Some perspective on Molecular Ecology perspectives: Are women being left out?

Building consensus around the assessment and interpretation of Symbiodiniaceae diversity

Within microeukaryotes, genetic variation and functional variation sometimes accumulate more quickly than morphological differences. To understand the evolutionary history and ecology of such lineages, it is key to examine diversity at multiple levels of organization. In the dinoflagellate family Symbiodiniaceae, which can form endosymbioses with cnidarians (e.g., corals, octocorals, sea anemones, jellyfish), other marine invertebrates (e.g., sponges, molluscs, flatworms), and protists (e.g., foraminifera), molecular data have been used extensively over the past three decades to describe phenotypes and to make evolutionary and ecological inferences. Despite advances in Symbiodiniaceae genomics, a lack of consensus among researchers with respect to interpreting genetic data has slowed progress in the field and acted as a barrier to reconciling observations. Here, we identify key challenges regarding the assessment and interpretation of Symbiodiniaceae genetic diversity across three levels: species, populations, and communities. We summarize areas of agreement and highlight techniques and approaches that are broadly accepted. In areas where debate remains, we identify unresolved issues and discuss technologies and approaches that can help to fill knowledge gaps related to genetic and phenotypic diversity. We also discuss ways to stimulate progress, in particular by fostering a more inclusive and collaborative research community. We hope that this perspective will inspire and accelerate coral reef science by serving as a resource to those designing experiments, publishing research, and applying for funding related to Symbiodiniaceae and their symbiotic partnerships.

Who are we now? A demographic assessment of three evolution societies

Scientific societies have the potential to catalyze support for communities that have been historically excluded from science. Many of these societies have formed committees to propose and administer initiatives to promote the career and well-being of their members, with a special emphasis on racial and ethnic minorities. Yet, these societies are rarely armed with data to inform their proposals. Three of the evolution societies (American Society of Naturalists, "ASN"; Society of Systematic Biologists, "SSB"; Society for the Study of Evolution, "SSE") have also formed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committees in the last few years. As a first step in determining the needs of the societies, these committees collected data on the demographic characteristics of the societies' constituents by surveying the attendants of the Evolution 2019 meeting. Here, we report the proportions for different demographic groups in attendance at the meeting and compare these proportions to the demographics of recipients of Ph.D. degrees either in evolutionary biology or in the broader life sciences, as well as population demographics of the USA. Our results indicate that historically excluded groups are still underrepresented across US-based evolutionary biology professional societies. We explore whether demographic composition differs at different professional stages and find that representation for women and LGBTQ+ members decreases as the career stage progresses. We also find some evidence for heterogeneity across societies in terms of racial composition. Finally, we discuss the caveats and limitations of our procedures. Our results will serve to inform future efforts to collect demographic data at the society levels, which should in turn be used to design and implement evidence-based initiatives for inclusion and equity. This report should be a starting point for systematic efforts to characterize the ever-changing representation in evolutionary biology and to work toward the inclusion of all groups.

Gender diversity of editorial boards and gender differences in the peer review process at six journals of ecology and evolution

Despite substantial progress for women in science, women remain underrepresented in many aspects of the scholarly publication process. We examined how the gender diversity of editors and reviewers changed over time for six journals in ecology and evolution (2003–2015 for four journals, 2007–2015 or 2009–2015 for the other two), and how several aspects of the peer review process differed between female and male editors and reviewers. We found that for five of the six journals, women were either absent or very poorly represented as handling editors at the beginning of our dataset. The representation of women increased gradually and consistently, with women making up 29% of the handling editors (averaged across journals) in 2015, similar to the representation of women as last authors on ecology papers (23% in 2015) but lower than the proportion of women among all authors (31%) and among members of the societies that own the journals (37%–40%). The proportion of women among reviewers has also gradually but consistently increased over time, reaching 27% by 2015. Female editors invited more female reviewers than did male editors, and this difference increased with age of the editor. Men and women who were invited to review did not differ in whether they responded to the review invitation, but, of those that responded, women were slightly more likely to agree to review. In contrast, women were less likely than men to accept invitations to serve on journal editorial boards. Our analyses indicate that there has been progress in the representation of women as reviewers and editors in ecology and evolutionary biology, but women are still underrepresented among the gatekeepers of scholarly publishing relative to their representation among researchers.