Vol. 63, No. 3 | Fall 2018
 

ABS 2018 Executive Committee and Business Meeting Minutes

ABS Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
Thursday August 2, 2018
Lapham 185, University of Milwaukee, WI

Reports from Executive Committee Members

President: Jeffrey Podos
Past Year
• I drafted amendments to Constitution Articles 6 and 8, first proposed and discussed at the 2017 EC meeting.
• I drafted a letter to NSF, on behalf the ABS EC, lamenting their decision to cut the Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant program from IOS and DEB. This letter was posted on the ABS website. I received a reply from IOS division director Dr. Heinz Gert de Couet.
• We fielded a proposal from ABS members regarding a new mentoring/ professional development initiative called “Weaving the Future of Animal Behavior” (WFAB). The team requested ABS’s support in a cost share of $25K over two years. I initiated a discussion of this proposal within the EC; we emerged very enthusiastic about the proposal, especially given how it aligns directly with our own interest in providing strong mentorship for young scientists, and in expanding diversity in our ranks. Both interests are stated explicitly in the ABS strategic plan. We decided to move forward with support, and await word on next steps.
• I advised President-Elect John Swaddle as he developed his plan for a white-paper that develops strategic initiatives, following up on our newly-implemented strategic plan.
• In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, a society member asked me if ABS could help students from Puerto Rico, to support their careers and research programs. I forwarded this request to the EC, and an extended discussion ensued. We all recognized the dire need of these students. Yet there were concerns about a precedent this might set regarding our role in providing assistance in the face of natural disasters, especially given our limited budget and that natural disasters are likely to become more frequent with climate change. We decided to consider, in our next EC meeting, the possibility of a line-item disaster relief allocation. As a one-time solution for students from PR, we came up with the following approach: (1) I allocated the president’s discretionary fund ($5000) to be used to support PR students; (2) We sent an email to society members asking for their contributions to this fund; (3) SPLTrak and the MALs generously offered to administer the fund and handle application review and $$ disbursement. Contributions from ABS members was extremely generous; we received 27 donations that added up to over $3K. We were thus able to distribute upwards of $8K. After review we were able to support 11 students with individual awards of $730 each.
• I drafted and submitted nominations of ABS members to two national board positions: Susan Reichert to the National Science Board (co-sponsored with Jonathan Pruitt), and Daniel Rubenstein to the AIBS Board of Trustees.
• I appointed, with consent from the EC, two new committee chairs: Barbara Clucas for the Conservation Committee (effective June 2017), and Heather Zimbler-DeLorenzo for the Education Committee (effective August 2018).
• We received and discussed by email a letter from an ABS member citing concerns over harassment of ABS members by a senior scientist. We observed that our ability to respond in this particular case was limited because the senior scientist named is not a society member. The EC sent a response to the letter-writer, to offer our perspective and to convey our thanks for reaching out to us. We added to our 2018 EC meeting agenda a further discussion of steps we might take as a society to address harassment in its various forms.
• We received nominations and cast votes for new society fellows. 6 new fellows were named: Lawrence Dill, Esteban Fernandes-Juricic, Ann Hedrick, David McDonald, Gail Patricelli, and David Stephens.
• I worked with Bill Searcy to solve an unforeseen timing problem with the EC Program Officer position, arising out of a recent change in the tenure of each PO from 4 years to 2. We learned that our current PO was planning to step off the EC after 2018, but that we hadn’t lined up a new PO-Elect to begin in 2018. Our solution was to identify two candidates, and to then call a special election to the society. At the conclusion of the 2018 meeting, Liz Tibbets will be joining our EC as PO-Elect, and Alison Bell will move into the PO slot.
Changes to policy:
• I drafted a motion to update Policy Item 25a; the language now stipulates that updates to ABS policies shall be posted online with each update as they are passed, rather than annually. The motion was discussed and then passed by vote by the EC. This update addressed my concern that prior policy changes had not been appearing in the online handbook in a timely fashion. The handbook now includes the month and year of the latest update, rather than just the year.

President Elect: John Swaddle
Past Year
• The President-Elect ran the Founders’ Poster Award Prize at the annual meeting. There were 29 students/postdocs who indicated at the time of registration that they wanted to enter the competition. Of these, 14 applicants submitted a PDF of their poster ahead of the annual meeting—as is required to remain in the competition. The judging committee was: John Swaddle (Chair), Liz Peterson, Molly Morris, Cassandra Nunez, Todd Freeberg, and Emma Grigg.
• The President-Elect continued with some strategic planning activities, which included administering a short survey to the membership and analyzing the results. The survey solicited feedback on the ABS Strategic Plan and asked for suggestions of specific priorities. We received over 100 responses from the membership and the vast majority of feedback aligned well with the current Strategic Plan. Specific initiatives generated from the survey will be discussed at the 2018 Executive Committee meeting. (The Full report can be found at the end of these minutes).
Activities for next year
• Continue with development and implementation of ABS Strategic Plan, following discussion of priorities with the EC
• Produce one-page sheet that describes the relevance of animal behavior to society at large. This is an initiative that was generated as part of the ABS Strategic Plan.

Second President Elect: Jennifer Fewell
Past year
• Secured funding with Emilia Martins and Zulyema Tang-Martinez for the “Weaving the future of animal behavior” initiative for professional development of young investigators. The goal of this program is to advance the future of animal behavior science by supporting and promoting the efforts of early-career professionals through workshops, symposia, and long-term, multi-level mentoring.

Past President: William Searcy
Past year
• I coordinated the nomination process and election for the various ABS Career Awards (with the exception of the Teaching Award, all aspects of which are handled separately by the Education Committee). Working with SPLTrak and Patty Brennan (ABS Secretary), nominations were solicited via the newsletter and by email. We received four nominations for Distinguished Animal Behaviorist, three for the Exemplar Award, two for the Quest Award, two for the Outstanding New Investigator Award, and none for the Exceptional Service Award. By vote of the Executive Committee, the following award winners were chosen: Distinguished Animal Behaviorist - Ellen Ketterson (Indiana University), Exemplar Award - Dan Rubenstein (Princeton University), Quest Award - Gail Patricelli (University of California Davis), Outstanding New Investigator - Clare Ritschof (University of Kentucky).
• With advice from the present presidents, I identified two candidates for a special election for Program Officer, which was necessitated by Jonathan Pruitt's announcement that he wished to resign as Program Officer one year early. The following two candidates agreed to run for this position: Elizabeth Tibbetts - University of Michigan and Ted Stankowich - Long Beach State
• With advice from the Nominations Committee, I identified candidates for the ABS offices that we need to fill in the fall 2018 election. The following slate of candidates agreed to run for the open positions.
• President: Sue Margulis (Canisius College) and Eileen Hebets (University of Nebraska)
• Treasurer: Scott MacDougall-Shackleton (University of Western Ontario) and Jordan Price (St. Mary’s College of Maryland)
• Parliamentarian: Colette St. Mary (University of Florida) and Todd Freeberg (University of Tennessee)
• Program Officer: Tim Wright (New Mexico State) and Jacinta Beehner (University of Michigan)
• Member-at-Large: Noa Pinter-Wollman (UCLA) and Lilian Manica (Universidade Federal do Paraná)
• I organized a Presidential Symposium on "Animal Communication, cognition, and the evolution of language." The speakers are:
• William Searcy and Stephen Nowicki – University of Miami and Duke University
• Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney – University of Pennsylvania
• Toshitaka Suzuki – Graduate University for Advanced Studies
• Klaus Zuberbuehler – University of Saint Andrews
• Thore Bergman, Jacinta Beehner, and Morgan L. Gustison – University of Michigan
• Morgan Gustison and Asif Ghazanfar – Princeton University
• Christoph Grüter – Johanes Gutenberg University
• Carel ten Cate – Leiden University
Suggestions for improvement:
• The EC should consider changing the constitution to require the Nomination Committee to identify only one candidate for certain positions, perhaps Parliamentarian, Treasurer, Secretary, and Public Affairs Officer. This practice is followed by many other societies. The positions would then approximate appointive positions, though members would be free to follow the prescribed procedures to nominate additional candidates (i.e. by a letter signed by five or more members, as per Article 8, section 1 of the constitution).

Secretary: Patricia Brennan
Past Year
• Published Animal Behavior Society Newsletter. August 2017, November 2017, February 2018. Asked SPLTrack for help with June 2018 Newsletter due to personal reasons. Newsletter was therefore late. Lorena at SPLtrak does a great job of fact checking and putting everything online.
• Conducted ABS election 2018. 296 members voted, and the total active membership is 1,782- so about 16% of the total active membership voted, this is a decline from last year when (366 validated ballots were cast in the election in 2017, representing approximately 20% of the membership, and in 2016 443 validated ballots we cast, representing approximately 25% of the membership – we need to do something about this). Also included special election for program officer (294 votes total).
• Approved 82 postings to ABS News system
• Maintained society correspondence amongst EC members regarding Society matters (At least 450 messages total, a drop from over 1000 in 2017 and 2080 in 2016).
• Managed other votes and discussions.

Treasurer: Gil Rosenthal
Past Year
• Worked with EC to streamline and updated policies in light of new financial management.
• Worked with ASAB counterpart to manage profit-share transfer.
• Worked with committee chairs to manage allocations and expenditures.
• Worked with investment committee to rebalance investment holdings.
• Worked with EC members to implement financial relief program for Puerto Rican students
• Worked with EC members to develop a plan to divest investments from fossil fuels.
Activities for next year
• Create a final budget when the fiscal year ends 31 Aug 2019.
• Continue to work with SPLTrak and Central Office to implement budget and track financial movements.
• Work to implement fossil fuel divestment plan discussed by EC.
Suggestions for improvement
• I would like to evaluate the way we now handle accounting for meeting activities – symposia and workshops folded into the meeting budget rather than being line items in the main society budget. This has no financial impact and is just an accounting convenience, but Adam suggested that it might be a burden on the local hosts. I will try to get feedback from the hosts before we discuss this at the meeting.

Program Officer and Program Officer Elect: Jonathan Pruitt and Alison Bell
Past year
• Recommendations and EC decisions for future ABS meetings: 2018- University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee (Rafael Rodriguez, Peter Dunn, Gerlinde Hoebel, Linda Wittingham), 2019-Chicago (joint meeting with IEC/Behaviour 2019; Mary Ashley).
• Worked closely with ABS 2018 Milwaukee hosts (Rafael Rodriguez, Peter Dunn, Gerlinde Hoebel, Linda Wittingham) and SPL Trak to organize the ABS2018 conference. The local hosts took over most of the local logistics, and SPL Trak took over most of the registration and abstracting duties. We are so grateful for all of them.
Activities for next year:
• Visit Chicago in fall 2018 to scope out the locality at UIC. Collaborate with ICE and ABS officer boards about plenaries and symposiums for 2019 meetings. Begin sorting out the location of the 2020 meetings. See about getting Shedd for closing banquet and Field Museum for opening night. This could be costly.

Parliamentarian: Tamra Mendelson
Past Year
• Amended Section 5 of Bylaws (EC vote at EC meeting 6/12/17).
• Added Sections 10 and 11 to Bylaws (EC vote at EC meeting 6/12/17).
• Amended Section 5A of Policy (EC vote at EC meeting 6/12/17).
• Added Section 12f of Policy (EC vote at EC meeting 6/12/17). Amended Section 12 of Policy (Approved by EC e-vote 7/17).
• Amended Section 20 of Policy (Approved by EC e-vote 7/17).
• Amended Section 6 of Policy (Approved by EC e-vote 8/17). Amended Section 25 of Policy (Approved by EC e-vote 9/17).
• Amended Section 9 of Policy (Approved by EC e-vote 10/17).
• Changes to Constitution : Approved by Society-wide vote 2/12/18: Article 6 (Meetings) (266:1:27 Approve:Reject:Abstain) Article 8 (Elections) (258:6:32)
• In accordance with revised Section 25 of Policy, I sent an updated version of the ABS handbook to spltrack with each change.
• I attended the Nagoya Protocol meeting hosted by the Ecological Society, on behalf of ABS.

Executive Journal Editor: Susan Foster
Past Year
• Journal doing well overall
• Profit share is strong and helping the society stay financially strong
• Submissions down 18% in the USA, 17% in the UK.
• Impact factor went down last year, this year is back up. (3.067).
• Acceptance rate 34% up from 25.8% (many inappropriate papers).
• Time from submission to first decision 36 days (better than related journals)
• 33.9 weeks between submission and online publication due to decline in office personnel.
• Journal Website featuring media coverage of papers published in the journal continues to increase its content (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/animal-behaviour/media- coverage/).
• Personnel and editorial office: Five editors completed their editorial terms this year: Ken Yasukawa (30-Jun-2017); Jacinta C. Beehner & Thore J. Bergman (31-Jul-2017); Gail L. Patricelli (31-Oct-2017); Jean- Guy Godin (1-Mar-2018). Four new editors were added this year following approval by the EC. These are Todd Freeberg (1-Jul-2017); James P. Higham (1-Aug-2017); Andy Horn (18-Nov-2017); Matthew Wund (7-Mar-2018). Michael Ferkin agreed to serve another 3-year term (until 31-Jul-2020).
• The US and UK Editorial Offices now have two permanent freelance editors (Amanda Harman and Gina Walker) to help with copyediting. Kris and Angela also edit manuscripts/proofs for each other, when their availability permits. During May 2017-April 2018, freelance editor Gina Walker edited 3 US articles, for a total cost of $721 (rate =$30/h). Angela Turner edited 5 US articles; Kris Bruner edited 11 UK proofs.
• Special Issues: The US office has sponsored two Special Issues in the past year: “Cognitive Ecology”, organized by John Ratcliffe and Steve Phelps, and “Breeding aggregations: Causes and Consequences”, organized by Regina Macedo and Emily DuVal.
• Two Special Issues are planned for 2018-2019: “Animal communication, cognition, and the evolution of language”, organized by Bill Searcy (ABS Past President’s symposium, Aug 2-6, 2018, Milwaukee, WI), and “Unasked questions in animal behavior”, organized by Rafael Lucas Rodriguez (ABS symposium, Aug 2-6, 2018, Milwaukee, WI)
• Impact factor: The Impact Factor for Animal Behaviour for 2017 was 3.067 (versus 2.86 in 2016) and the 5- year IF was 3.519 (versus 3.277 in 2016). Those of our major competitors, Behavioral Ecology (2017 = 3.347; 5-year 3.404), BES (2017 = 2.473) and Animal Cognition (2017 = 2.805).
• The Author feedback reports (from authors of accepted manuscripts) continue to rate Animal Behaviour better than average in all categories except for our Instructions for Authors.
Activities for Next Year
• Evise, the new editorial system, is now scheduled to be implemented in 2018. This will increase workload for everyone until all are familiar with the system.
• All editorial staff traveling from the US will have two hotel nights covered by Elsevier in London, rather than the one previously allowed.
Additional Issues
• Update on possible implementation of appropriate TOP guidelines and checklists as decided upon by the EC, the ASAB Council and the executive editors. I attach four documents; a petition from a set of mostly UK scientists encouraging us to accept preregistration (and presumably the associated badges), a Q&A sheet they have transmitted with the petition and two editorials you saw last year- one from Behavioral Ecology and the other from the editors of the top evolution journals.
• The section providing instructions for authors needs clarification, an endeavor best associated with the roll-out of Evise which should happen within the year.

Members at Large: Emily DuVal, Melissa Hughes, Christopher Templeton
Past Year
• We coordinated and administered the Student Research Grant (SRG) competition, the Developing Nations Awards (DNA), and the Latin American Travel Awards (LATA), as well as the Student Travel Grant and the Caregiver Award to support attendance at the annual ABS meeting. This year we additionally administered the short-term grant program in support of researchers in Puerto Rico. The announcements for the SRG, LATA, Developing Nations Awards, Student Travel Grant, Caregiver Travel Grant, and Puerto Rico grant are appended below.
• As in previous years, we used the online grant submission and review system under the management of SPLtrak. Student research grants were externally reviewed with the assistance of 114 ABS members. Each grant received 3-5 reviews, and the members-at-large compiled numerical scores, provided additional reviews when there was high variance in scores, and based funding decisions on the proposals’ numerical rankings.
• For awards to attend the ABS meeting (LATA, Student Travel Grant and Caregiver Travel Grant), applicants submitted their applications at the time they registered for the meeting and applications were reviewed by the MALs (no external reviews).
• After funding decisions were made, all applicants were informed of the outcomes and applicants for student research grants also received a copy of each written review of their proposal. Funds were distributed by SPLtrak. We’re very grateful for the efficient assistance of Lorena McMahon who helped with compiling submissions, assigning reviewers, managing reviews, and notifying awardees. All awards but the Caregiver Travel Grant received fewer applications this year than previously (Table 1).
• Student Research Grants and named awards: (SRG Budget: $69,500, Spent: $67,504.04) We received 89 applications for student research and funded 37 standard SRG awards and 4 named awards at their requested budget amounts, up to $2000. Though fewer applications this year meant that our award rate for the SRG was a bit higher than previous years (Table 1), it coincidentally reflected the same reviewer score cutoff that marked the line between funded and non-funded proposals last year. Scientific merit was not compromised in award decisions.
• From among top-ranked SRG applications, we additionally awarded the George W. Barlow Award ($2000), and the David Tuber Award ($1770), and the Edward O. Wilson Award ($500). We awarded the balance of the Amy R. Samuels Cetacean Behavior and Conservation Award fund ($195.96) to a highly ranked proposal that was on cetacean behavior, and topped up this student’s award to $2000 from the SRG fund. Students self-identified their eligibility for these awards with their application, and this eligibility was reviewed by the MALs as award decisions were made.
• Developing Nations: (Budget: $10,000; Spent: $9854) We funded five of ten proposals for Developing Nations research grants, at their requested budget amounts.
• Graduate Student Travel Grants (Budget: $12,000; Spent: $12,000). We received 85 applications for student travel awards and funded 24 students at $500 each. All three MALs reviewed and scored abstracts and the second member-at-large, Melissa Hughes, scored all CVs and compiled scores to determine awards.
• We belatedly learned of one graduate student who applied for a travel award, but a computer error resulted in her application not being passed to the MALs for review. We decided to allow that student to apply for travel funding next year (though she will have recently graduated) and are following up on this with SPLtrak to ensure that the problem was not more widespread and does not reoccur.
• Latin American Travel Award (Budget: $10,000; Spent: $10,000). We received 12 LATA applications and awarded 5 students $2000 each. Awardees represent Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia.
• Caregiver Travel Grant (Budget: $5000; Spent: $2075). We awarded 6 applicants a total of $2575. This year, we had only one applicant who submitted an application for this initial deadline. Therefore, with EC approval, we extended the deadline for Caregiver Travel Grant applications until June 15. We received 5 more eligible applications by that extended deadline. Funding fell below the expected level of $500 per applicant because three of five awardees requested less than $500 of support. Awardees names are not provided in the report of funds spent, as we consider information on family status to be private. This is the third year this award has been offered, applications have increased very slowly across these years.
• Puerto Rico grants (Budget: $8050; Spent: $8050). In 2017, we also administered a one-time small grants program for animal behavior researchers in Puerto Rico. The EC allocated $5000 of discretionary funds to this program, and ABS members donated an additional $3050.
• We received 15 complete applications and awarded funding to 10 applicants, and divided available funds evenly among applicants for a funding level of $805 each. Each application was independently reviewed by at least two MALs, and rated as suitable or unsuitable for funding (based on whether or not the work described included any animal behavior). We also rated grants’ research quality and several other categories, but because the society has offered sufficient funds for the number of applications received, we recommended funding for all proposals that we agreed were suitable for support by the ABS.
 

Suggestions for improvement:
• The primary goal for the MALs is to administer the SRG, DNA, LATA, Student Travel Grant and Caregiver Award competitions. The grant competition is running smoothly, thanks to the efficiency of SPLtrak. To maintain and further streamline that process, we have the following suggestions for the coming year:
• We recommend that ABS maintain funding at current level for all of the awards administered by the members-at-large. An increase in research grant funding for the 2017-2018 year was much appreciated and has been put to good use. The Caregiver award is undersubscribed, but we recommend maintaining the current funding level and continuing to work to raise awareness of the award in 2018-2019.
• We recommend the addition of an automated message confirming receipt of applications for student travel and meeting-related awards, with accompanying text on the submission site informing meeting attendees to expect such an email and to contact us if it is not received. This should help eliminate technical issues such as the lost student travel grant application noted above, and will also head off the occasional inadvertent applications that occur when conference attendees check the wrong box.
• We recommend the following minor changes in award descriptions provided online to head off confusions that have arisen in the application process:
• Developing Nations award: add text “Applicants must both be a resident of and conducting research in a developing country to be eligible for this award.”
• Caregiver Travel Grant: to encourage additional applications, and clarify expected use of funds, we suggest adding the following detail to the online award description (http://www.animalbehaviorsociety.org/web/awards-care.php).
• Change the sentence in paragraph 2: “Award values vary according to funds available” to “Award values vary according to funds available, but will be approximately $500.”
• Add sentences to paragraph 2: “The award money may be spent in any of a variety of ways to support your conference participation. Examples include daycare at home or at the conference venue, costs of travel for the dependent or a second caregiver so that a child may accompany you to the conference, or costs of additional care at home while you are away. Funds should be used to support dependent care rather than cover other costs associated with meeting attendance, for example conference registration or travel for the applicant."
• The Caregiver grant remains undersubscribed. We recommend a targeted email sent ~1 week prior to the abstract and application deadline to raise awareness of this award. The first MAL will attempt to encourage applications next year at this year’s business meeting.
• In November 2017, the EC discussed the proposal to discontinue the Amy Samuels Cetacean Award. That discussion revealed the misconception that funded proposals fall below reviewer cutoffs of competitive proposals. This is not the case. If no cetacean-related proposal rises to the level of other competitive proposals in a given year, this award has not been granted. The MALs support the recommendation from Patty Brennan to maintain this award on the website and include the note that special awards "will only be given if there are enough funds from donations, but when no such funds are available these proposals will be evaluated in the general pool”. We note that this award honors the life of noted animal behaviorist Amy Samuels, and suggest that a specific call for donations might generate funds to continue this award.

Historian: Zuleyma Tang-Martínez
Past year
• The bulk of the 2017-2018 year was spent in planning the symposium on Animal Behavior in Historical Context: Novel Insights from Interdisciplinary Perspectives, including writing a grant proposal to NSF (Division of Science, Technology, and Society) to try to fund the symposium . Despite very positive comments (and great publicity for ABS), NSF declined to fund the proposal. Organizing the symposium has been a major undertaking for me and I consider it as my special contribution as Historian of ABS.
• As in past years, I still occasionally communicate with former Historians, Don Dewsbury and Lee Drickamer to get their advice or insights on various issues.
• I am making progress in collecting photographs (portrait style) of our more recent Presidents. Individuals in the current presidential sequence, please send me JPegs of your favorite photo to keep for our records. I asked this in last year’s annual report but did not receive any photos! So I have relied primarily on the internet for photos. I still hHave more work to do on this.
• I contributed to the Strategic Planning sub-committee work, although this was not necessarily always in my role as Historian.
• I have answered questions that came from various sources – not only from the EC but also sometimes from members.
• I participated in Executive Committee discussions on most topics – particularly, when a historical perspective was useful.
• I wrote, or arranged for others to write, obituaries for all the ABS members – and other animal behaviorists - who died during this past year. These obituaries were published in the ABS Newslettter. Thankfully, there were many fewer deaths during this last year than in the previous two years, since I have been Historian.
• For the 2017 meeting I produced a posters honoring Charles Carpenter as an ABS founder for the Founder’s Poster Session Award. InN 2018, I have a poster honoring Stuart Altmann, the most recently deceased ABS founder. Stuart’s poster will be on display throughout the meeting.

Reports from Committee Chairs


* Contact information is on file for all members. ** Members for whom a three-year term is ending.
Contact information is on file for all members. ** Members for whom a three-year term is ending.

Membership changes and membership for the next reporting period:
• Memberships officially begin May 1 and end April 30 of each year. No terms ended in 2018 for any current ACC member. This is the final year for Alex Ophir to serve as Chair of the ACC. In this final year, he will include Tim Roth on all correspondences relevant to the ACC to train him for assuming the ACC chair duties next Spring. Alex will also work with the new executive Editor (Nancy Solomon) to help her navigate any ACC-related issues in her first year in this new role.
• I am nominating, Anyelet Valencia Aguilar (UNESP - Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Brasil) to join the ACC for a three year term (2018-2021).
Past Year
• The ACC Chair/ Ethics Editor (ACC Chair from here on) received several manuscripts and requests for information or advice (detailed below); no manuscripts were sent for ACC review.
• Manuscripts send out for full ACC review: No manuscripts were sent for review.
• Manuscripts that were not sent for review: The ACC Chair was assigned nine (9) manuscripts to review. Through discussions with the Executive Editor the ACC Chair was able to determine that either (1) these manuscripts did not violate the spirit or letter outlined in ASAB/ABS (2012) Guidelines for the Use of Animals, Animal Behaviour 83, 301-309 or other related sources, or (2) requested supplementary information, which was provided and addressed any potentially problematic issues. None were necessary to send for committee review at any point in the review process.
• The taxa involved for all received manuscripts: Three species of mammal (Microtus ochrogaster, Odocoileus virginianus, and Atlantoxerus getulus), three species of bird (Coturnix japonica, Taeniopygia guttata, and Loxia curvirostra), one species of reptile (Crotaphytus collaris), one species of amphibian (Desmognathus wright), and one species of fish (Danio rerio).
• Consultation and Solicited Opinions: The ACC Chair was occasionally contacted by the Executive Editor to informally discuss manuscripts, abstracts, or issues. In all of these cases, the information requested and/or discussed did not ultimately result in the need for ACC review.
• Working with the European counterpart (Domhnall Jennings), the ACC Chair and several members of the ACC worked to revise the ASAB/ABS Guidelines for the Use of Animals. This was ultimately published in the January 2018 volume of Animal Behaviour: ASAB/ABS (2018) Guidelines for the Use of Animals, Animal Behaviour, 135, I-X.
• An ACC membership list was updated. The list now contains information regarding member’s review activity and workload, and how each manuscript was handled (sent for ACC review or handled by the Chair).
Activities for next year
• The majority of the ACC members have terms that expire in April/May 2019. Considering that some may not renew their membership, recruitment of new members might need to be more aggressive. It would be best to smooth out recruitment over the next three years to ensure that terms end fairly equally over the next three years.
• Attract 1-2 additional members with the aim of increasing the diversity of experience for the ACC and to maintain the committee size and distribution of members by term. Taxonomic expertise is well distributed across members of the ACC. Five of 10 members are women, and regional distribution of ACC members across the USA is strong. All but two members are from the USA, and ethnic / racial diversity is lacking (only one ACC member is from an underrepresented group in STEM). Identifying ethnic, racial, and regional (including country of origin) diversity will be a priority for recruitment to the committee.
• Training Tim Roth to be the next Chair of the ACC, and on the duties and responsibilities of this role, will continue to make for a smooth transition.
• Working with the new Executive Editor (Nancy Solomon) to support her and advise her in her new role to meet the aims of the ACC.

Conservation Committee: Chair Barbara A. Clucas
Current Committee Members:
Barbara Clucas, Chair (term ends 2020)
Bradley Blackwell (term ends 2020)
Cassandra Nunez (term ends 2020)
M. Elsbeth McPhee, Chair (term ends 2020)
Preston Foerder (term ends 2020)
Alison Greggor (term ends 2019)
Peter Bednekoff (term ends 2019)
Elizabeth Peterson (term ends 2018)
Rachel Chock (term ends 2018)
Debbie Boege-Tobin (term ends 2018)

Past Year
• At the 2017 ABS meeting in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, we held the third Conservation Behavior workshop (Preston Foerder and Cassandra Nunez were co-chairs). All members of the ABS-CC and a number of associate members were involved in the preparation of the workshop and at the workshop itself. We hosted three speakers that gave presentations on conservation problems that could benefit from solutions that took animal behavior into account: Martin-Hugues St-Laurent, Université du Québec à Rimouski / Groupe de Recherche BORÉAS (Hiker disturbance and the effects to predator-prey relationships), Tara Cornelisse, Canisius College, Animal Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation (Managing the endangered Ohlone tiger beetle for long term persistence) and Rob Rempel, Centre for Northern Forest Ecosystem Research Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (The response of caribou to roads). After the talks, the group separated into three breakout sessions for 2 hours of brainstorming and discussion on their particular problem. At the end of the day, all participants came together and shared their results. The workshop was very successful with around 70 participants registered.
• At our annual meeting at the 2017 ABS conference we discussed preparing for the 2019 ABS-CC workshop and decided that to improve the experience for students and those new to the concept of integrating behavior and conservation, that we would prepare materials to give workshop participants before the workshop, including 10-minute videos of the fundamentals of conservation behavior. The ABS-CC met several times (via Skype) to plan these videos (some of which will be filmed at ABS 2018, others remotely).
• We elected two new members and re-elected two sitting members via electronic voting after the conference: Bradley Blackwell (PhD, USDA), Cassandra Nunez (PhD, Iowa State University), Misty Mcphee (PhD, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and Preston Foerder (PhD, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga).
• We elected a new committee chair at the conference, Barbara Clucas, who was a sitting member on the committee.
Activities for next year
• Below is a proposal for a fourth Conservation Behavior workshop to be held in Chicago in 2019. These workshops have been extremely beneficial for the presenters and the participants and as mentioned in part B point 2, we are working to further improve the experience for workshop participants.
• We will hold our annual meeting at the 2018 ABS conference in Milwaukee on Friday August 3rd during an event we are having (see point 3 below).
• We will be holding an event during the 2018 ABS conference in Milwaukee on Friday August 3rd where several ABS-CC members and associates will be giving 10-minute talks to set the stage for the next workshop, which we hope to hold at ABS 2019 in Chicago. The pre-workshop talks at ABS 2018 will also be filmed and made available online (see below for speakers and topics). Anyone interested in conservation behavior is welcomed to join and it is a free event.
Barbara Clucas - Introduction to ABS-CC workshops
Rich Buchholz – What is conservation behavior?
Bruce Schulte – How do you do conservation behavior?
Misty McPhee – Connecting with conservation practitioners
Alison Greggor – Systematic reviews and conservation behavior

D. Motions for votes by Executive Committee: List motions that will require EC approval.
1. We would like to have a fourth, bi-annual workshop at the 2019 ABS meeting in Chicago (see below).
E. Changes to Policy: Policy changes (changed to operating policy not requiring EC authorization)
Undertaken by the Committee. These should be incorporated into the ABS Policy Manual.

No change of policy is requested. We will rotate off three members this year (Elizabeth Peterson, Rachel Chock, and Debbie Boege-Tobin). We will request nominations for three new members; committee size will remain at 10.

Education Committee: Susan W. Margulis


Past year
• The Education Committee is divided into six sub-committees, each with its own chair or chairs, and each with its own responsibilities. Below is a summary of each subcommittee’s work during the 2017–18 year. I thank each subcommittee chair for providing a report on the year’s activities.
• Penny Bernstein Distinguished Teaching Award : The Education Committee is responsible for one of the ABS Career Awards, the Penny Bernstein Distinguished Teaching Award. This award specifically recognizes a sustained record of excellent teaching and innovation in the classroom or informal education setting (e.g., zoos, aquaria, museums, 4-H programs, research labs, field stations, environmental centers). Awardees are nominated by their peers and students. We had three highly qualified nominees in 2017. The Committee reviewed CV, teaching materials, and letters of support from current and former students and colleagues. Nominee Susan Riechert stood out and was selected by the education committee. Susan is the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Distinguished Service Professor. Susan is a dedicated teacher and has been recognized with both the UTK Hesler Award for Excellence in Teaching and Service, and the Tennessee Science Teachers Association, 2010 Science Educator of the Year award. Susan is also director of both the “Biology in a Box”, Science Outreach Program, and the “VolsTeach” Dual Career Path Program. Biology in a Box offers science outreach to students in more than 100 school systems throughout Tennessee. Vols Teach is a program to get STEM majors to earn a minor in education and an opportunity to explore teaching as a career.
• Subcommittee chair Stan Braude has continued to do an excellent job overseeing the PBDTA solicitation and voting procedure. SPLTrak now provides the nominating materials and ballot voting members of the Committee, which has been a great help to the Education Committee.
• Genesis Award: The Genesis Award recognizes outstanding poster presentations by undergraduates at the annual meeting. Sarah Humfeld has served as chair of this subcommittee for several years, but was unable to attend the 2017 meeting. Sarah organized the judges and scoring rubrics prior to the conference, and then turned the actual judging over to Education Committee member Carrie Hall. The Education Committee is very grateful to Carrie for stepping in. At the 2017 meeting, 13 judges reviewed 56 posters. Each poster was initially evaluated by two judges, and the semifinalists were visited by additional judges. The Genesis Award judges select Coby Behrens, a Turner student from Iowa State University, as the winner. Four honorable mentions were also awarded (Alexandra Dorison (U. of Toronto Scarborough), Cora Anne Romanow (U. of Winnipeg), Veronica Gerios (U. of Michigan Dearborn), and Archchana Rajmohan (U. of Toronto Scarborough). We increased and standardized the amount of the monetary award for Genesis ($300 for the winner and $100 for honorable mention). We note that, because the number of entries and number of awards varies considerably from year to year, we ask for a budget of $800 for the award; in most years, we will not need the full amount to cover all awards, but in some years, we might need this amount to account for instances of >1 winner, and/or multiple honorable mentions. The total amount awarded in 2017 was $700US. Beginning with the 2018 conference, Matthew Wund will chair this sub-committee.
• Children’s Book Award: Evaluators for the Children’s Book Award were Jennifer Mather (who became chair of the subcommittee this year), Jean Alupay, Crista Coppola and Emilie Snell-Rood (Carrie Hall was unable to evaluate this year, thanks Emilie for stepping in). We had 31 books this year, and finalists were Wolf Island, Honey Girl (a monk seal), The Elephant Keeper and Bird Brains. (in order of popularity with the children). Wolf Island was selected by our children reviewers as the winner. We had a great spatial diversity, from Canada’s west coast, Hawaii, Zambia and a researcher who worked in Puerto Rico. Honey Girl was also published in Spanish and Jean and Crista took advantage of that. Wolf Island was set in a protected Reserve Area. Honey Girl and The Elephant Keeper both had conservation themes, and the authors of both books had set aside some of the royalties for their respective conservation projects. Thanks to all the Committee members, and Lorena from SPLTRAK.
• Outreach Fair: Once again, Emilie Snell-Rood organized the Animal Behavior Outreach Fair. This event has become a fixture of the Animal Behavior Society Meeting, since its inception in 2011. The 2017 fair was scheduled to take place at the Toronto Zoo on June 12, but had to be re-located at the last minute due to a zookeeper strike at the zoo. We are most grateful to local host Maydianne Andrade for facilitating a rapid and successful move. The Fair was held on the University of Toronto, Scarborough campus on June 12, 2017 from 9:30-12:30 am. Approximately 70 elementary school children were bussed in from local schools for a field trip – around 40 ABS members from 12+ labs participated in running the event. Typically, approximately $1000-$1500 is spent on advertising for the fair, but this was not done for 2017. Costs were much lower than budgeted as a result. Approximately $1000 was spent on supplies and food. We are requesting the same budget for the Outreach Fair as in past years, given that we anticipate advertising and potentially rental costs in the future. Emilie is stepping down as chair of the Outreach Fair subcommittee. For 2018, Sue Margulis is organizing the fair, with assistance from Sarah Humfeld and local host Gerlinde Hoebel. This is a short-term measure, and the Education Committee will need to identify another dedicated individual to take on this subcommittee. While it is of course not a requirement to hold an outreach fair each year, this has become a valuable contribution to the meeting and a means to reach the local communities in which our conferences are held. Identifying a new chair for this subcommittee will be a major task for the committee this year.
• Educational Resources and Innovations This subcommittee has been charged with a number of initiatives, including organizing workshops for the conference, contributing to the Eco-Ed Digital Library, maintaining the Education Committee website, and posting to the Education Committee Facebook Page. Heather Zimbler-DeLorenzo chairs the workshop portion of this subcommittee, and along with other committee members (most notably Laura Sirot), she has organized workshops for recent ABS meetings. For the 54th Annual Conference of the Animal Behavior Society in Toronto, Canada in June 2017, the subcommittee held a half-day pre- conference workshop “Teaching Workshop: Re-Invigorating Your Classroom with Module-Based Teaching.” The workshop, led by Heather Zimbler-DeLorenzo, Laura Sirot, Andrea Bierema, and Anne Clark was free for participants. It focused on introducing the module-based approach for teaching animal behavior topics. Participants (84 registered) worked in small groups on specific case studies and developed CREATE prompts. Groups then created module lesson plan and resources. All of these were made available on a shared google drive for all participants. The workshop was funded by the ABS Executive Committee ($2000) and the Education Committee ($1000). For 2019, the subcommittee plans to request $1000 for a half-day preconference workshop to continue to help those teaching animal behavior. The proposed workshop would focus on animal behavior lab activities. A request to the Executive Committee is forthcoming.
• In addition to workshops, this subcommittee is also tasked with maintaining and supporting our social media presence. Several committee members, including Eduardo Bessa, Laura Sirot, and Heather Zimbler-DeLorenzo, posted periodically on the FB page, but we continue to struggle to really gain momentum with this function of subcommittee. Andrea Bierema made initial efforts to revise the Education Committee web page, but we had difficulty finding some of the original documents and materials that populate this page. Working on our social media presence will be a primary focus for the coming year.
• Outreach Grant: Our newest initiative during the 2017-18 year was the initiation of Education Outreach grants. Modeled after an education outreach grant offered by the Society for the Study of Evolution, the effort was spearheaded by Dale Broder, who chaired this subcommittee. Dale and three other members of the education committee reviewed the grant proposal submissions using a rubric that this subcommittee made. The process worked very well, and four grants of $500 each were awarded, however we note two issues. First, there were a small number of submissions (only four, all of which received funding). This is not unexpected given that this was the first time the grant has been offered. Our hope was that we would receive a larger number of applications (perhaps as many as ten), and fund four to five of them. To get closer to that target, we may consider advertising more broadly next year, using the link to submission (http://www.animalbehaviorsociety.org/web/education-outreachaward.php) as a way to promote the grant, while also making it clear that applicants must be ABS members. We will also post updates from this year’s recipients on the FB page to further get the word out. Second, we believe the award amount should be increased. Speaking as one of the award recipients, I needed to augment funds considerably in order to accomplish my project. A grant of $1000 would have made the effort much easier. We will be requesting an increase in funding for outreach grants in the coming year. This year’s recipients were: Giridhar Malla: An initiative to create awareness about behaviour and conservation of a globally threatened small cat among the kids of a fishing community in India. Sue Margulis and Tiffany Vanderwerf: Encouraging Animal Behavior Studies in Science Fairs.
Ted Stankowich: The Science of Wildlife Conservation and Pet Safety, a Community Outreach Study. Brooke Woelber: Science Friday!
Activities for next year
• The current Education Committee Chair is completing a three-year term. Therefore, a new committee chair for the Education Committee will need to be identified. Two members of the Education Committee have expressed interest, and after some discussion amongst the two individuals, I recommend Heather Zimbler-DeLorenzo as the next Education Committee chair.
• Identify new subcommittee chair for the Outreach Fair subcommittee. This is a significant task – I have found it a challenge to accomplish, and I am so impressed and indebted to Emilie Snell-Rood for orchestrating this for seven years. A dedicated and committed individual will need to take this task on.
• Request additional funding for the Outreach Grants program. Although this program is young, I feel it has great potential, even more so if the size of the awards could be increased. In 2017-18, we gave four awards for a total of $2000. For 2018-19, we are requesting a maximum of $5000 (up to five awards of up to $1000 each).
• Expand use of Facebook Page and update the Education Committee web page. We need to ensure that our media presence increases, and while there are many ways to do this (committee members younger than I will no doubt be more familiar with other options), FB and our web page represent our first steps. We have struggled during the past two years to effectively use these tools but aim to increase our efforts during the coming year.

Film Committee: Barbara A. Clucas
Past Year
A. Current Committee Members:
Barbara Clucas, Chair (2014-)
Cassandra Nunez, Judge
John Swaddle, Judge
Chris Templeton, Judge
Michael Noonan, Judge and past Chair

B. Last Year’s Actions (2017/2018):

At the 2017 ABS Film Festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada we had good attendance. Working with the local host and SPLtrak, I was able to organize concessions (e.g., popcorn) and beverages to be sold outside the room by a local vendor and I believe this increased attendance as it did in previous years. Overall, the 2017 Film Festival went well.

As in previous years, I created a Withoutabox (WAB) webpage for the 2018 ABS Film Festival soliciting films that depict animal behavior in an educational and scientific manner (with two categories: commercial and non-commercial). The deadline for films to be entered was May 31st, I received a total of 55 film submissions via WAB and 3 film submissions via email for a total of 58 films (17 commercial, 41 non-commercial). This is a lower turnout compared to last year (104 submissions). After reviewing each film, those that did not meet the baseline criteria were removed from consideration. Those remaining were ranked based on their accurate depiction of animal behavior, quality of narration, quality of videography, degree of anthropomorphism (scored lower for excessive use), and overall appeal of the film. The top 2 films in in the commercial category were then selected to be showcased at the ABS Film Festival to be held August 4, 2018 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where the final ranking decision will be made with input from film committee members and audience at the festival. For the non-commercial category, only one film was of sufficient quality and eligibility to be shown at the film festival, so the film committee members and audience will decide if that film should be awarded best non-commercial or not.

I will have to pay WAB $795 for use of the website before the end of the year. I have been working with SPLtrak to organize popcorn and possibly beverages.

C. Activities for [2018/2019]:
I plan using the Withoutabox (WAB) webpage again to solicit films for the 2019 ABS Film Festival in Chicago, Illinois. This service is invaluable because WAB is where filmmakers go to see what festivals are occurring in a given year and allows for them to upload their films for consideration. I will review films using methods described above in section B.
I also plan to work with the ABS meeting organizers for ABS 2019 in Chicago to select a date and time that would allow for maximum participation in the festival as well as providing an option of concessions and beverages for festival attendees.

Applied Animal Behavior Committee: Robin L. Foster
Past Year

Board of Professional Certification Subcommittee: Crista Coppola
Past Year
• Twelve CAABs/ACAABs attended and/or presented at the 2017 Annual ABS Meeting
• Five CAABs/ACAABs participated in ABS Outreach Fair at the 2017 Annual ABS Meeting
• 2017 Meet and Greet was attended by 12 CAAB/ACAABs and approximately 20 interested students
• A Meet and Greet has been organized by the BPC for the 2018 Meeting
• The BPC reviewed three new CAAB/ACAAB applications and three recertification applications. Certification was granted to three new CAABs, and recertification was granted to three CAAB /ACAABs. One ACAAB application was returned to the applicant for ineligibility and is currently being advised on ACAAB requirements.
• The ABS Certification program currently has 51 CAAB/ACAAB members.
• The BPC Chair responded to approximately 25 emails directly regarding questions about animal behavior, CAAB/ACAAB certification, graduate education and pet behavior problems. The BPC Chair advised SPLTrak on answering approximately 10 emails regarding questions about animal behavior, CAAB/ACAAB certification, graduate education and pet behavior problems. SPLTrak responded to approximately 30 emails regarding Certification and Graduate Education
• CAAB Facebook page is maintained and regularly updated by CAAB members
• CAAB members have organized a Public Day for 2018 Meeting

Public Affairs Committee: Danielle Whittaker & Katerina Thompson, co-chairs

Current Committee Members:
Danielle Whittaker, Interim Co-Chair (July 2017-July 2018)
Katerina (Kaci) Thompson, Interim Co-Chair (July 2017-July 2018)
Todd Shackleford
Stacey Weiss
Past year
• Hosted a 3 Minute Thesis Competition. Founded at the University of Queensland, this competition requires students to present their graduate research in just 3 minutes with a single slide, in language appropriate to a non-specialist audience. Participants are judged on their ability to clearly describe their research and to engage the audience.
• Katerina Thompson led a workshop on Science Communication - "Writing Compelling Grant Proposals: Science Education and Broader Impacts"
• Sponsored a graduate student (Matthew Baker, University of Nebraska) to participate in the AIBS Congressional Day Visits and the AIBS Communications Boot Camp for Scientists in April 2018.
• Posted opportunities for Outreach from AIBS on our Facebook page, and posted some news items of interest.

Activities for next year
• We will again host the 3 Minute Thesis Competition at ABS 2018, and we plan to sponsor another student for the AIBS Congressional Day Visits in 2019.
• There is no outreach seminar scheduled for ABS 2018 but we are beginning to plan one for 2019.
• We will expand the committee to include more graduate students and postdocs.
• We will increase our social media presence, and will recruit a social media intern to help. This is a high priority, as our social media presence has not been strong.

Latin American Affairs Committee: Lilian Tonelli Manica

Current members:
Lilian Manica*, Chair (2015 - 2018) Universidade Federal do Paraná
Zuleyma Tang-Martínez* (1995 – indefinite) University of Missouri St Louis Luciana Baruffaldi* (2013-2018) Univ. of Toronto Scarborough (Uruguay)
Oscar Sánchez-Macouzet (2015-2018) Univ. Autonoma de Mexico
Hugh Drummond (2015-2018)* Univ. Autonoma de Mexico
Paulo Enrique Cardoso Peixoto* (2015-2018) Univ. Estadual Feira de Santana Bahia

Past Year
• Latin American Lunch and Friends 2018 ABS Toronto: our traditional meeting counted with approximately 35 ABS members and was a good space to bring Latins ́ ABS members closer to the society and to discuss challenges and possibilities for increasing our representation.
• Organization of the workshop “Broadening your impacts through authentic research partnerships with minority-serving and Latin American institutions”. The event was organized in collaboration with Daniel Howard, chair of the Diversity Committee and occurred during the 2018 ABS meeting at Toronto, CA. The workshop provided an interesting discussion about difficulties and challenges as well as benefits, advances, and positive achievements in the academic realm for minorities, including Latin Americans. The LAAC counted with the participation of Jeff Podos, Regina Macedo and Hugh Drummond as representatives of researchers with experience in collaborations involving Latin American ́s and other countries. Daniel Howard has also invited other seven panelists from MSI communities, who also provided substantial and rich improvement to the discussion. We considered it was a productive workshop, especially because it was good opportunity to hear and share with other ABS members histories of well-succeeded overseas collaborations.
Activities for next year
• 2018 meeting: Latin American Luncheon, Friday, August 3 at Channel Lounge – all Latins and allies are invited.
• 2018 meeting: We are contributing for bringing Dr. Klaus Jaffé to attend the “Animal Behavior in Historical Context” symposium, organized by Zuleyma Tang-Martinez, and for the talk entitled “Ethology and Animal Behavior in Latin America”. We expect also to have Dr. Klaus sharing his own experiences with other Latins at the traditional luncheon during the meeting.
• We postponed for the 2019 ABS meeting our previous plan of a workshop on topics that might be of interest of Latin and non-Latin members. Among our ideas for this event, we include experimental design, writing proposals for grants to support research projects and discussion about how animal behaviorists can deal with local financial and political crises in Latin America.

AAAS Liason
Current Committee Members: Sole member: Dan Rubenstein
Past Year (11-15 February 2018):
• Attended AAAS annual meeting in Austin, Texas
• Commented on agenda items at Section G (Biological Sciences Section) from the perspective of animal behavior; attended the symposium entitled ““Applying animal behavior to generate novel solutions to global challenges” organized by John Swaddle and Vanessa Ezenwa. It was well attended and well received and press picked it up and spread the word.

Diversity Committee: Daniel Howard

Past Year
• 2017 Charles Turner Undergraduate Program at the 54th Annual Conference of the Animal Behavior Society at the University of Toronto (all day pre-meeting workshop; Monday 12 June, 2017; 12 undergraduate students served (83% URM); workshop facilitated by DC member Carrie Hall and Delia Shelton, assisted by DC chairperson Daniel Howard.
• 2017 Undergraduate Luncheon and Orientation Program (lunch event Tuesday 13 June 2017; ~60 UG students served; speakers included Michelle Elekonich – NSF, Damien Elias – University of California Berkeley, Liz Tibbetts – University of Michigan, and Alex Ophir, Cornell University; event facilitated by DC Katherine Crocker.
• Conducted selection process for the 2017 Diversity Travel Award. Selected 48 applicants via random lottery, $6,100 in registration waivers awarded. Identified 20 additional students qualified to receive the award, for a total of 68 Diversity Travel Awards (~$9,100).
• Conducted a joint workshop with the ABS Latin American Affairs Committee entitled: Broadening our Impacts; establishing and nurturing research partnerships with U.S. minority-serving and Latin American institutions (June 14, 2017). Served ~30 workshop participants.
ABS Diversity Committee membership changes after summer 2017. Term expire for DC member Damien Elias. Invited for membership after DC nomination, Carrie L. Hall (University of New Hampshire). Current DC Chairperson Daniel R. Howard agreed to extension as chairperson another term, or until another DC member indicates interest (whichever is shorter).
Motions submitted to and voted on by EC at the 2017 ABS meeting at the University of Toronto:
• Funding approved for 2018 Charles Turner Undergraduate Program at the 55th Annual Conference of the Animal Behavior Society at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee - $15,000 for programming.
• Funding approved for 2018 Undergraduate Luncheon and Orientation at the at the 55th Annual Conference of the Animal Behavior Society at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee - $1,500 for programming.
C. Activities for [2018-2019]: List proposed goals for coming year in as much details as necessary.
• Conduct the 2018 Charles Turner Undergraduate Program at the at the 55th Annual Conference of the Animal Behavior Society at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (pre-meeting workshop). 12 UG students invited (67% URM, & 75% female); workshop facilitated by Daniel R. Howard and Carrie Hall.
• Conduct the 2018 Undergraduate Luncheon and Orientation at the at the 55th Annual Conference of the Animal Behavior Society at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee; planning for ~60 Undergraduate students; speakers to include Michelle Elekonich – NSF, Danielle Lee, University of Southern Illinois Edwardsville, Alex Ophir, Cornell University; event facilitated by DC member Katherine Crocker.
• 2018 Diversity Committee general meeting, working lunch, Sunday August 5th 2018. Issues on agenda: panel/workshop ideas for 2019 ABS meeting, new DC member nominations, 2019 Turner Program and Undergraduate Luncheon program facilitation, expiration of current membership terms.
D. Motions for votes by Executive Committee: List motions that will require EC approval.
• Funding request for 2019 Charles Turner Undergraduate Program at the 55th Annual Conference of the
Animal Behavior Society in Tennessee - $15,000 for programming.
• Funding request 2019 Undergraduate Luncheon and Orientation Program at the 55th Annual Conference of the Animal Behavior Society in Tennessee - $1,500 for programming.
• Continued funding for the Diversity Travel Award for 2019 ABS conference in Chicago - $5,000 for registration waivers for qualified URM graduate student and early career conference attendees.

By Law Votes

• Amended Section 5 of Bylaws (EC vote at EC meeting 6/12/17).
• Added Sections 10 and 11 to Bylaws (EC vote at EC meeting 6/12/17).

Policy Votes

• Amended Section 5A of Policy (EC vote at EC meeting 6/12/17).
• Added Section 12f of Policy (EC vote at EC meeting 6/12/17). Amended Section 12 of Policy (Approved by EC e-vote 7/17).
• Amended Section 20 of Policy (Approved by EC e-vote 7/17).
• Amended Section 6 of Policy (Approved by EC e-vote 8/17). Amended Section 25 of Policy (Approved by EC e-vote 9/17).
• Amended Section 9 of Policy (Approved by EC e-vote 10/17).
• Amended Section 5B, 6, 7d, 12 and 18 of policy (Approved by EC vote 08/18)

Other Votes

Add a new conservation award
1. New ABS award proposed to be named after Richard Buchholz, and handled by the conservation committee. Solicit nomination and handle award selection.
Moved: Jeff Podos
Second: Tamra Mendelson
Vote: In Favor: 13, Opposed: 0; Abstentions: 0; MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY

Preferred Pronouns
2. Allow the opportunity for people to provide their preferred gender pronouns when they register for the meeting as an option. This will be represented in their badges.
Moved by Jonathan Pruitt
Second: Gil Rosenthal
Vote: In Favor: 12, Opposed: 1; Abstentions: 0; MOTION PASSED

Nominate new Committee members by AAB Committee

3. Motion: Approve changes of committee members as requested in the report.
Moved: AAB Committee. Motion was not voted on. New members of committees do not require EC approval, only approval by the President.

Provide funding for snacks for outreach event

4. Motion: Provide funding for coffee break/snacks for Applied animal behavior Public Day outreach event.
Moved by AAB Committee
Second: Jonathan Pruitt
Vote: In Favor: 13, Opposed: 0; Abstentions: 0. MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY

Add an Applied Animal Behavior Plenary
5. Motion: AABC members proposed the creation of a Tuber Plenary in Applied Animal Behavior to be funded with remaining Tuber funds, with a speaker to be nominated by the AABC. Moved by AAB committee. This motion was not voted on. There is a procedure in place for selecting plenary speakers and anyone can nominate candidates.

Extension of organizational Liability
6. Motion: We request an extension of ABS organizational liability insurance to members of the BPC and the AABC Chair, who are individually and collectively liable for legal issues related to professional certification. These members should be protected through the organization’s insurance policy. Moved by AAB committee. This motion was not voted on. We are examining our institutional liability before we can discuss.

Nominate new Committee members by BPC Committee

7. Motion: Approve changes of committee members as requested in the report.
Moved: BPC Committee. Motion was not voted on. New members of committees do not require EC approval, only approval by the President.

Reduce newsletters from four to three
8. Motion: That ABS publishes only 3 newsletters a year Spring, Summer and Fall, rather than February, May, August and October, redistributing all the information in the new format.
Moved: Patricia Brennan
Second: Alison Bell
Vote: In Favor: 13, Opposed: 0; Abstentions: 0. MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY

Creation of a new Podcast
9) Motion: That we fully support and fund the proposed creation of a podcast to showcase animal behavior research as suggested by the graduate student EC representative.
Moved: Jeff Podos
Second: Gil Rosenthal.
Vote: In Favor: 13, Opposed: 0; Abstentions: 0. MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY

Approve the budget
10) Motion: To approve the 2018-2019 budget.
Move: Gil Rosenthal
Second: John Swaddle
Vote: In Favor: 13, Opposed: 0; Abstentions: 0. MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY

As a result of a discussion on how to increase diversity and inclusion in our society, we passed the following motion

Diversity and Inclusion
11) Motion to incorporate some of the EC Meeting discussion of diversity and inclusion into the policies below.
Moved: John Swaddle
Second: Patty Brennan
Vote: In Favor: 13, Opposed: 0; Abstentions: 0. MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY

Unopposed elections for some EC members
12) Motion to have unopposed elections for the positions of Treasurer, Secretary, and Parliamentarian.
Moved by: John Swaddle
Second by: EmilyDuVal
This would change the bylaws, section 4, article 4. BOLD is the current text. Underlined text is the change, with strikethrough.
Section 4. Nomination Committee:
a. Shall consist of the immediate Past-president as Chairperson and the two Presidents who preceded him or her in office.
b. Shall assemble a slate of at least one candidate for Executive Editor, Treasurer, Secretary, and Parliamentarian and at least two candidates for all other elected offices of the Society.
c. Forward said slate of candidates to the Secretary who will arrange for its publication in ballot form in the NEWSLETTER.
Because this was a bylaw change it required a vote during the business meeting, but we did not do it because we thought we were only changing policy. We will submit this vote along with the new officers ballot to the membership.

We had extensive discussions on how to continue to improve our meetings in the future, the results of the membership survey regarding the strategic plan (report continues at the end of these minutes), and the topics of strategies for how to prevent and deal with harassment of and by society members, how to increase diversity of speakers at the meeting, including plenaries, awards, symposia etc. We also discussed whether we can continue to support a Board of Certifications for Animal Behavior through the society. We agreed to explore the possibility of hiring a professional mediator to work on issues of harassment within the society, not just during the meetings, but in any professional context. Patty Brennan agreed to follow up with the person hired by SSE as part of their Safe Evolution strategy.
We will dedicate time this year to continue to work on these important issues.

ABS Strategic Initiatives report for Executive Committee, August 2018
Submitted by John Swaddle

Background

In April 2018 we circulated a two-question electronic survey to the ABS membership, along with a link to the current ABS Strategic Plan. We received 106 responses. The two questions were:

Given the strategic priorities in the attached document, please briefly describe ONE strategic initiative that you would regard as high priority for ABS. This could be an initiative that is already mentioned in the ABS Strategic Plan or something else that aligns with the strategic priorities.

This year, in line with our strategic priorities, we will write a short white paper that describes the importance and relevance of animal behavior research and education to society, in a broad sense. We would like to receive your input. Please briefly describe below any related activities or initiatives that you would like to bring to our attention as we start to draft this white paper.

Below, I summarize the overall trends in responses to the first of these questions. We will address the second question at a later date.

Summary of Findings

There was strong positive support for all four general themes set out in the ABS Strategic Plan (recruit and retain a diverse membership; advocate more strongly for animal behavior science; enhance outreach and teaching efforts; support ABS members).

Most of the respondents made direct comments that related to advocating for animal behavior and/or increasing outreach efforts to the general public. Many comments blended these elements together. In particular, many members expressed concerning about the future of animal behavior, as a field of science, and want the ABS to take steps to make animal behavior more obviously valuable and relevant as both a basic and applied science. Below are some of the aggregated suggestions made by members:
• Basic science
• There were numerous call for stronger advocacy with funding agencies and organizations and for more partnerships with aligned academic societies to better leverage this work. The demise of funding is a pressing issue. There may be new funding opportunities with private foundations and corporations.
• Consider more representation of mechanisms in how talks/posters are organized at the conference (rather than around behavioral categories such as mating, foraging, etc.) and also represented in the Society’s journal—Animal Behaviour. There are concerns that the field is becoming less integrative and mechanism-oriented people are leaving for other academic societies.
• Applied science and societal relevance.
• Diversify and expand the conception of applied animal behavior. Go beyond companion and domesticated animal-human interactions to include all animal-human interactions. If conceived of this way, then animal behavior becomes immediately more relevant to addressing society’s needs.
• Build stronger connections between the current group that are identified as “Applied Animal Behaviorists” and the rest of the membership, perhaps through joint outreach and advocacy programming, joint training programs, more career information and workshops.
• Represent societal applications of animal behavior more broadly, including on the website, through media channels (which might include YouTube, social media platforms, partnerships with media companies and journalists), and through the Society’s journal—Animal Behaviour.
• Consider a concerted effort to launch a Citizen Science program in animal behavior
• Teaching. There was continued interest in some form of database or clearing house for teaching/educational materials.

Many respondents affirmed the Society’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, and linked that to professional development opportunities for ABS members. Some of the suggestions included:
• Mentorship and networking programs. There were calls for a database or platform that could help ABS members be in contact with each other for professional development opportunities, both at the annual meeting and virtually at other times. This would help with career progression but would also help with connecting behaviorists from different subfields, which would strengthen research programs.
• Professional development programming. Both at the annual meeting and through other venues, many members expressed interest in programming related to both academic and non-academic career paths, including workshops. Many of the comments related to early career stages, including having more visible information about non-academic career paths in animal behavior.
• Adjustments to the annual meeting that can help with these topics, included:
• Adding gender pronouns to name badges
• Insisting on equitable facilities at the venue, including gender-neutral bathrooms, lactation rooms, full accessibility information on maps, clear information about first aid facilities
• Turner program: can we remove any up-front costs to applicants? Are there funds to bring the mentors to the meeting as well as the students?
• Banquet: can we lower the price for some groups? Can we separate the party from the food?
• Consider that the membership could vote for “best” posters and talks?
Specific Recommendations to the EC

Following this information gathering and processing, I propose some specific recommendations to the EC.

• Complete the intended white paper that describes how animal behavior is relevant to society at large, by the end of 2019.
• Form an ad-hoc committee to construct materials that will clearly articulate the scientific value of animal behavior, targeted for funding agencies (public and private). Starting in 2019, representatives from this committee and EC will meet with relevant external bodies to actively communicate this information. All of this may be achieved in collaboration with other academic societies and entities. Explore schedules for joint society meetings and proactive solicitation of symposia to expand the integrative nature of the conference.
• Charge the Public Affairs Officer, in consultation with any groups deemed appropriate, with developing a 3 to 5-year set of strategic initiatives that will help with outreach activities. This should include conversations with the CAAB group.
• Form an ad-hoc committee to explore the formation of a formal mentoring-networking program at ABS, with the goal of creating a firm set of recommendations in 2019. The remit of this committee should include generating mechanisms for strengthening connections between basic and applied science.
• For the annual meeting:
• Starting in 2019, implement at least two professional development activities per meeting, with at least one of these focused on academic careers and one on non-academic careers
• Ask the Diversity Committee for recommendations, following this report, on how to best make the annual meeting as accessible as possible

Action items following discussion with the EC in August 2018

• John Swaddle will continue to work on the white paper that describes how animal behavior is relevant to society at large
• Jennifer Fewell and John Swaddle will collaborate, with Emila Martins and Zuleyma Tang-Martinez, to brainstorm ways to sustain elements of the “Weaving the Future of Animal Behavior” workshops and activities into more permanent activities by ABS. There will be a particular focus on mentoring and networking.
• Esteban Fernandez-Juricic will lead the ad-hoc committee whose goal is to construct materials that will clearly articulate the scientific value of animal behavior
• John Swaddle will send the Program Officers all of the recommendations related to the annual meeting. The Program Officers will decide how to proceed, in consultation with other groups.



ABS Business Meeting Minutes
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Union Ballroom, August 5th, 2018 1:30-2:30pm

President Jeff Podos introduced the meeting, and reiterated that the Society is member run, and that we always welcome member initiatives.

He introduced the Executive committee, and thanked the four officers that are completing their term at the end of this meeting (Jonathan Pruitt, >usan Foster, Emily DuVal, and Bill Searcy).
He introduced the new officers that are starting immediately after the conference (Liz Tibbets, Esteban Fernandez-Juricic, Danielle Whittaker, Nancy Solomon and Katherine Crocker).

He also presented the list of candidates for election of new officers (Second-President-Elect Sue Margulis (Canisius College), Eileen Hebets (University of Nebraska)
Treasurer Scott MacDougall-Shackleton (University of Western Ontario), Jordan Price (St. Mary’s College of Maryland). Program Officer Tim Wright (New Mexico State), Jacinta Beehner (University of Michigan, Member-At-Large Lilian Manica (Universidade Federal do Paraná), Noa Pinter-Wollman (UCLA), Parliamentarian, Colette St. Mary (University of Florida) Todd Freeberg (University of Tennessee.
The highlights of this year are two member-initiated programs: the “Weaving the future of animal behavior” workshop, and the Puerto Rico aid grants for researchers that needed help after hurricane Maria.

Jeff announced that we always need help with committees and this year in particular we are seeking a chair for the Film Committee and members for the Public Affairs Committee.

Executive Editor Report
• The Journal is doing well overall
• Profit share from the publisher is strong and is a big reason for our fiscal soundness
• However, our submissions were down 18% to 328 research articles. The UK office received 519 research articles, down 17%
• Our impact factor declined substantially in 2016 from 3.169 to 2.86, but increased this year to 3.067
• Our acceptance rate was 34% up from 25.8%
• Time from submission to first decision is 36.4 days and is better than related journals (and less than the 40 days Elsevier suggests for a journal our size)
• Submission to online publication is 33.9 weeks, up by nearly 9 weeks due to a decrease in personnel in the offices
• Author satisfaction is high
Questions from members:
• Why are there so few personnel in the office? Kris Brunner cannot find temporary help.
• Reduced number of submissions may be because the journal is associated with Elsevier and some members want to avoid publishing house models.
• Do other journals see a decline on submissions? We do not know.
• Suggestions for improvement: Change format? Allow Rapid short format papers. Any thought to include short format going forward. Bring back short communications?

President Elect: John Swaddle
Strategic planning report.

• Survey in April 2018, >100 respondents
• Suggestions aligned well with Strategic Plan
o Diversity and inclusion
o Advocating for animal behavior: scientifically and with public
• Two important documents/materials
o Scientific importance/relevance of animal behavior (Esteban Fernandez-Juricic)
o Societal relevance/applications of animal behavior (John Swaddle)
• Public Affairs reboot (Danielle Whittaker, Katherine Crocker)
o Add your stories/news. Contribute to podcasts.
• Weaving the Future of Animal Behavior” (Emilia Martins, Jennifer Fewell, Zuleyma Tang-Martinez), workshops and activities.
• Looking to institutionalize mentoring and networking elements for ABS members.
• More professional development opportunities (academic and non-academic career support).

Questions from members:
Increasing the stakeholders in animal behavior? Broaden to fisheries, management, and involvement from Federal and State agencies? include them in the meeting? John requested that members email with ideas.

Parliamentarian Tamra Mendelson

Constitutional changes
Article 6: (Meetings) Society vote 2/2/18
A quorum for the Executive Committee shall be at least 2/3 of the committee's voting members.
Article 8: (Elections) Society vote 2/2/18
Additional nominations for all positions except for the Graduate Student Representative may be made in letters to the Executive Committee signed by five or more members in good standing and submitted by the deadline announced in the NEWSLETTER. The full slate of graduate student representatives shall be selected at the business meeting of the prior Annual Meeting of the Society

Tamra attended a meeting on the Nagoya protocol. She will write a short piece for the newsletter.

Questions from members: Who qualifies for the graduate student representative? Does it have to be someone who is a graduate student at the moment/ check this language.

Secretary Patty Brennan
Motions of note:
1 Add a new Conservation Award
New ABS award proposed to be named after Richard Buchholtz, and handled by the conservation committee. Solicit nomination and handle award selection.
2. Preferred Pronouns
Allow the opportunity for people to provide their preferred gender pronouns when they register for the meeting as an option. This will be represented in their badges.
3. Reduce newsletters from four to three
Motion: That ABS publishes only 3 newsletters a year Spring, Summer and Fall, rather than February, May, August and October, redistributing all the information in the new format.
4. Creation of a new Podcast
Motion: That we fully support and fund the proposed creation of a podcast to showcase animal behavior research as suggested by the Graduate Student EC Representative.
5. Approve the budget
Motion: To approve the 2018-2019 budget.
6. Unopposed elections for some EC offices
Treasurer, Secretary and Parliamentarian.
7. Incorporate some of the EC Meeting discussion of diversity and inclusion into some policies
Pertaining fellow nominations, nominations for plenary speakers (“and explain how the nominee has contributed positively to dimensions of diversity and inclusion”).

MALs: Emily DuVal

Caregiver award:
All six applications were funded, but we gave away only half the money we had allocated to this. How can we increase applications?

Questions from members:
• Puerto Rico in the future? Still an impact. These are likely to continue in the future
• How about an emergencies happen award? We discussed but decided to have this be member driven. So please contact your president.
• Caregiver award: Last minute flexibility for when care plans fall through?

Treasurer: Gil Rosenthal

We broke even this year, with income of $397,497.32 and expenses of $397,639.79 (deficit of $142.47)
Our two sources of income are the journal profit share and the memberships. The journal profit share is doing very well, but we have a worrisome decline on membership not associated with meeting attendance. Gil will look into these data to figure out why the decline and write a report.
Ideas from members:
• Automatically renewing membership
• Lifetime membership but pay it in installments?

We had a dramatic increase in donations for the Puerto Rico grant program. Thank you.

Our investments are in great shape. We got a 9.5% return on investment this past year. We rebalanced our portfolio form 60/40 stocks/bonds to 55/45.
We have too much cash in hand, so we would like to reinvest some of it.

We have a pending resolution: Jim Quinn led a group proposing a resolution to divest ABS investment holdings from fossil fuels. There is a consensus among the EC that we should achieve this by switching to a social index fund in our existing Vanguard portfolio (VFTSX), assuming this satisfies the terms of the resolution.

Anticipated income for 2018-2019
310,000 profit share + $60,000 membership dues + $5,000 donations = $375,000 (same as last year)
We are carrying an accumulated surplus of > $60,000
And we haven’t taken a distribution from investments since 2014

Proposed budget
•Funding all committee budget requests
•Budget largely unchanged from last year except:
•$1,000 for Latin American Affairs grant writing workshop
•Education committee requests 4 x 1000 grants instead of 4 x 500 grants.
•$3,350 towards conservation workshop in 2019
•$1,000 for refreshments on AAB public day

Program Officers: Jonathan Pruitt and Alison Bell

This year’s conference:
Total Attendees - 589
261 talks
31 Invites talks
145 Posters - including new this year! - 6 ePosters
over 300 different Universities/Affiliations- see attached
28 countries are represented
Australia, Austria, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, South Africa, Suriname, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand, United States, United Kingdom, Uruguay...

Zuleyma Tang-Martinez (ABS Historian): 42d Year of continuous attendance at ABS meetings

Thank you to the local hosts: Peter Dunn, Gerlinde Hoebel, Rafael Rodriguez, and Linda Whittingham and all of the UWM graduate students volunteers and staff.

Thank you to SPL track: Adam Kohm, Jamie Price, Lorena McMahon, Melissa Szkodzinska, and Sandra Montoya.
We look forward to seeing you in Chicago for the Behavior 2019 meeting July 23-27.

 
ABS Newsletter

Send general correspondence concerning the Society to Danielle J. Whittaker, Public Affairs Officer, at: publicaffairs@
animalbehaviorsociety.org
. Deadlines for materials to be included in the Newsletter are the 15th of the month preceding each issue. The next deadline is February 15, 2019. Articles submitted by members of the Society and judged by the Secretary to be appropriate are occasionally published in the ABS newsletter. The publication of such material does not imply ABS endorsement of the opinions expressed by contributors.

Animal Behavior Society Website: http://www.animalbehaviorsociety.org

Animal Behavior

Animal Behavior, manuscripts and editorial matters: Authors should submit manuscripts online to Elsevier’s Editorial System (http://ees.elsevier.com/anbeh/). For enquiries relating to submissions prior to acceptance, contact the Journal Manager ([email protected]). For enquiries relating to submissions after acceptance, visit Elsevier at http://www.elsevier.com/journals. For other general correspondence, contact Kris Bruner, Managing Editor, Animal Behaviour, Indiana University, 407 N. Park Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. Phone: 812-935-7188.

Change of address, missing or defective issues: ABS Central Office, 2111 Chestnut Avenue, Suite 145, Glenview, IL 60025, US. Phone: 312-893-6585. Fax: 312-896-5614. E-mail: [email protected].