ASPT banquet transitions to mixer

Dear ASPT Members,

After thoughtful discussion over the past two years, the ASPT Council has decided to expand the Mixer to include food and drinks and to combine it with an Awards Presentation, rather than having a formal banquet. Prior to the Mixer, we will hold a Business Meeting, followed by the Incoming President’s Address open to the public, as we did last year. Following the talk, we will have the Mixer with heavy hors d’oeuvres and a cashless bar (conference drink tickets and credit cards will be accepted). Tickets are priced at $25/professional member and $5/per student member. After everyone has had a chance to get a drink and a plate of food, and to briefly visit with new and old friends, we will have the Awards Presentation so we can congratulate and celebrate our winners. We understand that this is a big change for many of us, but we are confident that we will all enjoy it as much as we have our past events. Please join us!

Best regards, 
ASPT Council

Call for Papers: "Spatial Phylogenetics" Systematic Botany Special Issue

Spatial phylogenetics is an emerging discipline that combines spatial data with encompassing phylogenies, and employs various hypothesis tests to assess patterns of biodiversity on the landscape, both for academic studies in ecology, evolution, and biogeography as well as for applied purposes such as conservation (for a brief review, see Mishler, 2023, Spatial Phylogenetics, Journal of Biogeography, https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14618). A special issue of Systematic Botany will be published in 2024 on this topic, handled by guest editors Brent Mishler and Israel Borokini.  We encourage submission of papers dealing with methodology, new empirical analyses from anywhere in the world, or both.  Papers can be on any group of organisms, plants, animals, fungi, or microbes.

To be considered for this issue, submitted papers should relate phylogenies to spatial data and incorporate appropriate hypothesis tests to match its stated goals.  Within these boundaries, we are open to innovative ideas for sourcing/building the phylogenies, sourcing/cleaning spatial data for terminal taxa, and developing statistical tests for hypotheses.

The deadline for submission of papers is May 1, 2024.  Please follow the author guidelines available at: https://www.aspt.net/publications/sysbot#.ZGMEjexBw0Q —all papers will be evaluated using the normal Systematic Botany peer review process.  For questions on this special issue, please contact bmishler@berkeley.edu or iborokini@berkeley.edu.

Call for Proposals for the 2024 Annual ASTC Conference in Chicago

Call for Proposals for the 2024 Annual Conference in Chicago (September 28–October 1) includes a special call for sessions relevant to work happening in natural history museums and other natural history settings. Although we traditionally have strong participation from many departments at natural history museums—such as education, programs, and exhibits—we are hoping to make the conference even more relevant for those who focus on natural history collections and research. For example, this could include sessions on authenticity, research and critical content, and repatriation and decolonization.

The Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC)—the U.S.-based membership organization for science centers and museums—has included a special call for sessions relevant to work in natural history museums and related settings in the Call for Proposals for the ASTC 2024 Annual Conference, which will be held September 28–October 1 in Chicago. ASTC is especially interested in sessions relevant to those working with natural history collections, research taking place in natural history settings, and content focused on natural sciences.

Affiliation with an ASTC-member organization is not required to submit a session proposal nor to be a presenter. ASTC especially welcomes first-time submissions and proposals from people who have not previously attended an ASTC conference.

The deadline for submission is February 16, 2024. We’ll be holding a webinar (February 5 at 2 p.m. ET) for tips on how to build a successful proposal. See the Call for Proposals for details and a link to the submission form.

Notification of Impending Changes in Systematic Botany’s Publication Policies

Following recent discussions with the ASPT Council, two significant aspects of the publication of Systematic Botany will be changed beginning in 2024 (volume 49).

First, subscriptions to printed versions of the journal will no longer be available for an extra charge per volume. Instead, members will have the option to purchase hard copies of individual issues from the ASPT business office on a “print-on-demand” basis. The cost, including shipping, will vary depending on the size of the issue, but we estimate that it will be about $20 per issue. We also note that our printer has informed us that, beginning in 2024, all hard copies will be generated using ink jet rather than laser printers, which may result in slightly reduced quality of some figures.

Second, supplemental tables and figures will no longer be submitted to Dryad (as been the case for volumes 41-48) or published on the ASPT website (as was the case for volumes 33-40) but will instead be included at the end of each paper when it is published on-line. Authors should continue to submit datasets such as multiple sequence alignments and morphological character matrices to Dryad, however. If possible, authors should use their institutional subscriptions for Dryad submissions; otherwise, please cite the Systematic Botany manuscript number and ASPT will cover the cost of the submission. Be sure to include all data from each publication in one submission, as the Dryad charges are based on the number of submissions.