News items in reversed chronological order…

The NLSEB2021 and NLSEB PhD/postdoc meetings were a great success with a range of very nice and interesting talks. We were pleased with the great turn up, and the excellent online organization of the event by Kim Ferguson (www.kimbferguson.com/KBF-consulting).

We are planning several round tables on topics relevant for our society in the coming year. The first round table will be a “Best practices in Online Teaching Afternoon” (BOTA), organized by Maurijn van der Zee and Bart Pannebakker on 7 June. You can still register for this meeting until 17 May via the following link: https://forms.gle/AWuGuysyxFFKHqH49

We hope to see you at our next event!

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After consultation with our members, we have decided to cancel the NLSEB2020 and NLSEB PhD/Postdoc meetings, scheduled on 23 and 24 September 2020 at Akoesticum, Ede. A majority of respondents on our questionnaire preferred a live meeting, but uncertainties and current restrictions due to COVID-19 make this virtually impossible. Therefore, we hope to have the NLSEB PhD/Postdoc and NLSEB2021 meetings next spring on 19 and 20 April 2021.

Participants of these canceled meetings who paid for registration will receive their registration fee back. They will be contacted by our treasurer.

  • NLSEB online General Assembly 21 April 16:00 2020

Dear NLSEB members,

As announced earlier, the yearly NLSEB meeting that we had planned for April 21, has been postponed. While we cannot meet for scientific exchange, we would still like to meet you online on April 21st for the yearly NLSEB general assembly. For formal reasons, this part of our yearly meeting cannot be postponed, and, like other years, we rely on your input on a number of society-related issues.

Attached to the email invitation are two documents that are normally submitted to the members for approval and discussion at our general assembly meetings: the financial report over the past year, and the policy plan with the budget for 2020. Instead of voting during the general assembly, we ask you to read these documents and register online whether you approve of the financial report and policy plan. You can do this anonymously, until 12:00 (noon) on April 21 (i.e., before the online meeting), via the link in the email.

On April 21, at 16:00 o’clock, we will also host an online meeting via Zoom (via this link) or Skype for Business (via this link), where you can share your ideas on the policy plan, the financial report, the president’s report and our current plan for the composition of the board (all attached to invitation email). During this meeting, we will announce the results of the online vote and there will be an opportunity to share important news. Instructions for joining the online meeting are in the meeting agenda.

The NLSEB board

As announced at this year’s meeting of our society, NLSEB will award a prize for the best peer-reviewed paper in evolutionary biology published in the year 2019. This Netherlands Evolutionary Biology prize will be awarded to the first or last author of the selected paper, who will receive €500 in recognition of her or his achievement. In addition, the winner will be allowed to present their paper in a 20 minutes plenary lecture at the 2020 NLSEB meeting (which will be held on April 21, 2020 at Akoesticum Ede).

The name of the prize will simply be the Netherlands Evolutionary Biology prize. After our call for names for the prize we received five suggestions and we are grateful to the members who suggested a name. However, after some discussion the board felt that naming the prize after a scientist was not opportune at this time.

All NLSEB members are invited to submit nominations. In order to nominate a first or last author of a paper on evolutionary biology, please send a PDF of the manuscript and a brief motivation (no more than half a page) by e-mail to prize@nlseb.nl. Deadline for the submission of nominations is February 28, 2020.

Eligible nominations will be evaluated by a jury consisting of Paulien Hogeweg, Sander Tans and Koen Verhoeven, who will be in charge of selecting the winning paper. The following eligibility criteria apply:

  • Nominated papers must have been published online or in print within the year 2019, in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
  • Papers can only be nominated by members of NLSEB; nominating a paper of your own is allowed.
  • The first/last author of the nominated paper was affiliated with a Dutch research institution at the time the research was executed; they need not necessarily be a member of NLSEB.

  • Save the date: NLSEB2020 on Tuesday 21 April 2020, Akoesticum Ede

 

We are happy to announce three exciting plenary speakers for the NLSEB 2020 meeting: Thijs Ettema, Toby Kiers, and Mark van Vugt.

 

The NLSEB 2020 meeting will be held on April 21, 2020, at Akoesticum in Ede. We will keep you informed about the program, submission and registration. 

  • Call for NLSEB members to join NWO’s ‘werkgemeenschappen’

NWO is looking for researchers who want to get involved in one or more of the five so-called ‘Werkgemeenschappen Levenswetenschappen’, i.e.:

  • Biology of Molecules, Cells and Tissues;
  • From Genes to Organisms;
  • Organisms in their Environment;
  • Life and Planet;
  • Advanced Methods, Data and Analyses to understand Living systems.

It would be good if evolutionary biologists are well-represented in these ‘werkgemeenschappen’, especially because evolution is a key principle across all levels of biological organisation represented in these five ‘werkgemeenschappen’, and is therefore an important connecting discipline. See here, if you are interested to join.

On Wednesday 21 August NLSEB organised a ‘Netherlands evolutionary biology get-together’ during the ESEB meeting in Turku. The meeting was aimed at  all scientists working in the Netherlands or from Dutch origin to facilitate the (re-)connection to Dutch evolutionary biology. The get together was a great success with about 50 people turning up and with many lively discussions.

  • Where: Congress pub Panimoravintola Koulu, address: Eerikinkatu 18, Turku (Finland)
  • When: Wednesday 21 August, 18:00-19:30
  • Who: All scientists working in the Netherlands or from Dutch origin
  • The Netherlands society for evolutionary biology (NLSEB) aims to build a community of all evolutionary biologists in the Netherlands. NLSEB therefore welcomes all scientists working in the Netherlands or from Dutch origin for drinks. Come and (re-)connect to Dutch evolutionary biology!
  • See https://eseb2019.fi/satellite-events

  • New NLSEB logo

One of the highlights of the first NLSEB meeting was the announcement of the logo contest winner and the revelation of the new logo. Nearly half of the NLSEB members cast their votes, resulting in a landslide majority for the logo designed by Bastiaan von Meijenfeldt (see picture).

The new logo shows a tree in which the evolutionary community as a whole is represented. The leaves resemble the actual organisms we work on, the phylogenetic tree represent evolutionary relationships, and the network on the left part of the tree is inspired by how the dynamics of genes in a population are often depicted and represents any form of computational analysis.

With some final edits to the artwork, the new logo is now ready to feature on the NLSEB website and other NLSEB communication.