Division of Fungi Business Meeting
Monday, August 13th, 2007
Québec City, Canada
Present:
Fernando E. Vega (Chair), Helen Roy (Secretary-Treasurer)
Vitalis Wafula Wekesa, Ellie Groden, Vladimir Gouli, Svetlana Gouli, Richard Humber, David Chandler, Paresh Shah, Judith Pell, Jeff Lord, Todd Ugine, Melanie Filotas, Steve Wraight, Justin Hatting, Emiru Seyoum, Sunday Ekesi, Nguya Maniania, Kerstin Jung, Stefan Jaronski, John Vandenberg, Richard Meadow, Donna Gibson, Alice Churchill, Hermann Strasser, Nick Jessop, Donald Roberts, Scott Costa, Euutn Koit Kawp Fernandes, Daniel Sosa Gomez, Stacie Grassano
Approval of minutes from last meeting
Minutes approved (Motion Richard Humber; Second: Fernando E. Vega)
Division of Fungi Annual Report
Fernando E. Vega delivered the following Annual Report:
Current Officers
| Chairperson:
| Fernando E. Vega
| 2006-2008
|
| Chairperson-Elect: |
Rosalind James |
2006-2008 |
| Secretary-Treasurer: |
Helen Roy |
2006-2008 |
| Member-at-Large: |
Kerstin Jung |
2006-2008 |
| Member-at-Large: |
Ming Guang Feng |
2005-2007 |
| Student Representative: |
Drauzio Rangel |
2006-2007 |
Election of Officers in Wuhan 2006
Elected officials were as follows: Rosalind James, Chair-elect; Helen Roy, Secretary-Treasurer;
Kerstin Jung. Member-at-Large; Drauzio Rangel, Student Representative.
Forthcoming Election of Offices in Québec City
Elections will be held for one Member-at-Large to replace Ming Guang Feng, and for the Student Representative, to replace Drauzio Rangel who has finished his Ph.D.
Membership
Our current membership has gone down, especially, the number of students:
|
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
Regular |
100 |
108 |
107 |
101 |
Students |
13 |
12 |
11 |
4 |
Total |
113 |
120 |
118 |
105 |
Finances: Fiscal Year 2007 (May 1, 2006 – April 30, 2007)
REVENUE |
|
|
Membership Dues |
$ 481.00 |
|
Total Revenue |
$ 481.00 |
|
|
|
|
EXPENSE |
|
|
Speaker Awards |
$ - |
|
Student Travel Award |
$ 750.00 |
|
Total Expense |
$ 750.00 |
|
|
|
|
Net Revenue Before Fund Transfers |
$ (269.00) |
|
|
|
|
FUND TRANSFERS FROM GENERAL FUND |
|
|
Fund Transfer for Speaker Awards |
$ 1,500.00 |
|
Fund Transfer for Student Awards |
$ 750.00 |
|
Fund Refund for unused awards |
$(1,500.00) |
|
Total Fund Transfer |
$ 750.00 |
|
Net Revenue After Fund Transfers |
$ 481.00 |
|
|
|
|
FUND BALANCE |
|
|
4/30/2006 |
4/30/2007 |
|
$ 1,454.00 |
$ 1,935.00 |
|
|
|
|
Membership Dues (2006) 2007 |
2006 |
2007 |
(118@$2) 13@$2, 91@$5 |
$ 236.00 |
$ 481.00 |
Symposia, Workshops, Other Events
Wuhan, 2006
There were 23 contributed papers and 21 poster presentations. Ming Guang Feng organized a symposium on “Ecology of Entomophthorales.” Speakers included Judith Pell, Ann Hajek, Ming Guang Feng and Jørgen Eilenberg.
Québec City, 2007
As of this writing (end of June), there are 27 oral papers and 29 posters contributed by Division of Fungi members. In addition, the Division of Fungi is sponsoring two symposia, and one cross-divisional symposium:
Symposium I: Are Entomopathogenic Fungi only Entomopathogens? Conveners: Mark Goettel and Jacques Brodeur. Invited speakers: Rich Humber, Fernando E. Vega, Bonnie H. Ownley, Mark Goettel, and Ray St. Leger.
Symposium II: Fungal Secondary Metabolites: Knowns and Unknowns. Conveners: John Vandenberg, Alice Churchill & Donna Gibson. Invited speakers: Dirk Hoffmeister, Frances Trail, Alice Churchill, Stuart B. Krasnoff, and Hermann Strasser.
Cross-Divisional Symposium (with Microsporidia): Battling Alien Invaders: Development and use of Entomopathogens to Control Invasive Insect Pests. Convener: Louela Castrillo. Invited speakers: James Slavicek, Leellen Solter, Ann Hajek, Leah Bauer, David Oi, and Raymond Akhurst.
Other Activities
The development of a photo gallery has been abandoned due to a lack of interest.
Division Awards
Student Travel
Mr. Vitalis Wafula Wekesa is the winner of the 2007 Division of Fungi Travel Award. Mr. Wafula Wekesa obtained his Bachelor and Master’s in Science degrees from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya. He was awarded an International Scholarship from the Third World Academy of Science to study in Brazil and is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of São Paulo, Brazil with Dr. Italo Delalibera Jr. as his advisor. He will be presenting a paper at the SIP meeting entitled “Interactions of two natural enemies of Tetranychus evansi, the fungal pathogen Neozygites floridana (Zygomycetes: Entomophthorales) and the predatory mite, Phytoseiulus longipes (Acari: Phytoseiidae).” His co-authors are G. J. Moraes, M. Knapp, and I. Delalibera Jr. A $500 award will be given in Québec City.
Web Site Development:
- Special thanks to Peg Rotstein for the many updates to the Division of Fungi web page.
End of Annual Report
Continuation of Business Meeting
Election of New Officers
Nominations for Member at Large:
Stephan Dietrich (Institut fur biologischen pflanzenschutz, Germany)
Ingeborg Klingen (Norwegian Institute Agricultural and Environmental Research)
Drauzio Rangel (Paraiba Valley University, Brazil)
Daniel Sosa-Gomez (EMBRAPA, Brazil)
Todd Ugine (Cornell University, USA)
Successful Candidate
Todd Ugine
Nominations for Student Representative:
Renee Jean Pereault (Michigan State University)
Vitalis Wafula Wekesa (University of Sao Paulo)
Nick Jessop (Imperial College, London)
Successful Candidate
Vitalis Wafula Wekesa as chair but Renee and Nick to represent the Division of Fungus on committee chaired by Vitalis. All three students to contact Patricia Stock regarding involvement and participation.
Future SIP Meetings
2008: Warwick 3-8 August (Dave Chandler, Warwick University delivered an excellent presentation describing this meeting)
2009: North America (probably Park City, Utah, August 16-20)
2010: Turkey or India
Chris J. Lomer Memorial Award
The winner of the Chris J. Lomer Memorial Award is a Division of Fungi member: Monica Pava-Ripoll, University of Maryland.
An Abridged Glossary of Terms Used in Invertebrate Pathology
Richard Humber described the glossary, which is now available at the SIP web site. This is the third edition and has been put together by two representatives from each SIP division.
COST Technical Bulletin: “Arthropod-pathogenic Entomophthorales: Biology, Ecology, and Identification”
Judith Pell described this bulletin which is the output of a 5 year European Science Foundation (ESF) COST action on Entomophthorales. The bulletin is available via the ESF website or through Siegfried Keller (via Jorgen Eilenberg, Judith Pell or Helen Roy). Helen Roy described a CD that accompanies the book and is available from Siegfried Keller for a small cost and is an excellent teaching aid.
Hypocrealean Genome Sequence project
Nemat Keyhani described two recent grant proposals that he had submitted to sequence Hypocrealean genomes (Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anispoliae). Both were unsuccessful but one will be resubmitted, however Nemat will require letters of support because the panel queried how many would benefit from the genome sequence. Fernando E. Vega to supply e-mail addresses for all division members to Nemat.
Symposia Suggestions
Fernando E. Vega asked for ideas. None forthcoming at the meeting but members are invited to e-mail ideas to Fernando.
Fungal meeting similar to Bt and Nematodes at future SIP?
Fernando E. Vega suggested exploring the possibility of organizing a fungal forum in conjunction with the 2009 SIP meeting, similar to the “1st International Forum on Entomopathogenic Nematodes and Symbiotic Bacteria” being concurrently held with the SIP meeting.
John Vandenberg described how the nematode division has higher prevalence within in the SIP programme because of an additional special meeting embedded within SIP annual meeting. Steve Wraight added that this was how additional nematode symposia had been included.
Rich Humber suggested the possibility of having a joint meeting with the Mycological Society of America.
Don Roberts expressed concern that the programme seemed already to be at maximum capacity.
John Vandenberg added that lengthening the meeting is not an option but that we could benefit from removing the excursion from the timetable. John also described the development of an ad-hoc committee to develop SIP Outreach ideas this could include bringing other societies to the SIP annual meeting.
Motion: To form a committee that will explore a fungal forum in conjunction with the 2009 meeting.
Second: Caroline Hauxwell
Action: Don Roberts, Fernando E. Vega, John Vandenberg, and Michael Brownbridge will pursue this effort.
Other Business
Don Roberts gave a short presentation on the setting for the SIP 2009 meeting at Park City, Utah.
Nguya Maniania suggested that citations of recent fungal phylogeny papers should be made available to all division members. Rich Humber described two papers:
James, T. Y., et al. 2006. Reconstructing the early evolution of Fungi using a six-gene phylogeny. Nature 443:818-822.
Hibbett, D. S., et al. 2007. A higher-level phylogenetic classification of the Fungi. Mycological Research 111:509-547.
Alice Churchill suggested that we circulate relevant papers via Fernando E. Vega and ultimately via the website when the server is upgraded.
Meeting adjourned.
