Dear Deep-Sea Biology Colleagues,
We wish to thank everyone who took time to complete the poll we circulated recently, indicating your interest and your preference on the format of a possible DSBS-organised virtual meeting for this summer. The response has been great, with a total of 166 people responding over the course of 8 days!Some of the main findings of the poll are:
- 97% of respondents are interested in a virtual meeting taking place.
- 52% of those are interested in presenting their work.
- 55% want a semi-synchronous event, with two other live-only format options selected by 30% and 15%, respectively.
- Early career and independent researchers represented 38% of the respondents each, with students 24%.
- In terms of geographic coverage, 24% of respondents follow the UTC+1 time zone, 13% UTC, 9% UTC-5, 8% UTC+8, 7% UTC-4 and UTC-8, with each remaining time zone followed by less than 5%.
- The four most prevalent research areas are Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning (24%), Chemosynthetic Ecosystems (13%), Connectivity and Biogeography (11%) and Deep-sea genomics (10%).
- Popular (>50%) activities that respondents want associated with the meeting are poster sessions, career/mentoring talks from senior researchers, science communication training and deep-sea themed watch along movies.
Based on the above findings, we are excited to announce that the Society will organise a virtual deep-sea biology science “DSBS-Online” meeting, that will be tied with our virtual Annual General Meeting. The focus is going to be on early-career and student research, highlighting the talent of the next generation of deep-sea biologists. DSBS-online will take place on the 20-21th August 2020, and it will have a semi-synchronous format. More details on how that format will work in practice, along with information on registration and abstract submissions, will be shared with you shortly.
At this point, we want to stress that this meeting is not meant to be a replacement to recently postponed conferences or the triennial DSBS symposium. It rather is an opportunity for our community members to stay connected in times of unprecedented human mobility restrictions necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic.A final note to all the colleagues that offered to provide logistical support to the Society for the virtual meeting. We really appreciate your offer, and we will be in touch with some of you in the coming weeks to discuss your involvement.
With very best wishes,
The Trustees of the Deep-Sea Biology Society
