THE BULLETIN InFOCUS A Smooth Giant Clam (Tridacna gigas) in the waters off Lizard APRIL 2017 Island on the Great Barrier Reef CONTENTS in Australia. Tridacna gigas have been studied at Lizard Island for more than 25 years, both in OFFICERS AND COUNCIL terms of reproductive ecology FOR THE YEAR 2016-17 REGULARS and population dynamics. The President: Sue Hartley Welcome | Alan Crowden ................................................................................................................................ 4 population density in some places President Elect: Richard Bardgett Vice-President: Rosie Hails President’s Piece: Speak Truth to Power | Sue Hartley ................................................................ 5 (e.g. Watson’s Bay, ≈200 clams/ha) Vice-President: Andrew Pullin Fighting sexism with soapboxes | Nathalie Pettorelli and Seirian Sumner ....................... 7 is amongst the highest recorded Honorary Treasurer: Tom Ezard anywhere in the world. Council Secretary: Adam Vanbergen Combating the invisible enemy: implicit bias, data collection and the Teaching Honorary Chairpersons: Excellence Framework | Elva Robinson ................................................................................................. 9 Zoe Davies (Meetings) Alan Gray (Publications) What is the future of peer review in ecology? | Alice Plane ....................................................11 Will Gosling (Education, Training and Careers) BES Journals Survey .........................................................................................................................................13 Juliet Vickery (Public and Policy) Rosie Hails (Grants) ORDINARY MEMBERS OF COUNCIL Retiring Diana Gilbert, Jane Hill, 2017 Iain Stott Dawn Scott, Markus Eichhorn, 2018 Lindsay Turnbull BES Annual Meeting 2016: All the news from Liverpool including Peter Brotherton, 2019 Award winners, Press roundup and Minutes of the AGM .........................................................16 Yvonne Buckley, Nina Hautekeete BES Photographic Competition 2016 | Amy Everard ....................................................................28 Cristina Banks-Leite, 2020 Helen Roy, Peter Thomas Remembering Ecology in your Will – Take the 1% challenge | Paul Bower ...................37 Bulletin Editor: Alan Crowden Policy update: tackling the challenges and opportunities of Brexit | Ben Connor .......38 48 Thornton Close, Girton, Cambridge CB3 0NG Supporting ecology in Africa | Markus Eichhorn and Paul Bower ........................................40 Email: [email protected] Engaging with the BES | Joanne Griffin ...............................................................................................42 Associate Editor: Lauren Ratcliffe RainDrop has landed! | Jessica Bays ......................................................................................................43 Email: [email protected] Special Interest Group News .......................................................................................................................44 Book Reviews Editor: Of Interest to Members ...................................................................................................................................52 Books to be considered for review should be sent direct to the Bulletin Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management | Sally Hayns ............90 Editor at the address above Publications News .............................................................................................................................................92 PUBLISHING IN Book Reviews .......................................................................................................................................................95 THE BES BULLETIN The Bulletin is published four times a year in March, June, August and December. Contributions of all types are welcomed, but if you are planning to write we recommend you contact one of the editorial team in advance to discuss your plans (Bulletin@ BritishEcologicalSociety.org). Material should be sent to the editor by email or on a disk in Word or rtf format. Pictures should be sent as jpeg FEATURES or TIFF (*tif) files suitable for printing at 300dpi. Importance of field stations for ecological education and research Dominic J. McCafferty .......................................................................................................................................54 Design: madenoise.com Print Management: Do we argue enough in ecology? | Roger Cousens ........................................................................58 H2 Associates (Cambridge) Ltd. Exploring citizen science in Chile Cover photograph: David J Bird, winner of the BES photocompetition Helen Roy, Audrey Grez, Tania Zaviezo, Peter Brown .................................................................62 2016. For more information see p28. What are the forthcoming legislative issues of interest to ecologists and conservationists in 2017? | William J. Sutherland et al. .....................................................66 Thoughts of a Southern Mediterranean Ecologist | Tarek Mukassabi ...............................76 Support for a BES food policy | Ben Phalan ........................................................................................78 Palmer Newbould 1929 – 2016 | Dicky Clymo ...................................................................................80 A Sense of Place | John Wiens ....................................................................................................................82 From Our Southern Correspondent | Richard Hobbs ....................................................................86 Exhibition and Sponsorship Opportunities at BES Meetings ............................................... 100 BES Bulletin british ecologicalsociety.org VOL 48:1 | April 2017 The British Ecological Society is the oldest ecological society WELCOME in the world, having been PRESIDENT’S PIECE established in 1913. Since 1980 it has been a Registered Charity limited by guarantee. Membership is open to all who are genuinely interested WHETHER THE NEWS in ecology, whether in the SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER British Isles or abroad, and membership currently stands at about 5000, about half IS REAL OR FAKE, of whom are based outside the UK. The Society holds a variety of meetings each year. The LIFE GOES ON Annual Meeting attracts a wide range of papers, often by research students, and includes a series of informal specialist group discussions; Alan Crowden | Editor | [email protected] whereas the Annual Sue Hartley | [email protected] Symposium and many other smaller meetings are usually This bumper issue contains so much programme, which provides small grants more specialised and include comment about Brexit, President Trump, to ecologists who might otherwise invited speakers from around RELIABLE DATA AND THE ACCURATE PRESENTATION AND INTERPRETATION OF and the current vogue for distaining the struggle to fund some very exciting and the world. advice of experts that I’m not even going innovative projects (p40). Proceedings of some of these SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE ARE THE LIFEBLOOD OF ECOLOGY, BUT AT THE MOMENT to highlight where these topics arise; I meetings are published by Moving on to the excellent feature articles fear indignation and disbelief will be a the Society in its Ecological THERE ARE SERIOUS CHALLENGES TO THE VERY IDEA OF OBJECTIVE FACTS. regular feature of Bulletin articles for the in this issue, Dominic McCafferty sings Reviews book series. The foreseeable future. the praises of biological field stations Society distributes free to on p54. Roger Cousens lists some of all members, four times a In an issue which is definitely not fake the drawbacks of scientific meetings year, the Bulletin which contains news and views, news, we begin with an uplifting article on p58 – we’ll all recognise some of the I’m writing this just after a self- Communication is our business as suggested, live in a culture “where meeting announcements, avowed climate change denier has scientists – as my old boss when I was it’s pitched as a triumph of democracy from Nathalie Pettorelli and Seirian drawbacks he describes, but to offset a comprehensive diary and Sumner on the background to their award- the moaning Roger offers one solution many other features. In been inaugurated as President of USA. working at the Centre of Ecology and that everyone can claim authority and winning work on Soapbox Science (p7), he’s found to make meetings more addition the Society produces Donald Trump has tweeted that “the Hydrology used to say “if you haven’t anyone who claims that actually there followed immediately by Elva Robinson on interactive, enjoyable and productive. The five scientific journals. The concept of global warming was created communicated the results, you haven’t is an objective truth is condemned”? Journal of Ecology, Journal some of the subtle ways in which gender comprehensive annual legislative scan by and for the Chinese in order to make done the experiment”. Speaking at of Animal Ecology, Journal US manufacturing non-competitive” meetings and conferences, writing If this is indeed the case, I believe bias affects career progression (p9). from Bill Sutherland and colleagues is of Applied Ecology and (and that’s rather more polite than papers, reports and policy-briefs (and as ecologists we need to speak out The search for impartiality,