Society of Systematic Biologists

Systematics is the study of biological diversity and its origins. It focuses on understanding evolutionary relationships among organisms, species, higher taxa, or other biological entities, such as genes, and the evolution of the properties of taxa including intrinsic traits, ecological interactions, and geographic distributions. An important part of systematics is the development of methods for various aspects of phylogenetic inference and biological nomenclature/classification.

The objective of the Society of Systematic Biologists is the advancement of the science of systematic biology in all its aspects of theory, principles, methodology, and practice, for both living and fossil organisms, with emphasis on areas of common interest to all systematic biologists regardless of individual specialization.

Books recently reviewed in Systematic Biology, or written by members of the Society.

Recent issues	Past issues

The Distributed European School of Taxonomy is offering a two-week training course on BASICS OF TAXONOMY: DESCRIBING, ILLUSTRATING AND COMMUNICATING BIODIVERSITY. The course is ideal for early career and future taxonomists who want to learn more about DELTA, digital drawing, scientific illustration, writing and communication, and Scratchpads.

• Registration deadline is approaching: 24 June 2013
• Course dates: 14-25 October 2013
• Course venue: Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences, Kristineberg, Sweden
• Target audience: MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers; from any nationality
• Registration fee: 1200 Euro (includes course attendance, course material, accommodation and meals)

For detailed information and registration, please visit:
http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/content/basics-taxonomy-describing-illustrating-and-communicating-biodiversity

DEST is offering four grants of €500 to attend this course. For eligibility criteria and application procedure, see the above webpage.

The minutes of the Society of Systematic Biologists Mid-Year Executive Council Meeting (held via Skype) are now available.

Minutes (PDF)

We are pleased to announce the 3rd Annual Spring Symposium hosted by Frontiers in Phylogenetics at NMNH: "Genome-scale Phylogenetics"

Baird Auditorium, National Museum of Natural History
Washington, DC, Monday May 20, 2013

9:30-9:35	Opening Remarks and Logistics
	Michael Braun, Frontiers in Phylogenetics Program, NMNH
9:35-9:45	Introduction and Welcome to the Smithsonian
	Eva Pell, Undersecretary for Science, Smithsonian Institution
9:45-10:30	My Students Could Do My Thesis in Five Minutes; How to Cope with the Next Generation
	Rob DeSalle, Sackler Institute of Comparative Genomics, AMNH
10:30-11:00	Seminar title TBA
	Erich Jarvis, Duke University Medical Center
11:00-11:30	Break
11:30-12:00	Molecular Phylogenies, Genomics and the Bacterial Species Concept
	Margaret Riley, University of Massachusetts Amherst
12:00-12:30	Phylotranscriptomics to Bring the Understudied Ostracoda into the Fold
	Todd Oakley, University of California Santa Barbara
12:30-14:00	Lunch Break
14:00-14:30	Seminar title TBA
	Jun Wen, Department of Botany, NMNH
14:30-15:00	Genome-scale Phylogenetics of Rapid Adaptive Radiation: RAD Sequence Data Illuminates the History of Lake Victoria Cichlids
	Catherine Wagner, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Technology
15:00-15:30	Break
15:30-16:00	Shotgun in the Dark or a Rifle in the Daylight? The Case for Using Single Copy Orthologous Gene Capture in Phylogenetics
	Gavin Naylor, Hollings Marine Lab, College of Charleston and Medical University of South Carolina
16:00-16:30	Achieving phylogenomic nirvana: ultraconserved elements (UCEs) capture history at the species, population, and individual levels
	Brant Faircloth, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCLA
16:30-17:00	Unsolved Challenges- Panel Discussion on Future Directions

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York invites applications and nominations for an outstanding scholar at the Full Curator & Full Professor level with internationally-recognized research and leadership credentials, and demonstrated, ongoing high-impact research productivity and grantsmanship, to provide innovative leadership for a new museum-wide initiative in comparative biology. This initiative will incorporate the work of multiple investigators at the Museum and at collaborating institutions in genomics and phenomics (large-scale phenotypic analysis), aimed at understanding the evolution and relationships of organisms in ways that clarify and illuminate the architecture of life. The successful candidate for this position should show experience and interest in managing large–scale, interdisciplinary, collaborative, multi-institutional projects and is expected to qualify for and be appointed as a tenured full curator in either the Division of Invertebrate Zoology or Vertebrate Zoology, and as a full professor in the Richard Gilder Graduate School at the AMNH. We seek a creative, active, broad-based researcher and dynamic academic leader who interacts well with others and who will utilize the extensive resources the Museum has to offer in the way of collections, research instrumentation and laboratories, teaching and mentoring, exhibition, and public education.

SSB Members - here is your chance to learn from some of the best and brightest in the Society of Systematic Biologists. All SSB members are invited to attend the inaugural Society of Systematic Biologists Workshop, which will be held on Friday June 21, 2013 between 1:00 and 5:00. This workshop is open only to members of SSB, so be sure to join or renew your membership today!

Speakers will include:

• Joe Felsenstein (Phylip & model-based molecular phylogenetics)
• John Huelsenbeck (Mr Bayes & Bayesian phylogenetics)
• Brant Faircloth (Next Generation Sequencing for Phylogenetics)
• Peter Beerli (Migrate-n and phylogeography)

There will be a short reception following the workshop - this will be the place to meet society members and discuss phylogenetic and phylogeographic methods.

Please contact Bryan Carstens <carstens dot 12 at osu dot edu> with questions.

The NSF is seeking candidates for Program Director in the Evolutionary Processes and the Systematics and Biodiversity Science Clusters within the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB), Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) in Arlington, VA.

SALARY RANGE: $105,211.00 to $163,957.00 / Per Year
Deadline to apply is March 15, 2013

More details at https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/336904300?org=NSF

The United States National Science Foundation (NSF) is seeking a Division Director for the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) in the Directorate for Biological Sciences. For more information andinstructions for how to apply, please visit https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/337479700?org=NSF. The last day to apply is March 8, 2013. Please circulate this announcement widely.