure of other societies that publish with Wiley.

Suggestions provided as to other societies that we could contact to find out how they meet their administrative needs include the Organization for Tropical Studies (Peet re‐plied that they have 5 full‐time employees) and the International Biogeographical Society.

Schaminée agreed to look into the option of Alterra providing administrative services to IAVS.

The importance of effective membership management and administration of the membership database was reiterated.

Some Council members felt it important for our administration to remain in The Nether‐lands.

Some Council members felt it important for our administration to remain in Europe.

One Council member felt there would be an advantage for our administration to be located in the US because of the poor penetration of IAVS there.

Overall, the Council would like to be presented with multiple options for comparison.

There will need to be some mechanism for discussion and voting on options presented by the Governing Board to the Council.

8 Reports on publications Chief Editors (Wilson) Wilson retires from his position as Chair of the Editors at the end of June. Pärtel will act as Chair which leaves vacant a position of Chief Editor. The Chief Editors presented the nomination of Pillar because he has long‐term experience as an Associate Editor and satisfies the need for a Chief Editor located outside of Europe.

The Council thanked Wilson for his many years of service.

Diekmann asked for additional nominations. None were made.

Diekmann proposed a vote.

The appointment of Pillar to the position of Chief Editor was approved unanimously.

a) Wiley report (Pacey)

Pacey reviewed sales and circulation of JVS and AVS. The 2 journals are available by subscription to over 4000 institutions globally; another 5000 institutions/subscribers in developing countries have free access. The majority of subscriptions are part of multi‐year subject packages offered by Wiley. Online only individual membership subscriptions have increased. Readership statistics and the most downloaded articles were presented as was a timeline of marketing activities. The time from acceptance to online early dropped for both journals; the goal is to get this down to 30 days.

Schwabe‐Kratochwil suggested that Wiley send email to all IAVS members with a Table of Contents each issue.

Pacey replied that it is against British law to do this automatically, but members can sign up for this service.

Peet suggested that IAVS could send an email to members reminding them that they can do this.

13

Pillar asked how the revenue sent to IAVS is calculated when JVS/AVS are sold as part of a much larger package.

Pacey replied that the rate coming back to IAVS from the subject package is based on original subscription price in instances where the library had a subscription in the past. The rate coming back to the Association from a subject package where library didn’t previously have a subscription is split across the journals in the package based on journal price. This does penalize journals that keep their prices low. Wiley is considering moving to a financial payment system based on attributes such as impact factor and downloads.

b) Publications Committee (Peet) (see Attachment 10)

Peet reported the good news that the journals are generating significant income for IAVS. The Publications Committee needs to determine the best process to evaluate how the journals are going; this is done every 4 years. The commit‐tee will solicit advice from the Council and Chief Editors and generate a report to share with council at the 2014 symposium.

Wilson mentioned that at past meetings the Publications Committee has discussed Chief Editors when they weren’t present which is proper. However, they have also discussed other matters where it would have been useful to have the Chief Editors present. He suggested that the Chair of the Editors serve as a non‐voting, ex officio member of the Committee.

Peet replied that this is a good idea and that it would be implemented immediately, though long‐term implementation will require a change in the IAVS Bylaws.

Barbour asked about the journal impact factors. Peet replied that they rose significantly for AVS and slightly for JVS.

Dengler raised the issue that Phytocoenologia says their journal is an official journal of IAVS.

Pacey said that Wiley will write a letter to the publisher requesting that the statement be removed.

9 Reports of Working groups / Regional sections

a European Dry Grassland Group (EDGG)

(Janisova)

Janisova delivered a PowerPoint presentation.

There are now 949 members from 58 countries. The steering committee was re‐elected in May. Janisova is now the IAVS contact person. The annual meeting took place in Poland (82 participants from 18 countries). The 2014 meeting will be in Tula Russia, and the 2015 meeting will be in Mainz, Germany. There were 2 research expeditions in the past year. Four bulletins were produced. Two fellowships were supported by IAVS. EDGG was responsible for special issues in the journals Biodiversity and Conservation, Agriculture Ecosystems and Environment and Applied Vegetation Science and a special feature in Tuexenia. Proceedings from the 2012 meeting in Greece have now been published. b European Vegetation Survey (EVS) (Chytrý) (see report in the most recent IAVS Bulletin: 2013/1)

The annual meeting was held in Rome this year. A website was established, supported by 1000€ from IAVS. The first version of EuroVeg‐Checklist was finalized. This is being linked with the EUNIS habitat classification (http://eunis. eea.europa.eu). Some new projects have been initiated. Of special note is the Braun‐Blanquet Project, which has the goal of collecting vegetation plot data from all European alliances and using them to parameterize European vegetation types. The EVS team is working on the project of the European Vegetation Archive (http://euroveg.org/eva‐database), a joint database of European vegetation plots. There are also ongoing projects on aquatic vegetation.

14

A virtual special feature in Applied Vegetation Science is under preparation in concert with EDGG on European grass‐lands; a second special issue in Phytocoenologia is focusing on saline vegetation. EVS submitted a proposal to the 7th EU Framework Programme to build infrastructure for vegetation survey work in Europe, but failed. John Rodwell wrote a history of vegetation survey in Europe that has been published on the EVS website (http://euroveg.org/history). c Ecoinformatics (Peet, Wiser)

The group has prepared Bylaws, which have now been approved by the Governing Board, and is in the process of electing a Steering Committee. The GIVD database catalogue was published this year.

d Circumboreal Vegetation Map (CBVM) (Krestov)

A symposium was held in Vladivostok last year. Dengler inquired about whether the group has prepared bylaws. Krestov replied that some members are considering this. Peet asked whether there is interaction and coordination with the CircumArctic project (http://www. geobotany.org/library/reports/WalkerDA2011_caff5_rep111200.pdf). Krestov replied that there is.

e North America Regional Section (Minchin)

Minchin has recently been elected President. Minchin’s intention is to increase communication about IAVS and get more North American IAVS members to come to Perth.

Minchin is seeking suggestions of how to get more involvement.

10 Reports of Committees

a Awards Committee (Schaminée)

For the 2013 meeting there were more than 106 competitors for the poster‐presentation award, and more than 53 for oral presentation‐awards. This is considered a big success.

b Meetings Committee (Pillar)

Last year the committee developed meeting guidelines and circulated these among interested parties. Some minor changes need to be made to the version being posted on the IAVS website. Everything is in place for Australia next year.

Mucina will introduce the 2014 symposium at the General Assembly. The Symposium will be 1‐5 September at the University of Western Australia in Perth. There will be both pre‐ and post‐Symposium excursions. The website will be up in July, together with the first circular. First Registrations will be available in October 2013. Fees remain to be set, but are likely to be around ~310€.

Peet asked when the schedule for submission of sessions and papers and for registration would be released. Mucina reported that this would be in the first circular scheduled to be released at the end of July.

2015 (Chytrý). The IAVS symposium will be held in Brno, the 2nd largest city of the Czech Republic, from 19 to 24 July. The theme will be “Large‐scale vegetation patterns”. Pre‐symposium excursions of different lengths will be offered in the eastern Czech Republic. The post‐symposium excursion will be in Western Carpathians (6 days) along an altitude gradient. A preliminary budget has been made but final prices have yet to be negotiated. Fees will not be higher than for 2013 in Estonia.

2016: (Hay). A formal proposal has been prepared to hold the 2016 symposium near Brasilia. A PowerPoint presentation was given. The symposium will be held in the city of Pirenópolis, 160 km west of Brasilia. The venue is likely to be the Congress Hotel, which has hosted several large meetings. Hay has already organized a couple of meetings there so has had some practice. This is in the central region of Brazil, in a Cerrado (savanna) landscape. Likely dates are 30 May to 3 June of 2016. Potential pre‐ and post‐symposium excursions were described, as were people who might help and

15

potential funding sources. Fees should be in the normal range for IAVS.

Barbour moved that Council accept the proposal.

The proposal to hold the 2016 IAVS symposium in Pirenópolis was approved unanimously.

c Global Sponsorship Committee (Acosta) (see Attachment 6)

Acosta described the new policies for awarding free membership and the changes to increase grants for student support. Acosta announced that due to an increase in other commitments she must resign as Chair.

Diekmann commented that the efforts of the Global Sponsorship Committee in the past year have resulted from a tremendous amount of work. He asked Council to let him know if they have any nominations for replacements of the Chair.

The Chairman of the Annual IAVS Meeting 2013 in Tartu, Martin Zobel, at the opening of the symposium

d Website and Social Media Special Committee (TBA)

Wiser read a brief report provided by Nina Smits:

1) During the last year the Committee discussed ways that the IAVS website could be improved

2) The Committee has sent a document to the GB proposing website changes, but this has not been further discussed. The position of Chair remains vacant (Nina is acting chair). The Committee solicits nominations for Chair, as well as regular members.

3) The Committee urges that the GB make a call for other IAVS members (interested in social media) to participate.

e Vegetation Classification Special Committee (Loidi) (see Attachment 11)

Loidi summarized highlights of the year. A workshop on methods for plot‐based vegetation classification was held in Rome and a website on vegetation classification methods has been developed by Miquel De Cáceres and is available through the IAVS website (https://sites.google.com/site/vegclassmethods/). A survey was conducted about plot‐based vegetation classification methods (https://sites.google.com/site/vegclassmethods/survey).

12 Other business The need for better communication between the Governing Board and the Council was suggested, in particular the need to have more contact throughout the year. A suggestion was made to solicit more votes on issues via electronic systems with deadlines.

The meeting was adjourned by the President at 21:15.

[Attachments 1‐3, 5, 8 & 10 are printed in this Bulletin; attachments 4, 6, 7, 9 & 11 are not published

16

Thursday, June 30, 15:45-16:30

Location: Dorpat Conference Centre The General Assembly was opened by President Martin Diekmann, who presented the following: 1. Membership report As of June 29, 2013, IAVS has according to the membership list 753 members, distributed across at least 66 countries. The two countries with the highest number of members are Ger‐many and USA. More than 280 people have signed in on the Facebook list. 2. Finances The financial statement for 2012 was presented (see this Bulletin on page 21).

The financial reports have been audited by two Council members: Otto Wildi and Ulrich Deil. Given the positive financial position of IAVS, the Governing Board has established a new commit‐tee to develop a long‐term strategy or vision to help guide IAVS in how money is spent. 3. Council business Council business (including minutes from the 2013 meeting at Tartu) will be printed in the IAVS Bulletin 2013/2 (see page 8). Highlights of the year include

Adoption of new Bylaws for the Ecoinfor‐matics Working Group and the Working Group for Phytosociological Nomenclature

Amendment of Bylaws of the European Vegetation Survey Working Group

Adoption of a new IAVS Code of Ethics

The preamble of this code (see page 23) was displayed to provide an overview.

4. Global Sponsorship Committee The activities of the Global Sponsorship Committee were summarized:

Applications for free membership are handled continuously throughout the year

Currently 20 persons receive free member‐ship and 17 persons have free journal access

Grants were awarded for student support to participate in this symposium. To be eligible applicants needed to be Master or PhD students giving a presentation. The awards were open to candidates from all countries. 77 applications from 33 countries were received. GSC supported 25 students from 17 countries for either dormitory & symposium fee or dormitory & symposium fee & (parts of) travel.

Council has extended the support of the GSC to allow such awards to continue

5. Publications (presented by Robert Peet) The IAVS journals are doing very well as judged by nearly any metric (see Report of the IAVS Publications Officer on page 32). Some of the most important of these were summarized. 6. Progress on a new business office

(presented by Robert Peet) 6.1. Background The need for an IAVS Business office has been recognized by the Association since 2008.

2010 Council minutes: “One of the major tasks for IAVS … is to consider establishment of a business office to assist the governing bodies of

Minutes of the Annual IAVS General Assembly in Tartu, Estonia, 2013

Mid‐

symposium

excursion to

a bog in

eastern

Estonia

Drosera rotundifolia

Chamaedaphne calyculata and (fruiting) Rubus chamaemorus

IAVS and assist the local organizing committees of upcoming IAVS symposia as well as the meetings of the Working Groups and Regional Sections.” We are now confronted with not only need but also urgency. We will soon lose the services of Nina Smits, who is expecting a child in early August, and who has recently accepted a much more demanding position in Alterra. 6.2. Rationale

Having just one part‐time administrator working independently leads to fragility; if that person leaves there is no institutional memory or ability to carry on.

We need multiple skill sets. In short, we are better off with fractions of multiple persons with different skill sets than with a large fraction of one person.

Computerized systems have changed the nature of how scientific societies function in terms of managing meetings, finances, membership etc. There is much greater efficiency with one organization creating and administering cyber‐infrastructure for multiple professional associations.

The reliance on volunteer scientists to con‐duct the administrative functions of societies is increasingly untenable as research institutions and universities increase the demands on scientists and the scientific environment has become more competitive.

An overemphasis on administrative tasks means the officers have less time to do creative things to make the society more exciting and appealing to members

6.3. Options we are considering Note that we are open to nominations of other organizations!!!

New version of Nina

Approach other organizations about developing a partnership

Botanical Society of America (~6 organiza‐tions including SSE)

FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology)

6.4. Issues

Trade‐off of services & stability & expertise versus price

Central management of membership database

Centralize portions of meeting management

If members have suggestions on this matter or if you know of people, organizations etc. that might be suitable, please contact a Council member or member of the Governing Board.

7. Meetings reports

7.1. Perth 2014 (presented by Laco Mucina) The 57th annual symposium will be held in Perth, Western Australia. The symposium will be organized by the School of Plant Biology at the University of Western Australia. The dates of the symposium are 1‐5 September 2014. Mid symposium excursions will be on 3 September. Pre‐symposium excursions will be 3‐4 days before meeting (the focus will be on locations north of Perth potentially including Yanchep, Eneabba, Kalbarri, and Nambung National Parks. Post‐symposium excursions will be 4‐5 days after the meeting; the focus will be on locations south of Perth potentially including Darling Scarp, Stirling Range, Porrongurups, Albany, Walole‐Narnalup National Park, Augusta, Margaret River. Other potential trips will require flights and could include Shark Bay, Kakadu NP (Northern Terri‐tory), and the wet Tropics (Queensland). The symposium will be held at the University of Western Australia Club, Crawley, Perth. The venue has capacity of 275 people. If needed, four parallel sessions could be run.

The theme will be “Biodiversity & Vegetation: Pattern, Processes, and Conservation”.

The website will be launched in July 2013.

19

Currently the organizing committee is approaching major sponsors (mining companies) to generate bursaries for young scientists; IAVS will contribute towards bursaries and financial sup‐port for colleagues from poor countries.

7.2. Brno 2015 (presented by Milan Chytry) The 58th annual symposium will be held 19‐24 July, 2015 at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. Brno was the city of Gregor Mendel. The venue will be the OREA Hotel Voronez, which can accommodate 750 people. The theme will be “Understanding broad‐scale vegetation patterns”. Pre‐ and mid‐symposium excursions will be to Moravia, which has a national park and biosphere reserves including the species‐rich grasslands of the Carpathians. The post‐symposium excursion will be to Slovakia to sites along an altitude gradient in the Western Car‐pathians. The fees will not be higher than in Tartu.

7.3. Brazil 2016 (presented by John Hay) The 59th annual symposium will be held in Brazil, tentatively in the city of Pirenópolis. The vegetation in this area is savanna (known locally as “cerrado”). The symposium will probably be schedule for the end of May or beginning of June, which is the end of rainy season. Potential pre‐ and post‐symposium excursions were described. 8. IAVS Awards (presented by Martin

Diekmann)

Alexander von Humboldt medal (2013) was awarded to David Tilman

IAVS Honorary membership (2012) was awarded to Bastow Wilson

Announcement of Student awards for 2013

This year we had the highest number of award candidates for any IAVS conference; there were 52 candidates for the oral presentation award and 106 candidates for the poster award.

Young scientist Oral Presentation Award

First Heath GARRIS: “Climate warming‐induced heat events lead to intra‐seasonal variation in pro‐ductivity and community‐aggregated functional traits at temperate latitudes” Honorable mention Jasper WUBS: “Restoration groundwork: testing large‐scale soil transplantation to facilitate rapid vegetation development on former arable fields”

Priscilla LOIOLA: “Environmental variables and aboveground plant traits predict plant biomass and root productivity in tropical savannas and seasonal forests”

Young scientist Poster Award

First Daniel Bernardo MONTESINOS: “The mountain vegetation of the South Andes of Peru: Syntaxonomy, ecology, phytogeography and conservation.” Honorable mention Stefanie RAABE: “Effect of different cutting regimes on species diversity of rewetted fens”

Anaclara GUIDO: “Shrub effects on grassland vegetation in Brazilian altitude grasslands” 9. Items raised by the participants Jill Rapson suggested that IAVS should award more prizes for students. 10. Thanks and gifts to the organizers President Diekmann thanked the keynote speakers and the symposium organizers including Martin Zobel, Kersti Püssa, Meelis Pärtel, Rein Kalamees, Aveliina Helm, Mari Moora, Kristjan Zobel, Jaan Liira and more than 30 other colleagues and students.

The General Assembly was adjourned by President Diekmann at 16:30.

20

Article 5. Steering Committee

The Working Group shall have a Steering Committee (SC) with five elected members, each from a different European country. SC must contain at least one member from each of the following three European geographic regions, defined by similar languages, history and/or biogeography: Western‐Central and North‐western Europe1, Southern Europe2 and Eastern‐Central and Eastern Europe3. If a representative of one of these regions is missing among the five elected members, the candidate with the highest number of votes from that region becomes automatically the sixth or seventh member of the SC. All SC members shall be members of IAVS. Each SC member shall be elected for a period of four years at the next business meeting of the EVS

following a vacancy. Nominations shall be received by the EVS Secretary by e‐mail or in person at an EVS meeting and may be made by any member. SC members may be elected for further periods of four years. The SC elects a Secretary from its members and appoints a Membership Administrator (who need not be a member of the SC) for a period of four years. All decisions on behalf of EVS except the election of the SC itself are made by the SC with majority. 1 Austria, Benelux, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, UK 2 Albania, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Turkey 3 Balkan countries except Albania and Greece, Baltic countries, Belarus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine

Counting species at the pre‐symposium excursion at Laelatu, Estonia

Amendment of Article 5 of the Bylaws of the European Vegetation Survey

21

Amounts rounded to the nearest whole EURO (in Euros) To be approved by Council

Year 2012 (already audited) 2013 2014

Financial projection

Financial overview Financial projection (approved in Mokpo 2012)

Financial projection (Suggestion for update)


Credits Debits Credits Debits Credits Debits Credits Debits Credits Debits

General Fund

Starting Cash, January 1

205178 205178 236583 293717 349322

Interest 1500 4344 1500 5000 6300

Membership dues 1)

0 100 0 100 100

Wiley-Blackwell income 2)

100000 130651 120000 115000 115000

Travels Editors 3)

15000 22015 15000 20000 20000

Travel Governing Board 3)

9000 10010 9000 10500 12000

Travel Administrative Officer

1500 2000 1500 0 1500

Salaries Administrative Officer

2495 2495 2495 2495 2495

Bank expenses 100 73 100 100 100

Office expenses 1000 212 1000 400 300

Tax 0 0 0 0 0

Business Office 4)

30000 0 30000 0 30000

New honorary members & Award winners – expenses 5)

3000 0 3000 5000 2000

Young Scientist Awards 6)

3000 1000 3000 3000 3000

Allocation to Global Fund

5000 5000 5000 15000 15000

Financial support of working groups 7)

3750 17000 8000 17000

Charges to publish extra JVS pages to reduce current publication backlog 8)

20000

Ending Cash: 31 December

236583 293718 270988 349322 347327

Financial statement

22

(in Euros) To be approved by Council

Year 2012 (already audited) 2013 2014


Financial overview Financial projection (approved in Mokpo 2012)

Financial projection (Suggestion for update)


Credits Debits Credits Debits Credits Debits Credits Debits Credits Debits

Global Fund

Starting Cash, January 1

27756 27756 31006 33242 32642

Interest 250 486 250 400 700

Allocation from General fund

5000 5000 5000 15000 15000

Travel grants for students

0 0 0 15000 15000

Awards for manuscript editing

2000 0 2000 1000 2000

Ending Cash: 31 December

31006 33242 34256 32642 31342

Comments: 1) Some people still pay directly to the IAVS office. 2) Wiley-Blackwell income is paid in three parts: two in the same calendar year, and a final part at the beginning of next calendar year. 3) Travel costs for Perth will on average be higher than usual. 4) No business office realized until now. 5) 2013: one Honorary member and one Alexander von Humboldt awardee will come to the Tartu meeting. 6) In 2012 payment only for one person. 7) Four persons supported already in 2012. 8) A cost of up to 20,000 was approved at the 2013 Council meeting in Tartu

Mid‐symposium excursion: Lake close to Alatskivi castle (with flowering Butomus umbellatus in the foreground)

Alatskivi castle

23

A. Preamble: This Code provides guiding principles of conduct for all members of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS) in their professional activities as vegetation scientists, whether in the context of paid employment or otherwise. The Code also establishes standards to be followed in submission of manuscripts for publication in the Association’s journals. The goals of the Association include promoting research in vegetation science and its applications, and providing mechanisms and opportunities for vegetation scientists to communicate with each other and with those who might benefit from the work. This Code supports those goals by establishing standards and mechanisms to help ensure ethical practices and reliable, honest communication in the field of vegetation science, particularly, but not exclusively, in the publications and activities of IAVS. B. General Guidelines: IAVS advocates observation of the following principles by all vegetation scientists in their professional affairs, particularly, but not exclusively in their participation in the publications and activities of IAVS.

1. In relation to the Association: a. Members of IAVS will not represent themselves as spokespersons for the Association unless expressly authorized by appropriate officers of the Governing Board or charged as spokespersons by Council or General Assembly.

2. In their work as vegetation scientists: a. Members of IAVS will cooperate with other researchers whenever possible and appropriate to ensure rapid interchange and dissemination of their findings.

b. Members of IAVS will not plagiarize in verbal or written communication, but will give full and proper credit to the works

and ideas of others, and make every effort to avoid misrepresentation of those works and ideas.

c. Members of IAVS will not fabricate or falsify results, deliberately misrepresent research findings, or otherwise commit scientific fraud.

d. Members of IAVS will conduct their research so as to minimize adverse environ‐mental effects of their presence and activities, and in compliance with legal requirements for protection of researchers, human subjects, or research organisms and systems.

3. In their professional relationships with others: a. Members of IAVS will not practice or condone harassment of any sort in any professional context; they will not discriminate against others, in the course of their work, on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, marital status, creed, religion, race, national origin, age, economic status, disability, or organizational affiliation.

b. Members of IAVS will not seek employment, grants, or gain, nor attempt to injure the reputation or professional opportunities of another scientist by false, biased, or undocumented claims, by offers of gifts or favors, or by any other malicious action.

C. Publication Guidelines: The following principles of ethical professional conduct apply to IAVS members reviewing, editing, or submitting papers for publication in the professional literature in general. They should be seen as applying, where pertinent, to abstracts for meeting presentations and to grant proposals. They will be enforced particularly with respect to all manuscripts submitted to the Association's journals. IAVS subscribes to the general guidelines and best practices in publication ethics laid out by Wiley Blackwell,

IAVS Code of professional ethics

24

and incorporates these guidelines in the implementation of the IAVS Code of Ethics

1. Authorship: a. Researchers will claim authorship of a paper only if they have made a substantial contribution. Authorship may legitimately be claimed if researchers: i. conceived the ideas or questions addressed by the paper;

ii. designed sampling or experiments that generated new data reported;

iii. contributed to new analyses or interpretation of data, or to development of new models or simulations;

iv. developed new analyses or meta‐analyses of data drawn from peer‐reviewed publications (such reanalysis or meta‐analysis may not re‐quire authorship of original authors of data‐sets); or

iv. wrote the manuscript. b. Submission of manuscripts emerging from committees or working groups should include documentation that all participants have agreed on authorship or are included in the authors list

c. Individuals or organizations funding or otherwise supporting research should be appropriately acknowledged. Both researchers and supporting individuals or organizations should establish a clear prior understanding concerning appropriate forms of recognition.

d. Researchers submitting a manuscript for publication will not include as a coauthor any individual who has not agreed to the content of the final version of the manuscript if practicable; coauthors should be dropped only if they specifically request removal from the manuscript or after lead authors have attempted unsuccessfully to contact them for approval of the manuscript.

2. Use and presentation of data: a. Researchers will not submit for publication any manuscript containing data they are not authorized to use. IAVS assumes that the principal investigator(s) of a re‐search project retain(s) the right to control use of resulting unpublished data unless otherwise specified by contract or explicit agreement. Authors submitting manuscripts using data from data‐banks should verify that their use of data is consistent with any restrictions or rules set by that source.

b. Researchers will not represent research results as new if they have been published or submitted elsewhere, or submit a manuscript for publication while it or a substantial part of it, is under review for possible publication elsewhere. This guideline applies primarily to peer‐reviewed publication; prior publication of some aspects of a study in dissertation form, in non‐peer‐reviewed literature, or in popular media may not be considered previous publication in this context, particularly if data and analyses were not fully described.

c. IAVS encourages making original data‐sets and metadata available through online databases or other forms of data publication. Such publication should not be seen as constraining subsequent and separate peer‐reviewed publication by original researchers of new analyses and interpretation using these data‐sets.

d. When using ideas or results of others in manuscripts submitted for publication, researchers will give full attribution of sources. If the ideas or results have not been published, they may not be used without permission of the original researcher, who must also be explicitly acknowledged. Illustrations or tables from other publications or manuscripts may be used only with permission of the copyright owner and acknowledgment of the source.

25

e. IAVS members submitting manuscripts for publication will promptly report to editors any significant errors discovered after submission or publication; this guideline concerns, particularly, errors that might lead to changed interpretation of results.

3. Expectations of editors and referees

a. Editors and referees will treat manuscripts under review as confidential, recognizing them as intellectual property of the author(s).

b. IAVS members invited to serve as editors or referees of a manuscript should report any present or past connections with the author or the author's institution that would potentially be seen as preventing objective evaluation of the work; handling or managing editors may determine whether possible conflicts of interest preclude such service.

c. IAVS members will not purposefully delay publication of another person's manuscript to gain advantage over that person.

D. Enforcement, Review, and Amendment: IAVS advocates the application of the above principles in the practice of vegetation science generally. All participants in the Association's activities ‐‐ including the Association's journals, meetings, and conferences organized or sponsored by the Association, and excursions and field‐trips conducted under Association auspices ‐‐ are particularly expected to adhere to the Code and the Association reserves the option of enacting penalties in response to violations of the Code in the context of Association activities.

IAVS will undertake to make its membership and researchers submitting to its journals aware of its Code of Professional Ethics, through references in its publications and on its website

and by other means as appropriate. The Association’s Governing Board and Chief Editors will develop operating policies and procedures that implement the ethical guidelines stated in this Code. Members or other scientists becoming aware of suspected violations of the Code are encouraged to bring their concerns to a member of the Association's Governing Board or, if the suspected violation concerns the Association’s publications, to one of its Chief Editors.

Assessment of and response to possible violations of the Code will be in the hands of the Chief Editors for matters pertaining to the Association's publications or of appropriate members of the Governing Board (excluding the President). Responses to violations might include, but are not limited to: rejection of a particular manuscript; banning, for some term, from publication in Association journals; banning from IAVS membership or participation in IAVS activities; or communication of concerns to the violator's employer.

Appeals of any such actions may be made to the President of IAVS, who may choose to appoint up to two other members of the Association as an ad hoc committee to assist him or her in investigating a particular appeal and to make recommendations. The President's decision will be final with respect to IAVS actions.

This Code will go into effect upon adoption by the IAVS Governing Board and Council, and the Governing Board may, at any time following adoption, choose to amend the Code or to appoint a committee to review the Code and propose amendments. Prepared by the Ethics Committee (chaired by Kerry Woods; other members: Guillaume Decocq, Kazue Fujiwara, Keith Kirby, Annette Otte, Meelis Pärtel & Tom Wentworth), adopted by the IAVS Council in 2013

26

J. Bastow Wilson began his education at Miss Muriel Pink’s infants’ school, the Victoria Preparatory School, in Basingstoke, where perhaps he developed at an early age his infatuation with lawns. He went on to receive his B.Sc. with Class I Honours at the University College of Wales in 1966. He stayed on at the College and was awarded his Ph.D in 1970. This was followed by an ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) postdoctoral fellowship at Hartley Botanical Laboratories, University of Liverpool from 1969‐1971. In 1971 Bastow took up an appointment in the Botany Department, University of Otago. Bastow is now an Emeritus Professor at the University of Otago and a Research Associate at the Crown Research Institute, Landcare Research Ltd. Bastow has also had a long‐term association with cats, which anyone can get to know from his website. Contributions to Vegetation Science Bastow is an innovative and extremely productive ecologist who has published in numerous diverse disciplines and made seminal contributions in many of them. These disciplines span community ecology, coastal and marine ecology, applied ecology, conservation ecology, descriptive ecology, biogeography, population genetics and evolution, taxonomy and whole‐plant physiology. Bastow is perhaps best known for devising and applying elegant statistical methods to test central assumptions in plant ecology that no one previously had thought to or known how to test. This approach has effectively forced a rethinking of how to study plant communities and Bastow continues to lead the charge. The approach has been most apparent in his work on species coexistence and niche structure. For example, he was so bold as to question the conceptual underpinnings of the entire field of plant community ecology by asking whether communities show any more

structure than might be found by chance alone. It is astounding that no one had previously thought to test this essential assumption of our field in a quantitatively rigorous fashion. In a surprisingly elegant series of experiments and statistical analyses, Bastow sought assembly rules for plant communities and found remarkably little evidence for such structure. This work has forced a dramatic re‐evaluation of plant community ecology as a field, and applications of Bastow’s approach appear with considerable frequency. His papers are routinely novel, quantitative, and formative, and are usually cited widely in the international literature. Some of his most significant insights are derived from research on the University of Otago Botany Department lawn. One of Bastow’s trademarks is his originality; he rarely has traditional views on anything in ecology.

Bastow has a prodigious publication record: in the course of his career he has published over 220 peer‐reviewed papers and book chapters and has an H index of 35. In New Zealand he has received the most prestigious recognition of science achievement by being elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. In short, Bastow is one of the leading plant ecologists in world and is widely respected for both his scientific contributions and his leadership and service within the field.

Services to IAVS When JVS was founded in 1980 (and AVS in 1998), the founders were quick to ask Bastow to serve on the editorial boards. In 1995 he became an Associate editor for JVS and he has been an Associate Editor of AVS since its inception. In a major reorganization in 1999 precipitated by Eddy van der Maarel's retirement, Bastow was promoted again, this time to the board of four Chief Editors who oversee the journals. Very quickly his vision,

IAVS Honorary membership 2012 to J. Bastow Wilson

27

energy, dedication, and good judgment resulted to his promotion in 2000 to the ultimate position of Chair of the Chief Editors (cf. Editor‐in‐Chief). He has been described as being more active and effective than any other chief editor. He has helped to shape the direction of the field by vigorously exercising his editorial judgment to build the significance and impact of the journals. He has also been an active contributor

to the content of the journals via provocative, humorous, and insightful editorials and ~25 research papers in JVS. On a more personal level, I found him to be especially supportive during the period when I served as an Associate editor for JVS; he was always willing to address any concerns I had and was especially supportive on those rare occasions when I had to deal with particularly grumpy authors.

Collaborations, students and service Bastow has supervised at least 21 Ph.D. students and 6 M.Sc. students. He has also supervised 101 undergraduate honors students.

Bastow maintains active collaborations with scientists all over the world, including numerous collaborations in New Zealand but also outside of NZ in Australia, the UK, Sweden, the US, Chile, Spain, Austria, France, Italy, Fiji and Germany.

He founded and has provided continuous leadership to the Botanical Society of Otago, which provides a mechanism for outreach to botanists outside the University, and to the community. He has provided advice and support to guide decision making on environmentally

controversial development proposals. In the 1970s he wrote the software ‘Teddybear’ to provide a general‐purpose program for carrying out probabilistic tests that was used in all the NZ universities and relevant research organizations. A previous Head Statistician at the Invermay Research Station said ‘It has changed my life’.

Finally, Bastow is unorthodox and idiosyncratic and continues to make all of us think and keeps us on our toes. His commitment to the field of vegetation science and IAVS in particular makes me proud to present the IAVS Honorary Membership award to him today. Susan Wiser

28

Few ecologists of our time have driven forward their discipline as has Dave Tilman, recipient of the 2013 Alexander von Humboldt Medal, presented to honor scientists of extraordinary contributions to the development and advancement of vegetation science. Indeed it is impossible to imagine plant ecology over the past three decades without him, and I am honored to speak on his scientific achievements.

Like many icons of North American ecology, Dave hails from the northern Midwest near the prairie‐forest border in Illinois. He was from the outset drawn to the elegance of scientific theory and the expression of scientific principles in the language of mathematics, combining early interests in physics and a love of the outdoors into a PhD thesis at the University of Michigan exploring interactions of lake phytoplankton, under Steve Hubbell and Peter Kilham. His impact on the field was immediate. Taking inspiration from the theoretical work of G. Evelyn Hutchinson and Robert MacArthur, Dave forever changed the way we think about species interactions, formally developing a "mechanistic theory of resource competition" in several key publications as a grad student and then assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. This culminated in his groundbreaking Princeton Monograph in 1982, Resource Competition and Community Structure. Of course I needn't tell any of you this, as we are now all so accustomed to the "overlapping ZNGIs" of resource ratio phase planes in our introductory ecology courses that we could teach it in our sleep, and indeed this remains the principal way under‐graduates are introduced to plant competition.

By the mid‐1980s, Dave had started to apply his resource ratio theory to the grassland at Cedar Creek Natural History Area, a leap from algae to vascular plants that would transform plant ecology and ignite a series of controversies that

drove a number of young scientists, including myself, into our discipline. It began by applying the R* concept ‐ the level to which a species can reduce the concentration of a limiting resource ‐ to dominant grasses at Cedar Creek, to determine whether this single unifying parameter accounting for both resource use and tissue loss rates could predict community dynamics. This principle could also be applied to succession, providing an elegant mechanism for Connell and Slatyer's ‘tolerance’ model of species turnover through competitive dominance. In both cases Dave was able to show that R*, particularly with regard to soil nitrogen, was a significant driver of community dynamics at Cedar Creek, evident in classic papers from the mid‐80s to mid‐90s and detailed in his second Princeton Mono‐graph, Plant Strategies and the Dynamics and Structure of Plant Communities, in 1988.

By this time it had become clear that Dave's perspective on plant competition was not shared by all ecologists. In particular, the core argument that competition is driven by tolerance of low resource levels stood in strong opposition to existing theory, most notably by Phil Grime, which argued that competition is about resource pre‐emption, or the speed at which resources could be captured to prevent the growth of neighboring species. There were also fundamental disagreements about related issues: To what extent did assumptions about equilibrium conditions matter? Is competition intense even in sites of few resources? Do plants alter their allocation to above versus belowground tissues in response to limiting light or soil nutrients? To this day I still have a diagram I created my first year in grad school, labeled "The Grime‐Tilman Competition Debate", which lists no less than 13 different areas of fundamental disagreement between the perspectives of our two inaugural Humboldt awardees. This debate has been de‐scribed in

Alexander von Humboldt Medal 2013 to David Tilman

29

detail by many others since, including contributions to the volume Perspectives in Plant Competition, which Dave co‐edited with Jim Grace in 1990.

The early 1990s also saw Dave's work expand into spatial ecology, adding dispersal‐based considerations to coexistence theory. Among his most cited papers is "Competition and biodiversity in spatially structured habitats", public‐shed in Ecology in 1994, where Dave showed that the coexistence of many species could be generated by a simple trade‐offs between a species' ability to displace others

versus how quickly it could colonize open sites. This was extended into another classic paper, published in Nature the same year, arguing that such tradeoffs may produce 'extinction debt', or the time‐delayed extinction of dominant competitors in fragmented landscapes due to their inability to re‐colonize patches. This work would culminate in a third Princeton Monograph, Spatial Ecology, edited with Peter Kareiva in 1997, which I think to this day is one of the clearest expositions of the contributions of spatial dynamics to community structure.

Cedar Creek experienced a severe drought in 1988. Among the communities affected were experimental plots of differential nitrogen addition established by Dave in 1982 that had diverged in species richness. In what he would describe as a series of serendipitous insights in the years that followed, Dave was able to show that, contrary to Robert May's classic theoretical treatment, more diverse plant communities were more stable ‐ that is, more resistant to drought impacts and able to recover more quickly afterward. Published in Nature in 1994 with John Downing, the study was to be the first

offensive in what would become the "biodiversity wars", with Dave as a leading proponent that species richness was not simply a function of the environment but a driver of function it‐self. In a series of grand experiments at Cedar Creek that followed, Dave and collaborators would publish several classic papers examining the effects of plant species and functional group richness on productivity, stability, and invasibility, all of which generated significant heat both inside and outside the literature that spilled over into the public arena. For those of us trained in this era, it is difficult to

30

exaggerate how much this debate dominated grad student seminars and conference proceedings. Biodiversity experiments became 'all the rage', copied around the world and particularly in Europe, and accompanied by an explosion of theoretical research, some by Dave himself, revisiting old niche‐based concepts in the new light of eco‐system functioning. Dave would write several popular syntheses during this time, including his MacArthur Award Lecture in Ecology in 1999 and a fourth Princeton monograph in 2002 with Ann Kinzig and Steve Pacala, The Functional Consequences of Biodiversity. Although the heat of the debate has largely dissipated, textbooks now routinely carry another of Dave's iconic figures, the saturating diversity‐function curve, a testament to his influence in the biodiversity‐ecosystem functioning era.

Dave's most recent work involves agricultural sustainability, biodiversity conservation, and

renewable energy through the use of biofuels, using biodiversity as a tool for managing eco‐systems in the face of strong energy demands and climate change. As Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology at the University of Minnesota, director of the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve LTER, and professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara, Dave is working with collaborators on a global scale to forecast future human demands for food and fuel, and how those demands will impact land use, global carbon budgets, and conservation. He also continues to challenge accepted ideas about fundamental ecological processes, including a recent paper in The American Naturalist suggesting a "universal trade‐off" surface for plants and animals across bio‐geographical realms.

The recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Medal 2013, David Tilman (right), together with the awardee of the medal from 2011, Phil Grime (left)

31

Looking back on these achievements, it is hardly surprising that Dave is among the most highly cited environmental scientists of all time, or that he has been honored with some of the world's most prestigious scientific awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Cooper and MacArthur Awards from the Ecological Society of America, the Centennial Award from the Botanical Society of America, a Pew Scholarship in Conservation Biology, the Princeton Environmental Prize, the International Prize for Biology from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, and the A. H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Science, and the US National Academy of Sciences, all rare honors and a testament to the reach of his science well beyond ecology.

I finally want to reflect on what our first two Humboldt medal winners have in common, despite their polarized viewpoints on so many themes in vegetation ecology. The obvious commonality, and one that I think speaks to how much vegetation science has progressed over the past century, is that both Dave and Phil are at their core experimentalists. Every significant theoretical advance made by both men has been subject to their own extensive experimental trials, and I would not be the first

person to suggest that the debates that persist could be due in large part to differences in how plant communities are structured in calcareous pasture versus the Minnesota sand plain. But even more significant to our science is that Dave and Phil epitomize what it means to have a career that matters ‐ both have forced others to have an opinion about their work, to take a side, to test claims with their own experiments and decide for themselves whether the world is structured according to resource ratios and local niches or CSR theory and infrequent disturbance. The lesson to young ecologists should be: at the end of the day, have you stuck your neck out enough? How bold is your claim? Dave's career, like Phil's, has involved a series of debates with very high stakes at the core of environ‐mental sustainability. Perhaps more than any‐one, Dave has brought what were once academic disagreements into the forefront of the modern environmental movement. I can think of no higher achievement for an ecologist in our era.

Please join me, on behalf of the IAVS Awards Committee, in recognizing David Tilman as the 2013 recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Medal. Jason Fridley

Botanical garden in Tartu Market square in Tartu

32

1. State of the Journals The IAVS journals are doing very well as judged by nearly any metric. Here I summarize some of the most important of these. Availability Applied Vegetation Science and Journal of Vegetation Science are available in over 4,000 institutions worldwide via the Wiley Blackwell license. Applied Vegetation Science and Journal of Vegetation Science are now available in over 5,000 institutions in the developing world via philanthropic initiatives

Online Readership Full text downloads for Applied Vegetation Science continues to increase dramatically:

14,345 in 2009; 28,812 in 2010; 44,741 in 2011; 52738 in 2012. Full text downloads for Journal of Vegetation Science also continues to increase dramatically: 72,916 in 2009; 139,378 in 2010; 187,666 in 2011; 208,338 in 2012.

Production time Times from receipt of a final manuscript at the publisher to publication in early view have steadily improved and are now very competitive with other journals. However, we are developing a bit of a backlog in time to print. We need to address the backlog by either reducing the acceptance rate or increasing the number of pages published.

Applied Vegetation Science

Journal of Vegetation Science

Revenue Revenue received by IAVS from Wiley‐Blackwell has remained strong with a modest increase each year. Details will be provided at the Council meeting. 2. Deliberations of the Publications Committee The IAVS Publications Committee consists of Robert Peet, Chair (US), Helge Bruelheide (DE), Hans Henrik Bruun (DK), Jessica Gurevitch (US),

Tomáš Herben (CZ), Michael Manthey (DE), Bastow Wilson (NZ), and Martin Zobel (EE).

The Committee met once by Skype (February 2013) and exchanged considerable email. Below I summarize two of our primary topics of deliberation.

Report of the IAVS Publications Officer: 2012‐2013

33

Plan for review of the journals and the Chief Editors IAVS Bylaw 5.6 reads “The Publications Commit‐tee shall oversee the publications of the Association. The Chair of the Committee shall be the Publications Officer and shall be one of the Vice Presidents. The Chair shall be responsible for interactions with the Chief Editors and with the publisher. The Committee shall review and approve proposals from the Chief Editors for major changes in the structure and content of the journals, and shall be responsible for a recurring 4‐year review of the Chief Editors. The Commit‐tee shall advise the Council on reappointment of Chief Editors and evaluate candidates to fill vacancies among the Chief Editors. The Chief Editors shall select from among themselves a representative to serve as a non‐voting, ex‐officio member of the

Committee, except during evaluations of Chief Editors.”

The review process for the four‐year review of the journals and the Chief Editors was discussed in the 2012 meeting of the Publications Commit‐tee. As the last review was conducted in 2009, we anticipate that this will next be undertaken in late 2013 or early 2014. The Committee needs to prepare a brief document that describes the process. One complication for implementation is that several members of the Publications Committee are involved in the editing of the journals. It will be necessary to identify a small set of persons without such conflicts of interest to conduct the review, and selection of this group will need to be done in consultation with the Governing Board. It would be best if the results of the review could be dis‐cussed in person with the Chief Editors at the annual meeting in Perth in 2014.

Mid‐symposium excursion: Upper left: Boreo‐nemoral deciduous forest at Alatskivi

Upper right: Asarum europaeum

Viola mirabilis

34

Review of the IAVS contract with Wiley‐Blackwell The initial IAVS contract with Blackwell was for 2009‐2013, after which there is automatic renewal unless one party asks for renegotiation at least 1 year in advance. The Committee felt that both the Committee and the Governing Board should review the current contract during 2012 and 13 and decide whether there are any important changes we would like to have in place by January 2014. The Publications Officer brought this matter up with our representatives at Wiley‐Blackwell and they proposed a new

contract for our consideration. The Chief Editors and the Publications Committee reviewed the contract during January and February 2013. However, the discussions within the Governing Board with respect to establishment of an IAVS Business Office led to a delay in the final discussions of the contract revision as decisions with respect to the business office could have major implications for the details of the publication contract.

Respectfully submitted, June 17, 2013 Robert K. Peet, IAVS Publications Officer

Report for the period from 15 July 2012 to 15 July 2013 As of 15 July 2013, EDGG had 949 members from 58 countries, including zoologists and botanists as well as scientists and conservation practitioners. Membership in EDGG is free of charge (to join, send an e‐mail to juergen.dengler@uni‐bayreuth.de).

The annual meeting in 2013 (10th European Dry Grassland Meeting) took place in Zamość (Poland) on 24‐31 May and was attended by 82 participants from 18 countries. It was very professionally organized by Klub Przyrodników (www.kp.org.pl) headed by our member Katarzyna Barańska. The topic was “When theory meets practice: Conservation and restoration of grasslands”. The 3‐day pre‐

symposium excursion focused on dry grasslands of Koelerio‐Corynerophoretea in central and eastern Poland. During the post‐symposium excursion (3 days) the participants visited xerothermic habitats between the Bug and Vistula rivers.

During the meeting, the General Assembly of the EDGG was held, attended by 59 EDGG members from 16 countries. Elena Volkova presented the formal proposal and preliminary program and schedule of the next European Dry Grass‐land Meeting (EDGM) 2014 in Tula, Russia. Jürgen Dengler (in the name of Ute Becker and Thomas Becker) presented some information about the proposed EDGM 2015 in

Annual report of theEuropean Dry Grassland Group

35

Mainz, Germany. After the presentation the General Assembly accepted this proposal. During the General Assembly, the best posters and talks presented by young investigators were awarded with attractive book prizes, provided mainly by Wiley‐Blackwell.

In May 2013, the formal election to the EDGG Executive Committee took place for the second period 2013–2015. The six members of the past Executive Committee (Jürgen Dengler, Monika Janišová, Solvita Rūsiņa, Péter Török, Stephen Venn and Mike Vrahnakis) were re‐elected. The new Executive Committee kept the internal responsibilities largely as in the previous period, except that Monika Janišová (with Péter Török as deputy) is now representing EDGG within the IAVS.

On 10 July 2013, the European Grassland Archive (EGA) was founded by an agreement between representatives of the two IAVS Working Groups, EVS and EDGG, as well as the BiodivERsA project SIGNAL. EGA will establish a vegetation‐plot database of all grassland types across all European countries (within the technical framework of the Braun‐Blanquet project of the EVS). The main purpose of EGA is the common use of these data for analyses and papers on supranational grassland classification, parameterization of grassland vegetation types and description of plot‐scale richness across Europe (contact: juergen.dengler@uni‐bayreuth.de).

The publication activities of the EDGG during the reported period were rich:

(i) 3 issues of the Bulletin of the EDGG (ii) Proceedings of the EDGM 2012 in Prespa,

Greece (Vrahnakis M., Kyriazopoulos A.P., Chouvardas D. & Fotiadis G. (2013, eds.): Dry Grasslands of Europe: Grazing and Ecosystem Services. Hellenic Rangeland and Pasture Society)

(iii) Introduction paper on the EDGG and its activities (Vrahnakis M., Janišová M., Rūsiņa S., Török P., Venn S. & Dengler J. (2013, eds.): The European Dry Grassland Group (EDGG): stewarding Europe´s most diverse

habitat type. In: Baumbach H. & Pfützenreuter S. [Eds.]: Steppenlebensräume Europas – Gefährdung, Erhaltungsmaßnahmen und Schutz. Thüringer Ministerium für Landwirt‐schaft, Forsten, Umwelt und Naturschutz, Erfurt)

(iv) 5 EDGG‐edited Special Issues /Features in international journals (in press/in preparation): Special Issue of Biodiversity and

Conservation, topic: Diversity patterns in European grasslands across taxa, regions and scales (20 articles invited, it will appear soon);

Special Issue of Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, topic: Grassland bio‐diversity: patterns, processes and conservation (20 articles invited, it will probably appear in the end of this year);

Virtual Special Issue of Applied Vegetation Science, topic: Towards a consistent classification of European grasslands (12 articles invited, the first paper has appeared in June 2013́);

Special Feature of Tuexenia, topic: Temperate dry grasslands (6 papers on temperate and boreal grasslands + series with results from EDGG expeditions, in press);

Special Issue of Hacquetia, topic: Mediterranean dry grasslands (15 papers invited focusing on Mediterranean and sub‐Mediterranean grasslands).

In autumn 2012, two young EDGG members from Bulgaria and Ukraine, Hristo Pedashenko and Anna Kuzemko, received the first two EDGG Fellowships (supported by 1200 EUR from IAVS). With these fellowships, they stayed for several weeks in the group of EDGG EC member Jürgen Dengler in Hamburg to work on the analysis and publication of data from the EDGG Research Expeditions in these two countries. The paper of Pedashenko et al. will appear in Tuexenia 33 (2013: Dry grasslands of NW Bulgarian mountains: first insights into diversity, ecology and syntaxonomy), while the one of Kuzemko et

36

al. is in the final stages and will be submitted for Tuexenia 34 (2014).

For the next year, two new Special Issues / Special Features are planned:

Special Feature of Tuexenia, focusing mainly on fundamental research on vegetation and flora of European dry grasslands (e.g. biodiversity patterns, vegetation classification, population biology, plant‐animal interactions); editors: Thomas Becker (DE), Steffen Boch (CH), Monika Janišová (SK), Triin Reitalu (EE) & Eszter Ruprecht (RO)

Special Issue of Hacquetia, focusing on conservation value, management and restoration of Europe’s semi‐natural open habitats (including zoological and botanical contributions); editors: Jürgen Dengler (DE), Marta Carboni (IT/FR), Jasmin Mantilla‐Contreras (DE), Péter Török (HU), Stephen Venn (FI) & Michal Zmihorski (PL)

Forthcoming EDGG events during the next 12 months are:

International Conference “Concepts for modern management of xeric grasslands

between nature conservation and agriculture” (trilingual: German, Polish, English), 26‐27 September 2013, Brandenburg Academy Criewen Castle, Germany [co‐organized by EDGG]

Conference “Open Landscapes 2013 – Ecology, Management and Nature Con‐servation”, 29 September ‐ 3 October 2013, Hildesheim, Germany [co‐organized by EDGG]

11th European Dry Grassland Meeting “European steppes: ecology, anthropogenic transformation and restoration”, 5‐9 June 2014, Tula, Russia, with post‐symposium excursion 10‐15 June 2014 [head of the local organizing committee: Elena Volkova]

7th Research Expedition of the EDGG to N Spain, approx. end of June 2014 [organi‐zers: Itziar Garcia‐Mijangos, Idoia Biurrun & Maria Asunción Berastegui]

We warmly invite you to join EDGG, its events and activities!

Monika Janišová (on behalf of the Executive Committee of the EDGG)

Participants of the 10th European Dry Grassland Meeting in Zamość (24‐31 May 2013, Poland) (Photo: Piotr Chmielewski)

37

The 22nd annual meeting of European Vegetation Survey (EVS) took place in Rome on 8–11 April 2013. It was organized by the Italian So‐ciety for Vegetation Science, University of Rome La Sapienza and University of Perugia, with Roberto Venanzoni as the chair of the Local Organizing Committee, which included Emiliano Agrillo, Fabio Attorre, Carlo Blasi, Daniela Gigante, Flavia Landucci, Sandro Pignatti and Frances‐co Spada. The main topics were “Coastal and Inland Saline Vegetation“ (sessions convened by Erwin Bergmeier and Joop Schaminée) and “Red List Evaluation of Plant Communities“ (sessions convened by John Janssen and John Rodwell). The sessions were held in the Accademia dei Lincei hall in Palazzo Corsini and poster presentations in Orto Botanico. 178 participants from 16 countries of Europe and beyond saw an interesting program with 40 talks and 86 posters. Two days of scientific sessions (9 and 10 April) were followed by a one‐day excursion to the Circeo National Park at the sea coast south of Rome. The excursion was organized jointly with FIP (Fédération internationale de phytosociologie) and it was followed on 11 April by sessions of the 2nd FIP International Conference. This arrangement facilitated the establishment of new contacts between the members of EVS and FIP.

There were several noticeable activities of EVS between the annual meetings in Vienna (May 2012) and Rome (April 2013):

(1) With the financial support from IAVS, the EVS website (www.euroveg.org) was developed and launched on 24 November 2012. In association with the website development, the traditional EVS logo with an Allium plant was slightly reshaped and graphically enhanced.

(2) After more than ten years of joint work of a team of 30 experts from 15 countries, led by

Ladislav Mucina, the European Vegetation Checklist of phytosociological classes, orders and alliances was completed and submitted for publication in March 2013. This checklist is intended to become a standard international reference for vegetation classification in Europe.

(3) A team led by Joop Schaminée developed a crosswalk between the EUNIS Habitat Classification (up to Level 3), used by the European Environment Agency (EEA), and vegetation units used in the preliminary version of the European Vegetation Checklist. This crosswalk is a major contribution to the awareness and application of vegetation science in European policy making and nature conservation. An EVS team is now working on a further contract for the EEA to revise the EUNIS forest habitat classification.

(4) Several new international projects of vegetation survey started, most notably The Braun‐Blanquet project, coordinated by Borja Jiménez‐Alfaro and Milan Chytrý, aiming at collecting vegetation‐plot data for all European vegetation alliances and using this data set for parameterization (characterization) of vegetation units. Another pan‐European project of vegetation survey, WetVegEurope, aiming at classification of European freshwater aquatic and wetland vegetation to the level of association, was star‐ted by Flavia Landucci, Kateřina Šumberová and Milan Chytrý. Both of these projects, and also others, received extensive support from many vegetation scientists from different European countries, which made it possible to assemble very large international data sets of vegetation plots.

(5) Working with a UK marine biologist and with the participation of EVS members, John Rodwell and John Janssen completed a feasibility study for Red Listing of European Habitats for Europe‐an Comission DG (Environment). At the Rome

Annual report of theEuropean Vegetation Survey

38

meeting they announced the possibility of a major EVS contribution to an upcoming DG (Environment) project to implement this methodology across the wider Europe.

(6) Preparation of the Virtual Special Feature “Towards consistent classification of European grasslands” in the journal Applied Vegetation Science continued as a joint initiative of EVS and the IAVS European Dry Grassland Group, with Jürgen Dengler as the senior guest editor. The first paper of this Virtual Special Feature, prepared by Pavol Eliáš Jr and colleagues, devoted to central and south‐east European dry grasslands, was published in 2013.

(7) A proposal of a large interdisciplinary project that would support major activities of EVS was prepared by an international team led by Alessandro Chiarucci, under the title “European Vegetation Information System”. This proposal

was submitted to the 7th Framework Program‐me of European Union in October 2012, but it was not selected for support.

(8) A text on the history of European Vegetation Survey since 1991 was written by John Rodwell and published on the EVS website in April 2013.

(9) An amendment of the EVS Bylaws was adopted by the EVS Business Meeting in Rome in April 2013 and approved by the IAVS Council in Tartu in June 2013. The aim of this amendment was to guarantee that at least one colleague from each of the three main European regions (Western‐Central and North‐western Europe, Southern Europe and Eastern‐Central and Eastern Europe) is represented in the EVS Steering Committee.

Milan Chytrý

Group photograph of the participants in the post‐symposium excursion

39

Article 1. Name and status The name of this organization shall be “The Ecoinformatics Working Group”. It shall be a Working Group of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS).

Article 2. Objectives The objectives of the Ecoinformatics Working Group include:

(a) facilitating communication among scientists studying community ecology through exploration and synthesis of large databases comprising vegetation‐plot and related ecological data;

(b) facilitating access to these data; (c) establishing standards for exchange of

these data to facilitate data sharing; (d) providing tools for identification, access,

integration, storage, and analysis of these data.

As a Working Group of IAVS, the Ecoinformatics Working Group shares the IAVS goals and sup‐ports its activities. The Ecoinformatics Working Group is subject to the Statutes and Bylaws of the IAVS.

Article 3. Membership Membership in the Ecoinformatics Working Group is open to all persons, and membership in the IAVS is optional. Membership in the Ecoinformatics Working Group is obtained by:

(a) written application to the Ecoinformatics Working Group Secretary, or

(b) specification when joining or renewing membership in IAVS, or

(c) subscribing to the Ecoinformatics List Server.

Membership is discontinued by submission of a written statement (electronic or hardcopy) to the Working Group Secretary that the member no longer wishes to be member of the Working Group.

Members are responsible for providing the Secretary with a functioning e‐mail address. Membership is discontinued when no functioning e‐mail address is available to either the Working Group Secretary or the IAVS Secretary.

Article 4. Business meeting A business meeting shall be held annually in conjunction with the annual IAVS Symposium. All members attending may vote in the business meeting. A member may assign a proxy vote for the business meeting to another member by notifying the holder of the proxy and the Working Group Secretary. Any one participant may carry up to three proxy votes.

Article 5. Steering Committee The Working Group shall have a Steering Committee (SC) with five elected members. All SC members shall be members of IAVS. In case of a tie for the fifth position, all candidates with the same number of votes are elected. Each SC member shall be elected for a period of four years, with the possibility of re‐election. Elections shall take place at least two months prior to the business meeting at which the regular four‐year term of the SC is ending, or following a vacancy. At least one month prior to the start of an election, it shall be announced to the members via e‐mail by the Secretary, who then shall receive nominations made by any member by e‐mail or in person. Elections take place by means of an electronic ballot over a period of one month. The SC shall elect a Chair and a Secretary from its members for a period of four years. All decisions on behalf of the Working Group except those explicitly assigned otherwise are made by the SC by majority.

Article 6. Duties of the Steering Committee members

(a) The SC members promote the interests of the Working Group, and supervise

Bylaws of the Ecoinformatics Working Group

40

Working Group operations and scientific activities.

(b) The SC may call upon members of the Working Group or appoint committees to assist with the Working Group affairs.

(c) The Chair presides at the SC meetings as well as the Working Group business meetings held during the annual IAVS Symposia and supplies the annual report to IAVS.

(d) The Secretary keeps records of the Working Group and its members and conducts elections and ballots.

Article 7. Finances The Ecoinformatics Working Group financial assets shall be held by and managed through the accounts of IAVS.

Article 8. Amendments These Bylaws may be amended by a majority vote of the members participating in an electronic ballot extending over a period of one month. Such an electronic ballot can be required by a majority vote of either the SC members or the participants at the annual business meeting, or by at least 10% of all Working Group members. Changes in the Bylaws are contingent on approval by the IAVS Council.

Article 1. Name and status The name of this organization shall be “Working Group for Phytosociological Nomenclature" (GPN). It shall be a working group of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS). Article 2. Purposes 2.1 On behalf of the IAVS as the copyright holder of the International Code of Phytosociological Nomenclature (ICPN), the GPN will be in charge of the maintenance, improvement, and proper application of the ICPN.

The main tasks of the GPN are: (a) to prepare and implement new editions of the ICPN; (b) to engage in the nomenclatural activities that are required by the ICPN; (c) to register the names of syntaxa, in priority the new names;

(d) to register the typifications of names of syntaxa.

2.2 The secondary tasks of the GPN are: (a) to inform and advise the community of vegetation scientists about nomenclatural questions; (b) to follow methodological developments having direct or indirect implications for the nomenclature of vegetation types; (c) to follow the developments of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi and Plants; (d) to elaborate bridges between different schools of classifying plant communities.

2.3 As a working group of IAVS, the GPN shares the IAVS goals and supports its activities. The GPN is subject to the Statutes and Bylaws of the IAVS.

Bylaws of the Working Group for Phytosociological Nomenclature

41

Article 3. Membership 3.1 Membership in the GPN is open to all members of IAVS free of charge. The Membership can be obtained by: (a) application (letter or email) to the Secretary of GPN, or (b) an explicit specification when joining or re‐newing the membership to IAVS.

3.2 Membership is discontinued by a written statement (electronic or hardcopy) sent to the Secretary of the GPN that the member does no longer want to be member of the GPN. It is the responsibility of the members to provide the Secretary with a functioning email address. Discontinuation of the membership in IAVS automatically implies termination of membership in the GPN. Article 4. Business Meeting A business meeting of the GPN shall be held annually in conjunction with either the annual IAVS Symposium or the annual meeting of another IAVS Working Group. Article 5. Structure of the Group for Phytosociological Nomenclature The GPN comprises three kinds of bodies: (a) Steering Committee, the executive body of GPN; (b) Topic Committees, for performing specific tasks; (c) GPN Assembly, in charge of validating the decisions taken by the GPN Committees. Article 6. The Steering Committee 6.1 The GPN shall have a Steering Committee (SC) composed of seven elected members. SC members shall be elected for four‐year renewable terms. Elections shall take place at least two months prior to the business meeting at which the regular four‐year term of the SC is ending or following a vacancy. At least one month prior to the start of an election, it shall be announced to the members via email by the Chair of the GPN, who then shall receive nominations made by any member by email or in person.

6.2 All nominees shall provide a biosketch including their nomenclatural activities, and agree to serve if elected. When the nomination period is closed those candidates meeting the formal requirements shall be presented to the members together with their biosketch.

6.3 Elections shall take place by means of an electronic ballot over a period of one month. The seven candidates with the highest number of votes are elected as Members of the SC. In case of ties for the seventh member, a new ballot shall take place among the nominees having an equal number of votes over a period of seven working days. Article 7. Organisation and Tasks of the Steering Committee 7.1 The SC elects a Chair and a Secretary from its members for a period of four years. Meetings and decisions by the SC can be done either in person or by means of remote communication. All decisions on behalf of the GPN except those explicitly assigned otherwise will be made by the SC with simple majority of votes.

7.2 The duties of the SC are the following: (a) The SC promotes the interests of the Working Group, coordinates the activities of the Topic Committees, and supervises the scientific activities of GPN; (b) The SC is responsible for the amendments of ICPN and new editions. In that sense, it receives all proposals aimed as improvement and/or modification of the ICPN, prepares amendments to the ICPN, and new editions of the ICPN according to the decisions taken by the GPN Assembly; (c) The SC shall appoint Topic Committees to perform specific tasks within the GPN.

7.3 The functions and tasks of the Chair shall be: (a) The Chair presides over the business meetings of the SC and the GPN; (b) The Chair is responsible for production and distribution of the annual report of the GPN activities to IAVS;

42

(c) The Chair, at his/her discretion, may call upon members of the GPN to assist with emerging working group affairs; (d) If prevented, the Chair may call upon any SC member to deputize him/her in his/her functions.

7.4 The functions and duties of the Secretary are: (a) The Secretary keeps records of the Working Group activities, decisions, and members and provides these data to the IAVS Secretary; (b) The Secretary is responsible for the organization of the ballots; (c) The Secretary receives the proposals of amendment of ICPN; (d) The Secretary may call upon any SC member to assist him/her in his/her functions. Article 8. Organization and Tasks of the Topic Committees 8.1 The GPN shall incorporate Topic Committees whose number and size are defined by the SC. There will be basically three permanent Topic Committees. The SC can arrange the tasks of the existing Committees or appoint a new Committee at their discretion in relation to the work to be performed.

8.2 The members of these Topic Committees are appointed by the SC both from its own members and/or from the membership of the GPN. Any other member of the GPN interested in the activities of a Topic Committee can participate as a non‐voting member.

8.3 The SC shall appoint one of its members to chair a Topic Committee. The Chair of a Topic Committee shall be responsible for coordinating the activities of that Committee, and for reporting to the SC.

8.4 Committee for Changes and Conservation of Names. (a) The Committee will receive all proposals con‐cerning the subjective ruling of names according to ICPN, including the names to be inversed (nominainversa) and modified (nominamutata), to be declared ambiguous (nominaambigua) or

dubious (nominadubia), and those to be conserved (nominaconservanda); (b) The Committee shall make proposals on ruling the cases received.

8.5 Committee for the Registration and Typification of Names. (a) The Committee will be responsible for the development and implementation of the registration and typification of the names. (b) The Committee will provide a nomenclatural evaluation of the new names published and of the typifications of the names.

8.6 Committee for Website and Online Data‐base. (a) The Committee shall make available on the Internet the work produced by the other Committees; (b) The Committee shall develop and maintain an online forum (discussion list) at facilitating solutions to emerging nomenclatural questions. Article 9. Organization and Tasks of the GPN Assembly 9.1 The GPN Assembly shall be formed by all the members of the GPN and shall hold the legitimacy of the activities related to phytosociological nomenclature.

9.2 The tasks of the GPN Assembly shall be: (a) to elect the Steering Committee; (b) to support the Steering Committee with his members participating in one or more Topic Committees, in particular in helping to solve nomenclatural issues at a regional or national level, or related to specific taxonomic groups (e.g. vascular plants, algae, bryophytes, lichens); (c) to approve or reject the nomenclatural proposals issued by the Steering Committee and the Committee for Changes and Conservation of Names.

9.3 The GPN Assembly shall take decisions either at a business meeting or by means of electronic ballots, according to the decisions taken by the Steering Committee.

43

Article 10. Decisions 10.1 Except for nomenclatural proposals (see Bylaw 10.2) decisions are taken at the majority of votes (abstentions do not count): (a) Decisions taken within the Steering Commit‐tee, the Topic Committees and the GPN Assembly; (b) All proposals submitted to the GPN Assembly by the Steering Committee and the Topic Committees, or through a referendum according to Bylaw 10.3 or an initiative according to Bylaw 10.4.

10.2 The decisions on nomenclatural proposals are taken at the majority within the SC and the Topic Committees, and at a qualified majority within the Assembly. Abstentions do not count. (a) Decisions issued by the Steering Committee and proposals by the Committee for Changes and Conservation of Names shall be submitted to all the members of the Assembly for acceptance. They shall be overturned by the Assembly with a qualified majority >60% of the votes. (b) Proposals overturned by the Assembly and proposed on vote a second time through a referendum (see Bylaw 10.3) shall be overturned by the Assembly with a qualified majority >60% of the votes. (c) Proposals through an initiative (see Bylaw 10.4) shall be accepted by the Assembly with >60% of the votes.

10.3 Referendum. Items and nomenclature proposals from the Steering Committee or a Topic Committee that were rejected by the GPN Assembly can be proposed on vote a second time within a six months delay after the first vote if asked by more than one third of the GPN Assembly (see Bylaws 10.1 and 10.2. for the decisions).

10.4 Initiative. Items and nomenclature proposals outside the Steering Committee or the Topic Committees can be proposed on vote if they are asked for by more than one third of

the GPN Assembly (see Bylaws 10.1 and 10.2. for the decisions).

10.5 (a) Decisions will be made mainly by email ballot among all the members of the concerned body (SC, Topic Committees, GPN Assembly). Ballot involving the GPN Assembly shall extend over a one month period. For the other bodies, the period is decided within the concerned body. (b) When decisions are taken during a meeting (business meeting included), a member who cannot participate may delegate his/her vote to another member of the concerned body. For meetings of the GPN Assembly each member may cast up to three proxy votes (i.e. a maximum of four votes per member). Members who delegate their vote for a GPN meeting shall in‐form the Secretary of SC, and the chair of the body for the other meetings. If fewer than 50% of all the members of the concerned body are represented in person or by proxy, voting shall be by email ballot after all members have been informed about the proposals in question and the arguments for and against.

10.6 All the decisions taken by the GPN Assembly shall be published as soon as possible on the GPN official webpage, as well as valid Referenda and Initiatives. New editions of the ICPN and decisions on changes of names (inversed, modified), on dubious names, ambiguous names, and conserved names shall be published in a scientific journal. Article 11. Finances The GPN’s financial assets shall be held by and managed through the accounts of IAVS. Article 12. Amendments These Bylaws will be adopted and may be amended by a simple majority of votes of the members participating in an electronic ballot extending over one month. Changes in the Bylaws are contingent on approval by the IAVS Council.

44

2014 24‐26 February: 13th Meeting on Vegetation Databases: Vegetation Databases and Ecological Restoration, Koblenz, Germany 8‐12 May: 23rd Workshop of the IAVS Working Group European Vegetation Survey, Ljubljana, Slovenia 3‐8 August: 9th European Conference on Ecological Restoration, SER Europe, Oulu, Finland 10‐15 August: 99th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Sacramento, California, USA (With business meetings of the North American section of the IAVS and of the ESA vegetation section)

1‐5 September: 57th Annual Symposium of the International Association for Vegetation Science, Perth, Australia 9 – 12 December: Joint 2014 Annual Meeting British Ecological Society and Société Française d’Ecologie, Grand Palais, Lille, France

Campanula latifolia

Forthcoming meetings

45

The IAVS Bulletin is an electronic newsletter of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS, www.iavs.org), edited by the members of the Governing Board and the Administrative Officer Michael Lee ([email protected]). Please visit http://www.iavs.org/MembershipRenew.aspx to become a member. If you have difficulty, please contact our Administrative Officer, Michael Lee.

IAVS Management

President: Martin Diekmann (Bremen, Germany)

Secretary: Susan Wiser (Lincoln, New Zealand)

Vice‐presidents: Alicia Acosta (Rome, Italy), Javier Loidi (Bilbao, Spain), Michael Palmer (Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA), Robert Peet (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA), Valério Pillar (Porto Alegre, Brazil)

Martin Diekmann Susan Wiser

Alicia Acosta Javier Loidi Michael Palmer Robert Peet Valério Pillar

Publications: IAVS publishes two international journals: the Journal of Vegetation Science and Applied Vegetation Science, edited by Alessandro Chiarucci (Siena, Italy), Milan Chytrý (Brno, Czech Republic), Meelis Pärtel (Tartu, Estonia, CHAIR) and Valério Pillar (Porto Alegre, Brazil). For more information on subscriptions to the journals, consult our website www.iavs.org.

Administrative Officers: Michael Lee (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA; 2013‐), Nina Smits (Wageningen, Netherlands; 2001‐2013)

Ale Chiarucci Meelis Pärtel Milan Chytrý Michael Lee Nina Smits

iavs bulletin 2013 2 · 4 in 1990 iavs came for the first time to australia. the legendary dr. john...

Documents