The Society of Systematic Biologists advances 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.
Recent News
2023 SSB Standalone Meeting (México City, México)
The fifth SSB standalone meeting will be held on the campus of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in México City, México on Jan. 14th and 15th, 2023. Pre-meeting workshops will be held on Jan. 12th and 13th.
Visit the meeting website to learn more!
Submission of talk abstracts, as well as proposals for forums and workshops, will open on September 15th, 2022, with a submission deadline of October 15th.
Apply for a Mini-ARTS award!
Mini-ARTS awards are designed to allow SSB members (students, post-docs, and faculty) to spend a summer or semester apprenticed to an expert in a particular taxonomic group or to enhance revisionary taxonomic and systematics research in novel ways. Goals of this award program are to address constraints on our knowledge of undescribed biodiversity, assist in passing on taxonomic expertise before it is lost, increase the number of students with broad training in organismal biology and systematics, and support projects in biodiversity and taxonomy informatics as well as monographic and revisionary taxonomy. Activities can include a trip to the taxonomist's laboratory, pay for the taxonomist to visit the applicant's laboratory for a period of time, or pay for costs of computer time or development of interactive keys for electronic dissemination of systematics results. Requests for support may be for any amount up to USD 4,000.
The deadline to apply is Sept. 9th, 2022, at 12 pm Eastern.
Apply here!
The deadline to apply is Sept. 9th, 2022, at 12 pm Eastern.
Apply here!
Call for Ideas!
Systematic Biology 75th Anniversary
The Legacy Committee of the Society of Systematic Biologists is preparing to celebrate the 75th anniversary of its premier journal in 2026 with a special section that will run throughout the volume. We are calling for nominations related to that celebration in two categories: 1) Proposals for topics that would be most appropriate to cover in one of a series of “Evolving View/Timeline” papers, and 2) Notable Papers that have been published in Systematic Biology (formerly Systematic Zoology).
1) A nomination for a proposed “Evolving View/Timeline” paper should include suggested authors or a designated coordinator, plus a one-paragraph justification of the topic area. An example of such a paper (that originated as part of the SSB phylogenomic support symposium at Evolution 2019) can be found here.
2) Nominations for “Notable Papers” should include the full citation, the abstract of the paper or a summary, and a one-paragraph explanation of the paper’s importance. Selected papers, along with their justifications, will be posted in a dedicated place on the publisher’s website. Nominations may be from any era of the journal's history, including those published under the journal's prior title, Systematic Zoology.
To submit a proposal or a nomination:
Please send nominations by email to legacy@systematicbiologists.org, with the subject line reading “Notable Papers” or “Evolving View/Timeline”, as appropriate. Nominations should be received by 1 October 2022. The Legacy Committee will review the nominations and make recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief of Systematic Biology for approval.
If selected, the Editor-in-Chief will contact the nominating parties and commission the review.
1) A nomination for a proposed “Evolving View/Timeline” paper should include suggested authors or a designated coordinator, plus a one-paragraph justification of the topic area. An example of such a paper (that originated as part of the SSB phylogenomic support symposium at Evolution 2019) can be found here.
2) Nominations for “Notable Papers” should include the full citation, the abstract of the paper or a summary, and a one-paragraph explanation of the paper’s importance. Selected papers, along with their justifications, will be posted in a dedicated place on the publisher’s website. Nominations may be from any era of the journal's history, including those published under the journal's prior title, Systematic Zoology.
To submit a proposal or a nomination:
Please send nominations by email to legacy@systematicbiologists.org, with the subject line reading “Notable Papers” or “Evolving View/Timeline”, as appropriate. Nominations should be received by 1 October 2022. The Legacy Committee will review the nominations and make recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief of Systematic Biology for approval.
If selected, the Editor-in-Chief will contact the nominating parties and commission the review.
Proposed Code of Ethics
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Since 2018, there has been a tri-society initiative to develop a Code of Ethics for the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the American Society of Naturalists. While behavior at the annual Evolution meeting falls under a Code of Conduct, the societies currently have no policies regarding conduct outside the meeting. Adopting Codes of Ethics will allow the societies to establish explicit standards of excellence and a transparent process for upholding these standards, and in so doing, foster societies that are welcoming for everyone. The three societies have now each drafted their own Codes of Ethics. Before each Code is put into place, we are seeking our members’ feedback and approval.
We invite you to visit the Code of Ethics website, review the standards of conduct and processes for enforcement, ask any questions you may have, and give your feedback before March 7, 2022. Thank you for your participation! |
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SSB Legacy Committee
The new SSB Legacy Committee is working to create accessible content about our society's history. The founding members are Chris Simon, Michael Landis, Jim Rohlf, Gary Schnell, and Rosana Zenil-Ferguson. Go here for more information, and expect more soon.
Isabel Sanmartín is the next Editor-in-Chief Elect of Systematic Biology
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We are pleased to announce that Dr. Isabel Sanmartín, Senior Research Scientist at Real Jardin Botanico-CSIC, has agreed to serve as the next Editor-in-Chief for Systematic Biology. Dr. Sanmartín’s term will begin in January 2022 with a year in the position of Editor-Elect while current EiC Dr. Bryan Carstens completes the final year of his term. Dr. Sanmartín will then assume the role of EiC in January 2023 until the completion of her term in 2026, with a two year overlap with the next Editor-Elect, a system that we hope contributes to managing more efficiently the increasing number of manuscript submissions and broadening scope, while maintaining the high quality standards of the journal. We look forward to Systematic Biology’s continuing role as the premier journal in our field under Dr. Sanmartín’s leadership
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Announcing The Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists
We are pleased to announce that the Society of Systematic Biologists launched a new journal on May 1st, 2021. The Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists (BSSB) will be published in collaboration with the Library Publishing Coalition at The Ohio State University Libraries. This innovative partnership will enable us to publish open access articles at a minimal cost to members of the Society of Systematic Biologists. Articles will be published without article processing charges (APCs) for SSB members. Stay tuned for the first issue of the Bulletin!
The Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists will publish manuscripts that advance our understanding of the Earth's biodiversity, with a special focus on investigations that describe how species are related (i.e., phylogeny), identified (e.g., species delimitation, morphometrics, taxonomic practice), or have evolved (e.g., phylogeography, biogeography, phylogenetic comparative methods). BSSB will also publish manuscripts that advance the theory or methods used in data analysis. Manuscripts will be evaluated on two criteria: the quality of the science and their contribution to our collective understanding of the focal species or clade. BSSB aims to publish investigations that utilize state of the art data analyses and high-quality data sets to achieve these goals.
Code of Conduct
We have a code of conduct at all our meetings; we encourage reporting of issues to members of the joint meeting council or members of our executive committee. All three societies are dedicated to making the meeting a welcoming place to all with no discrimination or harassment. To this end, we have created a form to aggregate the useful suggestions that have come in so far. To provide a suggestion, go here. To see the suggestions so far, please go here (SSB does not vet or approve of these suggestions -- we're merely aggregating them now for future discussion). Note that the form has been populated with public suggestions proposed on Twitter and Facebook so far (though the comments were made associated with names, it's not clear that people want their name associated, so only the first initial is included -- if you want your name included, please contact Brian O'Meara). We'll be doing more moving forward -- this is just a rapid response to capture ideas while they're fresh