January 2019 March 2011
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International Society for Neuroethology Newsletter/January 2019 March 2011 International Society for Neuroethology PHONE: +1-785-843-1235 P.O. Box 1897 (or 1-800-627-0629 Ext. 233) Lawrence, KS 66044, USA FAX: +1-785-843-1274 Website: http://neuroethology.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/neuroethology/ E-mail: [email protected] ISN Officers THIS ISSUE FEATURES President: Eric Warrant, Department of Biology, Lund President’s Column by Eric Warrant University, Biology Building, Sölvegatan 35 Introducing New Council Members 223 62 Lund, Sweden Message from Early Career Representatives by Miriam PHONE: +46 46 222 93 41 Henze and Sara Wasserman Call for 2020 ICN Symposia by Cynthia Moss and Uwe E-mail: [email protected] Homberg Neuroethology Course Announcement by Jim Murray and Treasurer: Mark Bee, Department of Ecology, Shaun Cain Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 140 Gortner Laboratory, 1479 Gortner Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55108 USA PHONE: +1-612-624-6749 The Prez Says E-mail: [email protected] Eric Warrant President of the ISN Secretary: Gabriella Wolff, Department of Biology, University of Washington, Box 351800, Seattle, WA 98195-1800 USA E-mail: [email protected] Past-President: Catharine Rankin, Department of Psychology, Kenny Room 3525 – 2136 West Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z4 PHONE: +1-604-822-5449 FAX: +1-604-822-7299 E-mail: [email protected] Hello Everyone! President-Elect: Karen Mesce, Department of Entomology and Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Since my last column just over three months ago, it University of Minnesota, 219 Hodson Hall, 1980 Folwell seems quite a lot has happened in our Society! As I Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55108 USA penned the last words in my September column, our PHONE: +1-612-624-3734 FAX: +1-612-625-5299 Society elections were drawing to a close, and this of E-mail: [email protected] course means that we now have a brand new Executive Committee and Council! For those who don’t yet know, our incoming President is Karen Mesce from the University of Minnesota, our new secretary is Gabby Wolff from the University of Washington and our new assembled a preliminary program, secured ten superb treasurer is Mark Bee, also from the University of plenary lecturers (names to be revealed at a later date), Minnesota. Catharine Rankin from the University of and sent out a call to all ISN members to submit proposals British Columbia, steps into the role of Past President. for symposia! In addition, I am now in the process of Our past secretary Susan Fahrbach and treasurer Karen inviting the six speakers for the Presidential Symposium. Mesce – who did an amazing job in these roles for many So we are well underway! years – are still in the process of handing over the reigns to Gabby and Mark. There has been a lot for them to learn, Talking of symposia, now is the time to start thinking but I can assure you that our Society will remain in about hosting one at ISN 2020 and submitting your excellent hands. And what a bonus for Mark (and for all proposals. One of the main criteria for these symposia is of us!) that his predecessor is a stone’s throw away AND that “The topic should be novel, timely, and interesting to incoming president! Our first Executive Council meeting a broad range of neuroethologists. Applications that is scheduled for April next year, in lovely San Diego incorporate innovative approaches and analyses for the (which has become somewhat of a tradition it seems, study of the neural bases of behavior are encouraged.” So thanks to the generosity of Bill Kristin who organises a now is the time to be inspired to come up with a great idea room for us at the University of California). for your dream symposium at our next congress! Proposals are limited to a single page, and should be Our new members of Council (who join the seven existing submitted to Cynthia Moss and Uwe Homberg by no members) are a stellar line-up of neuroethologists: Ana later than May 1st 2019. Full instructions can be found in Amador (University of Buenos Aires), Marie Dacke this newsletter and on our Society’s (University of Lund), Jose Pena (Albert Einstein College website: neuroethology.org/Meetings.aspx. I have of Medicine), Ana Silva (Universidad de la República), absolutely no doubt that the Lisbon congress will be truly Andrea Simmons (Brown University), Monika outstanding. So mark the congress in your calendars: 26- Stengl (University of Kassel) and Nachum Ulanovsky 31 July 2020. The conference website, which is still under (Weizmann Institute of Science). Our new Early-Career construction, is neuroethology2020.com. Representative is Miriam Henze from the University of Queensland. Congratulations to all of you! The role of the As I mentioned in my last Prez Sez column, also don’t Council is to provide support and advice to the Executive forget to mark your calendars with this year’s Gordon Committee, and thus to uphold the quality and smooth Research Conference on Neuroethology, which will be running of our Society. held in the USA at Mt Snow in Vermont from July 28th to August 2nd 2019. Applications to attend the conference And of course, an election isn’t possible unless willing are now open! The theme of the conference is candidates offer themselves for service, and members of “Multimodal strategies for behavioral control: Molecules, the Society take the time to evaluate these candidates and neurons, circuits and behavior”, and the conference chairs vote. So my sincere thanks to all of the truly excellent Mark Fry (UCLA) and Marie Dacke (University of Lund) candidates who stood for election, and to everyone who have put together a really exciting program! The took the time to vote! Even though you may not have been conference web site is: www.grc.org/neuroethology- elected to office now, your time may very well come in behavior-evolution-and-neurobiology-conference/2019/. the future. I am happy to report that preparations for our next Finally, please take a glance at our new-look website congress in Lisbon in July 2020 are now well underway! (neuroethology.org), which has been several months in The Local Organising Committee – Rui Oliveira, Marta the making and whose development has been expertly Moita and Susana Lima –are doing a fantastic job with overseen by our outgoing secretary Susan Fahrbach, preparations in Lisbon, and our Program Committee working closely with Terry Leatherman, our incredibly Chairs, Cynthia Moss and Uwe Homberg, have put helpful contact at Allen Press who made it all happen (you together a truly outstanding Program Committee, may have had the pleasure of meeting Terry at the T-shirt consisting of Kentaro Arikawa (Sokendai School of stand in Brisbane). And of course, if you have any Advanced Sciences), Michael Dickinson (Caltech), suggestions for the content of the web site, or indeed have Karin Nordström (Flinders University, who was also on a contribution to make to an upcoming newsletter (much the Program Committee for the Brisbane congress), appreciated!), please contact our new secretary Gabby Lauren O’Connell (Stanford University), Ana Silva Wolff ([email protected]). (Universidad de la República) and Yossi Yovel (Tel Aviv University). This Program Committee has already been I hope that 2019 is both exciting and productive! incredibly active – as of late November, they have 2 My very warmest wishes and a happy new year! information and commands behavior in barn owls. Currently, his research aims to discover the emergence of Eric Warrant adaptive behavioral commands where sensory evidence is President, ISN weighted by actual and anticipated reliability, and whether and how statistics of natural scenes are built-in decision making. INTRODUCING – NEW COUNCIL Ana Silva is an associate MEMBERS professor in the Laboratory of Neuroscience, at the Newly elected representatives for Council were School of Sciences, announced by President Eric Warrant this autumn. Universidad de la República. Congratulations to all! She is also associate researcher at the Instituto de Ana Amador is a professor in Investigaciones Biológicas the Physics Department at the Clemente Estable, Montevideo, Uruguay, where she University of Buenos Aires. coordinates the laboratory on Neural Bases of Behavior. Her career has been Currently, her laboratory is interested in the study of profoundly interdisciplinary, neuroendocrine bases of social behavior focusing in two performing physiological and species of native weakly electric fish with different social electrophysiological organization. Combining field and lab approaches, her experiments together with research seeks to understand how aggression shapes the mathematical modelling to study how complex behaviors spacing behavior of species in the wild, as well as how the emerge from the interaction between the brain, the body brain controls the acquisition and consolidation of the and the environment. Her research combines physics and dominance-subordinate status. on closely related species. biology to study birdsong, the physical mechanisms involved and the neural code used during its production Andrea Simmons is Professor in and perception. the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Marie Dacke is a professor at Sciences at Brown University, with the Department of Biology at a secondary appointment in the Lund University, Sweden, Department of Neuroscience. One where she also earned her is the developmental process by PhD in 2003. The research in which bullfrogs are able to process her lab primarily focuses on first underwater and then airborne the compass systems used by sounds across the metamorphic transition from tadpole to South African dung beetles. frog. The second is a comparative study of the This charismatic and diverse group of insects provide an mechanisms of periodicity perception in bullfrogs and in excellent platform to formulate a universal model for how big brown bats, two hearing specialists with sensitivity in animals are able to traverse the different habitats of our different parts of the frequency spectrum.