International Society for Microbial Ecology

 

      Members Newsletter June 2020    2/4

 
 

ISME Presidents' update

Greetings ISME colleagues!

   First and foremost, I sincerely hope that all of our ISME membership, their families, and their friends are all faring well, and navigating successfully all the new and varied challenges (and yes, sometimes tragedy) that we all now unexpectedly face. 

   Needless to say, much has happened since our last ISME Newsletter from January 2020.  Good news first! Despite the tone of the times, there are many good things to report with regard to ISME trajectories.  In less than one year, thanks to the leadership of Past President Colin Murrell and Ambassador Director Nicole Webster, two very successfully ISME regional events were successfully completed.  These brought many allied countries together regionally, to share science advances, educational opportunities and local wisdom. Both the ISME Latin America event in Fall 2019, and the South Asian Regional Symposium in Microbial Ecology in February 2020, were expertly executed thanks to the hard-work and dedication of their Local Organizing Committees.  Both these regional meetings also superbly leveraged the ISME Ambassador program, which continues to grow and evolve in very positive ways.  (Read more on this in the Ambassador Program Director’s report, and the SARSME meeting report by Professor Dev Raj Joshi and SARSME LOC, in this Newsletter).  On another bright note, the ISME Early Career Scientist Committee has been meeting every month this year and plans are afoot to engage the larger community of ISME early career scientists in the planning, engagement, and leadership of ISME activities moving ahead.  See the update by ECSC Chair Jillian Peterson that follows.  And if that were not enough, there are some exciting plans ahead thanks to the tireless efforts of our ISME Secretary-Treasurer Mark Bailey, for some new ISME journal activities – to learn more, read on.   

   On a more sobering note:  The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the trajectory of all of us with respect to both our near-term and long-term plans, and ISME is no exception.  In our note to ISME Society members on 7 April 2020, we announced the unfortunate postponement of ISME18, at the very least until August 2021.  We are fortunate that the Cape Town International Convention Center does have space available for ISME18 in early August 2021.  However, it has yet to be decided whether it will be prudent, feasible and possible to hold the meeting in August 2021.  The decision when to hold ISME18 is being further discussed and reviewed by the ISME Executives. As soon as a more definitive update on the exact timing of ISME18 is available, we will let the entire ISME community know immediately.

   Meanwhile, much more planning remains to be done for ISME events and activities, both near-term and far-term. There will be an upcoming videoconference in August 2020 for all Society members to attend, to provide you all with updates, solicit any inputs, and invite you to vote on critical Society matters moving ahead. Indeed, the vote for our next ISME Secretary-Treasurer is now underway since our current ISME Secretary-Treasurer is reaching the end of his term. Let’s take this opportunity now to thank Secretary-Treasurer Mark Bailey SO MUCH, for all his past, current and ongoing tireless efforts, stewardship, and service on behalf of the Society! The ISME International Board must also meet by videoconference this August 2020, to plan ahead for future ISME activities.  Five new International Board members will be joining us in August 2020 (Cristina Dorador, Debbie Lindell, Jillian Petersen, Fengping Wang, Kelly Wrighton), as five veteran members rotate off having reached their six-year term limit (Cecilia Alonso, Kirsten Küsel, Victoria Orphan, Mike Taylor, Nicole Webster). Thanks to all for your time, efforts and service to ISME! 

   Black Lives Matter: Recent events, including the Black Lives Matter movement and worldwide protests, have reminded us all (including those of us at ISME) to reexamine our behaviors and attitudes on the issues of structural racism, violence against Black lives, biases in science, and how we might make our local and global environments safer and more equitable for all. As a global International Society ISME inherently embraces diversity and equity for all our members in all our activities. Can we do better? Undoubtedly. We are taking the opportunity now to explore how we can improve, and we invite all ISME members to do the same. Our partner and ISME Journal publisher Springer Nature has assembled a webpage with free access to a collection of relevant research and journalism resources to help educate and inform us all about these issues. Openly educating ourselves and discussing these issues with all our colleagues is a first step. Taking deliberate actions to improve, as individuals and institutions, are the next steps forward.  

   Resilience, stability and functional redundancy are familiar terms that we sometimes use in our ecological interpretations of microbial community dynamics.  These terms are also now so tangibly and usefully relevant to all humankind, as we seek the same qualities during a time of great change and transformation. Good fortune to us all, in the journey ahead!   We’ll be in touch very soon with more ISME news. 

All the best,

         



Ed DeLong - ISME President ​   

  

Director Nicole Webster Reports

   Well it has been a chaotic few months for the ISME Ambassador program, with many of the activities and events planned for the first half of 2020 being postponed due to COVID-19.  However, despite the global pandemic our Ambassadors have been busy delivering some fantastic new initiatives and using their expanded networks to forge new virtual collaborations. Prior to the widespread travel restrictions and physical distancing measures Shady Amin, Ambassador for the United Arab Emirates coordinated a regional microbial ecology meeting in Abu Dhabi, Russian Ambassador Svetlana Dedysh organised student prizes at the Interregional Russian Microbial Ecology Society meeting, Greek Ambassador Kostas Kormas delivered the summer school Mikrobiokosmos and Costa Rican Ambassador Adrian Pinto organised prizes to facilitate student attendance at ISME Capetown. I would also like to take this opportunity to formally welcome 2 new Ambassadors to the program: Dr Rehab Abdallah from Egypt and Dr Jesca Lukanga Nakavuma from Uganda, we are very much looking forward to working with them to grow and develop the field of microbial ecology in their respective regions. An absolute highlight for the Ambassador program in 2020 was the inaugural Southeast Asian Regional Symposium on Microbial Ecology (SARSME 2020) which took place in February in the stunning town of Pokhara Nepal.  SARSME 2020, organised by Dr Dev Joshi and Dr Punyasloke Bhadury with support from a dedicated team of Nepalese scientists, bought together 160 delegates and ISME Ambassadors from 8 Southeast Asian countries. Particularly notable was the incredible enthusiasm shown by the large cohort of early career scientists, many of whom travelled extensive distances for the opportunity to integrate and learn from an international network of microbial ecologists. The meeting was inaugurated with traditional Nepalese culture, followed by a stimulating 3 days of keynote and contributed science presentations against the backdrop of Annapurna range. As part of the ISME Development program ISME president Ed DeLong, past president Colin Murrell and myself worked with Prof Rup Lal, Dr Reshma Tuladher, Dr Anwar Hussain and Dr Kosala Sirisena to coordinate a bioinformatics training program and undertake targeted workshops in career development, getting published and supporting women scientists throughout Southeast Asia. Please see the ISME website for full details of the activities and events that took place during SARSME 2020. Quantifying the impact of ISME Development and Ambassador activities is challenging but the effectiveness of developing strong regional networks was clearly evident in an update received from our Southeast Asian Ambassadors this week. Ambassadors who met for the first time at SARSME 2020 caught up virtually to discuss the status of the COVID-19 pandemic in Southeast Asia and identify collaborations centred on comparative genomic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 strains from different geographic locations!  

   Members, the ISME Ambassador program exists to help our diverse membership grow the field of microbial ecology and reach of the ISME society globally. Please take a moment to familiarise yourself with the Ambassador for your region as they are the first point of contact for ISME support of local initiatives.

    

SARSME 2020 Delegates, Deurali Resort Pokhara Nepal. Presenters in the SARSME 2020 Womens Special Session (Left) and Presentation award winners (Right). Bottom Left: Inaugural Session of SARSME 2020. Bottom Right: Zoom participants in a Southeast Asian Regional Network COVID-19 update. 

  
Nicole Webster - ISME Ambassador Program Director and Board Member

The SARSME Post-meeting Report

   Southeast Asian Regional Symposium on Microbial Ecology (SARSME 2020), an ISME sponsored regional meeting brought together a total of 160 Microbial Ecology researchers and graduate students from this region. The symposium was jointly Prithvi Narayan Campus (Tribhuvan University), Ministry of Industry, Tourism, Forest and Environment (Gandaki Province of Nepal) and Microbial Ecology Network Nepal organized the symposium in association with Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (Government of Nepal), National Youth Council, and Visit Nepal Year 2020 secretariat. The Symposium was supported by Nepal Tourism Board, Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University with others. The symposium was inaugurated with traditional Nepalese culture by Chief Minister Prithvi Subba Gurung, Provincial government, Gandaki Province, Nepal. ISME president Edward F DeLong highlighted on ISME mission to promote microbial ecology globally. SARSME 2020 coordinator Dr Dev Raj Joshi (ISME ambassador to Nepal) briefly discussed on the objectives and activities of the SARSME 2020. 

   During the symposia six plenary lectures were delivered distinguished researchers and professors of microbial ecology (Edward F DeLong, Colin Murrell, Craig Cary, Nicole Webster, Rup Lal and Shahida Hasnain). Diverse array of microbial ecology research including seventeen invited talks, seventeen oral presentations and 36 posters presentations were presented in the symposium by the microbial ecologists/microbiologists of South Asian countries - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Singapore (details in Program book). Three best oral presenters and three best poster presenters were awarded with best presenter award and certificate. During the SARSME several other side events were also organized. These included:
- Pre-symposium workshop on “Hands on training in Computational Biology for (Meta) Genomics Analysis” was organized on first day (12th Feb 2020) of the symposium to enhance analytic capabilities of Master/Ph.D. students, Postdoctoral and early career researchers. ISME ambassador Prof Rup Lal and his colleagues trained students and faculties on bioinformatics and computational biology tools useful in microbial ecology research. 
- The special workshop on “Scientific Writing and Career Round Table” for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) was also held during the Symposium on second day (13th Feb 2020) that helped them develop research careers in Microbial Ecology. In first part of workshop, Prof Edward F DeLong explained “Scientific writing and Publishing” and Prof Colin Murrell described “how to get published” in high impact journals. In Second part- Career Round Table discussion which was moderated by ISME ambassadors Dr Anwar Hussain and Dr Kosala Sirisena, the distinguished international researchers Prof Edward F DeLong, Prof Colin Murrell, Prof Craig Cary, Prof Nicole Webster, Prof Rup Lal and Prof Shahida Hasnain presented their inspiring journey in research. 
In the both workshops, four students interjecting most valuable questions were awarded by best interjector prizes and certificates. 

   Discussion session for Women Microbial Ecologists  
  In order to encourage active participation of early career as well as mid-career female scientists to pursue microbial ecology, a special session was organized on third day (14th Feb 2020) as part of this Symposium. In the special women session which was chaired by Prof Nicole Webster and moderated by Dr Reshma Tuladhar (Nepal), 10 representative female scientists of this region – Prof Shahida Hasnain (Pakistan), Dr Vishakha Raina (India), Dr Sangita Shakya (Nepal), Dr Aisath Naila (Maldives), Dr Poorna C Priyathalika (Sri Lanka), Dr Presanthilakshmi Sithapathi (Singapore), Ms Rafeza Begum (Bangladesh), Dr Tista Prasai Joshi (Nepal) shared their scientific career stories and discussed on opportunities and challenges for women in research. This discussion inspired many young female delegates during the symposium. 

Professor Dev Raj Joshi - ISME Ambassador and the SARSME Local Organization Committee

Second ISME Society Journal, ISME Communications 

   We are pleased to announce that ISME are in the final stages of preparation for the launch of a second society Journal in the summer of 2020.  ISME Communications.  More information will follow in time for the next news sheet when we will be able to confirm the Editors in Chief and release the full scope once we have signed contracts with our publisher Springer- Nature.  ISME Communications will publish a broad range of papers that offer substantial advances in the study of microbial ecosystems, communities, and interactions of microorganisms in environment.  It will cover the diverse and integrated areas of microbial ecology spanning the breadth of microbial life by focusing on innovative studies that report on the application of new methodologies, microbiome surveys in a variety of contexts and habitats, holobiont interactions, climate change microbiology, biogeography and diversity surveys, time-series analyses, and other observationally oriented papers.  Critically the new journal will provide a home for studies that offer significant methodological advances in microbial ecology.  This is an exciting development for our members. 

So please watch this space.

Mark Bailey - ISME Secretary-Treasurer 

Early Career Scientist Committee (ECSC)

ISME is me: The inaugural ISME Early Career Scientist Committee takes off.

   It is a pleasure to write the Early Career Scientist Committee’s first report to ISME members, and it’s always pleasure to bring good news especially to early career researchers! In a time of new challenges to research, teaching, and career development, the ISME-ECSC is here to support all early career microbial ecologists with new opportunities. Our first activity ‘Going Viral’ is an online seminar series where we’ve teamed up with Lizzy Wilbanks, David Baltrus and Cameron Thrush, the organizers of MicroSeminar to run a series of free, web-based seminars featuring early-career microbial ecologists. Previous seminars can be watched anytime, anywhere, just by going to the YouTube channel (don’t forget to subscribe!). Our livestream regularly attracts more than 100 viewers, and our previous seminars have since been watched many hundreds of times. Our motto – ISME is me – transports our message that we are a grassroots committee, established and run by an international bunch of early career microbial ecologists from across disciplines, and we want your input! Find out who we are, and if you have more ideas about how to support and engage early career microbial ecologists, don’t hesitate to get in touch, and stay tuned for more activities in the future!

Jillian Petersen - Early Career Scientist Committee

ISME Secretary-Treasurer Election

   Mark Bailey’s term as ISME Secretary-Treasurer will come to an end soon, and therefore the election for a new ISME Secretary-Treasurer is now underway. Please check your email for the subject line “ISME Secretary-Treasurer Election", that all ISME Members have now received as an invitation to vote. Please do read the candidate's statements, and cast your ballots - your input is important!

Remembering Professor Margaret Loutit 

     On 7 May, aged 90, Professor Margaret Loutit passed away in Auckland, New Zealand.  We acknowledge here the enormous contribution that Margaret made to the development of microbial ecology, and indeed ISME, during her lifetime.

     Originally from Australia, Margaret was an internationally renowned soil and water microbiologist, who spent her academic career at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.  In 1977, Margaret was chairperson for ISME-1, the first International Symposium on Microbial Ecology.  From this first meeting in Dunedin, with some 400 participants from 30 countries, the ISME meetings have gone from strength to strength, with well over 2200 attendees at the recent Montreal and Leipzig symposia.  Margaret also served as Secretary (1986-1989) then Chair (1989-1992) of the International Committee on Microbial Ecology (ICOME), the predecessor of today’s International Society for Microbial Ecology.  In addition to these global contributions, Margaret left an indelible footprint on the New Zealand microbiology landscape, serving as President of the NZ Microbiological Society (NZMS) (1980-1982) and mentoring a generation of microbiology students at the University of Otago, many of whom have gone on to become prominent researchers in their own right.

    Professor Loutit’s contributions to ISME were acknowledged in a special microbial ecology session at the 2017 NZ Microbiological Society annual conference in Auckland.  Prior to delivering his Plenary lecture, then-ISME President Colin Murrell thanked Margaret for her pioneering role in microbial ecology and presented her with a bouquet of flowers on behalf of the ISME and NZMS.  Colin also noted the insightful predictions made by Margaret some 45 years earlier: “Perhaps if some of the enthusiasm shown in the field of molecular biology in recent years is now transferred to microbial ecology, microbial ecology will cease to be the poor relation of microbiology.  We may then see more rapid progress in the field, and some of the difficulties I have listed will cease to exist.” (Loutit, M. 1972. Problems in studying microbial ecology. NZ Journal of Ecology 19: 43–45)

    We thank Margaret for her efforts on behalf of ISME and the wider field of microbial ecology and look forward to “closing the circle” by hosting ISME-19 in New Zealand.

Mike Taylor - ISME International Board Member

                

 
 

Job adverts on the ISME website

   We would like to highlight the vacancies on the ISME website. To find an interesting vacancy please visit our website. ISME members can also place job adverts for free here themselves. Please feel free to make use of this possibility to reach a large audience in microbial ecology.