Fewer invited talks by women in evolutionary biology symposia.

Lower visibility of female scientists, compared to male scientists, is a potential reason for the under-representation of women among senior academic ranks. Visibility in the scientific community stems partly from presenting research as an invited speaker at organized meetings. We analysed the sex ratio of presenters at the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) Congress 2011, where all abstract submissions were accepted for presentation. Women were under-represented among invited speakers at symposia (15% women) compared to all presenters (46%), regular oral presenters (41%) and plenary speakers (25%). At the ESEB congresses in 2001-2011, 9-23% of invited speakers were women. This under-representation of women is partly attributable to a larger proportion of women, than men, declining invitations: in 2011, 50% of women declined an invitation to speak compared to 26% of men. We expect invited speakers to be scientists from top ranked institutions or authors of recent papers in high-impact journals. Considering all invited speakers (including declined invitations), 23% were women. This was lower than the baseline sex ratios of early-mid career stage scientists, but was similar to senior scientists and authors that have published in high-impact journals. High-quality science by women therefore has low exposure at international meetings, which will constrain Evolutionary Biology from reaching its full potential. We wish to highlight the wider implications of turning down invitations to speak, and encourage conference organizers to implement steps to increase acceptance rates of invited talks.

Independence among physiological traits suggests flexibility in the face of ecological demands on phenotypes.

Phenotypic flexibility allows animals to adjust their physiology to diverse environmental conditions encountered over the year. Examining how these varying traits covary gives insights into potential constraints or freedoms that may shape evolutionary trajectories. In this study, we examined relationships among haematocrit, baseline corticosterone concentration, constitutive immune function and basal metabolic rate in red knot Calidris canutus islandica individuals subjected to experimentally manipulated temperature treatments over an entire annual cycle. If covariation among traits is constrained, we predict consistent covariation within and among individuals. We further predict consistent correlations between physiological and metabolic traits if constraints underlie species-level patterns found along the slow-fast pace-of-life continuum. We found no consistent correlations among haematocrit, baseline corticosterone concentration, immune function and basal metabolic rate either within or among individuals. This provides no evidence for constraints limiting relationships among these measures of the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune and metabolic systems in individual red knots. Rather, our data suggest that knots are free to adjust individual parts of their physiology independently. This makes good sense if one places the animal within its ecological context where different aspects of the environment might put different pressures on different aspects of physiology.

Effectiveness of individualized developmental care for low-risk preterm infants: behavioral and electrophysiologic evidence.

OBJECTIVE: We assessed the effectiveness of individualized developmental support in the special care nursery for low-risk preterm infants. SETTING: A university-affiliated teaching hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Twelve healthy full-term infants, and 24 low-risk preterm infants randomly assigned to a control or an experimental group. DESIGN: The preterm control group received standard care and the preterm experimental group received individualized developmental care at the same special care nursery. OUTCOME MEASURES: Medical, behavioral (Assessment of Preterm Infants' Behavior and Prechtl's Neurological Examination of the Full-Term Newborn Infant), and electrophysiologic outcome (using quantitative electroencephalography with topographic mapping) of all three groups was assessed 2 weeks after the expected due date. RESULTS: No between- or among-group medical differences were seen for this low-risk, healthy sample. The preterm experimental group showed behavioral and electrophysiologic performances comparable to those of the full-term group, whereas the preterm control group performed significantly less well. Behavioral measures suggested significantly poorer attentional functioning for the preterm control group. Electrophysiologic results implicated the frontal lobe. CONCLUSIONS: Individualized developmental intervention supports neurobehavioral functioning as measured at 2 weeks post-term. It appears to prevent frontal lobe and attentional difficulties in the newborn period, the possible causes of behavioral and scholastic disabilities often seen in low-risk preterm infants at later ages.