THE BULLETIN CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2017 OFFICERS AND COUNCIL FOR THE YEAR 2016-17 REGULARS President: Sue Hartley Welcome | Alan Crowden ................................................................................................................................ 4 President Elect: Richard Bardgett Vice-President: Rosie Hails Changes in your Society: Reviewing governance in the BES | Sue Hartley ..................... 5 Vice-President: Andrew Pullin We invite you to ‘Ecology Across Borders’ | Amy Everard ......................................................... 6 Honorary Treasurer: Tom Ezard Council Secretary: Adam Vanbergen Celebrating our third Summer School at FSC Dale Fort in Wales | Karen Devine ........ 8 Honorary Chairpersons: Zoe Davies (Meetings) BES Fundraising goes digital | Paul Bower .......................................................................................12 Alan Gray (Publications) Will Gosling (Education, Training Ecology in the public spotlight | Sabrina Weiss .............................................................................14 and Careers) 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 Environmentally Sustainable Agriculture: Peter Brotherton, 2019 Opportunities and challenges for the UK in a post-Brexit world | Samuel Leigh .......16 Yvonne Buckley, Nina Hautekeete Wills and Legacies – Celebrating Ecology | Paul Bower ............................................................18 Cristina Banks-Leite, 2020 Helen Roy, Peter Thomas Make your research long-term | Jessica Bays ..................................................................................20 Bulletin Editor: Alan Crowden Valuing long-term experiments in ecology | Raj Whitlock, 48 Thornton Close, Girton, Emma Sayer and Karl Evans ..........................................................................................................................21 Cambridge CB3 0NG [email protected] Special Interest Group News .......................................................................................................................24 Associate Editor: Lauren Ratcliffe The Chartered Institute of Ecology [email protected] and Environmental Management | Sally Hayns ..............................................................................48 Book Reviews Editor: Books to be considered for review In the Journals | Chris Grieves ..................................................................................................................50 should be sent direct to the Bulletin Editor at the address above Aspiring authors – we will help you get published | Kate Harrison ..................................52 PUBLISHING IN Book Reviews ........................................................................................................................................................54 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). Submissions can be sent to the editor by email and pictures should be either jpeg or tiff files suitable for printing at 300dpi. FEATURES Design: madenoise.com Donald Neil McVean 1926-2017 | Neil MacKenzie ..........................................................................28 InFOCUS Print Management: H2 Associates (Cambridge) Ltd. Reflections on long-term recording at Lady Park Wood | George Peterken ...................30 We like to include in the Bulletin subjects that appeal across the Focus on teaching only contracts | Zenobia Lewis .......................................................................34 ages. In the summer of 2017 a Digging deep in the Mexican Caribbean reef | Lauren Ratcliffe ...........................................36 highlight for the group of lucky undergraduates attending the Why should we care about Ecosystem Services? | Mark Everard ........................................40 BES Summer School was a day From Our Southern Correspondent | Richard Hobbs ....................................................................46 on the island of Skomer meeting the puffins, as reported on p8 -11; a couple of months earlier the Bulletin editor was just as excited COUNCIL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS ...............................................................................65 to visit the island for the first time in the year he reached state pension age. BES Bulletin british ecologicalsociety.org VOL 48:3 | September 2017 The British Ecological Society is the oldest ecological society WELCOME in the world, having been CHANGES IN YOUR SOCIETY established in 1913. Since 1980 it has been a Registered Charity limited by guarantee. Membership is open to all who are genuinely interested ECOLOGY FOR in ecology, whether in the REVIEWING GOVERNANCE British Isles or abroad, and membership currently stands at about 6,000, about half THE LONG TERM of whom are based outside IN THE BES the UK. The Society holds a variety of meetings each year. The Annual Meeting attracts a Sue Hartley | President of the British Ecological Society | [email protected] wide range of papers, often by research students, and includes a series of informal specialist group discussions; Good governance, the way that an RECOMMENDED CHANGES The composition of Committees Alan Crowden | Editor | [email protected] whereas the Annual organisation operates and is held will be changed so there is more Symposium and many other accountable, is really important for BES Council considered the opportunity for BES members to get smaller meetings are usually Ecology as a discipline can be viewed sure it is fit for purpose into the future. And any charity to deliver its objectives recommendations in June this directly involved in the decisions and more specialised and include effectively. The BES has not had a activities of the Society by becoming as a mixture of dynamism and constant while you’re at it, read the annual report and invited speakers from around year and supported a wide range renewal combined with careful long-term accounts beginning on page 65. the world. major review of its governance in of proposed changes, the most a member of a Committee; over 20 years, but during that time significant of which include: assembly of evidence and the chance for Proceedings of some of these The Memorandum and Articles of calm reflection. Talk to any ecologist who Elsewhere in this issue Events Manager both staff and income have increased meetings are published by seven-fold whilst expenditure and Refocusing Council, which will Association will be updated to reflect has studied a field site or system over a long Amy Everard invites you (p6) to the annual the Society in its Ecological concentrate more on strategic the relevant changes, as well as to period of time and she or he will almost meeting in Ghent (Liverpool 2016 was Reviews book series. The assets have increased ten-fold. oversight in future, and delegate bring them up to date with current invariably tell you that their understanding worth the entrance money just to see Zoe Society distributes free to The size, portfolio of activities and all members, four times a greater authority to the Committees best practice as they have not been of the processes going on are different Davies wearing a tinsel halo); Karen Devine complexity of the organisation have year, the Bulletin which and staff to drive forward the activities thoroughly reviewed since 2006. from their ideas of five, ten, twenty years highlights another successful Summer changed greatly, so a review of our contains news and views, decision-making processes is timely. of the Society. In recognition of this ago. It is not because ecologists are prone School (p8) and Kate Harrison encourages meeting announcements, change in function, Council will be to sudden whims or are being swayed potential book authors to step forward (p52). a comprehensive diary and That is why the 2015-19 Strategic WHEN WILL CHANGE HAPPEN? renamed the Board of Trustees; by ecological fashion, but when the facts Zenobia Lewis calls for a level playing field many other features. In Plan included an objective to ensure for those on teaching only contracts (p34), addition the Society produces that our governance is efficient and These are significant changes to the change, they change their mind. We have Introduction of online voting for the and to stretch the analogy Richard Hobbs five scientific journals. The fit for purpose, as well as robust in governance of the Society and would persuasive advocacy of long-term projects Journal of Ecology, Journal election of Board of Trustees which wishes university administrators would get the face of likely future challenges take time to implement, although we in the two pieces from the Ecological of Animal Ecology, Journal will enable all members, not just those off the pitch and let the players get on with and opportunities. hope that most of the work would be Continuity Trust (pp 20-23) and from of Applied Ecology and who are able to attend the AGM, to completed in the early spring of 2018. George Peterken on Lady Park Wood (p30). it (p46). Functional Ecology are sold at a discounted rate A working group of current and former select who represents