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Council

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The Council consists of at least 40 members who are elected to four-year terms by members of the Association. The Council meets at the annual meeting of the Association, discusses critical issues by email,and is consulted by the Executive Committee between as needed.

Minutes [ 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 ]

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Members (2007-2011)

[Past Council Members]

GivenName	Surname	Institution	City, State/Prov	Country
Mike P.	Austin	CSIRO	Canberra, ACT	Australia
Jan P.	Bakker	Univ. of Groningen	Haren	Netherlands
Michael G.	Barbour	University of California	Davis, CA	United States
Elgene O.	Box	University of Georgia	Athens, GA	United States
George J.	Bredenkamp	Univ. of Pretoria	Pretoria	South Africa
Helge	Bruelheide	Martin Luther Univ. Halle-Wittenberg	Halle	Germany
Alessandro	Chiarucci	Univ. di Siena	Siena	Italy
Milan	Chytrý	Masaryk University	Brno	Czech Rep
Ulrich	Deil	Albert-Ludwigs-Univ.	Freiburg i. Br.	Germany
Sandra M.	Díaz	Univ. Nacional de Córdoba	Cordoba	Argentina
Martin	Diekmann	Bremen Univ.	Bremen	Germany
Hartmut	Dierschke	Georg-August-Univ. Göttingen	Göttingen	Germany
Klaus	Dierßen	Univ. of Kiel	Kiel	Germany
Nicolay B.	Ermakov	Russian Acad of Sci, Siberian Branch	Novosibirsk	Russia
Kazue	Fujiwara	Yokohama National Univ.	Yokohama	Japan
Deborah E.	Goldberg	University of Michigan	Ann Arbor, MI	United States
Georg	Grabherr	Univ. of Vienna	Wien	Austria
Tomaš	Herben	Acad. Sciences, Czech Republic	Pruhonice	Czech Rep
Martin	Hermy	Univ. of Leuven	Leuven	Belgium
Mark O.	Hill	Monks Wood	Huntingdon	UK
Jan	Lepš	University of South Bohemia	Ceske Budejovice	Czech Rep
Javier J.	Loidi Arregui	Univ. del País Vasco	Bilbao	Spain
Ladislav	Mucina	Univ. of Stellenbosch	Matieland	South Africa
Dieter	Mueller-Dombois	University of Hawa’i at Manoa	Honolulu, HI	United States
Gia	Nakhutsrishvili	Georgian Acad. of Sciences,	Tbilisi	Georgia
Jari	Oksanen	University of Oulu	Oulu	Finland
Michael W.	Palmer	Oklahoma State University	Stillwater, OK	United States
Franco	Pedrotti	Univ. di Camerino	Camerino	Italy
Robert	Peet	University of North Carolina	Chapel Hill, NC	United States
Jörg	Pfadenhauer	Techn. Univ. München	Freising	Germany
Sandro	Pignatti	Univ. di Roma ‘La Sapienza’	Roma	Italy
Valerio	Pillar	Univ. Federal do Rio Grande do Sul	Porto Alegre, RS	Brazil
Janos	Podani	Eötvös Univ.	Budapest	Hungary
Richard	Pott	Univ. Hannover	Hannover	Germany
Salvador	Rivas-Martínez	J.M. Usandizaga 46	LLos Negrales	Spain
John S.	Rodwell		Lancaster	UK
Joop H.J.	Schaminée	Wageningen Univ. & Res. Centre	Wageningen	Netherlands
Angelika	Schwabe-Kratochwil	Technische Hochschule	Darmstadt	Germany
Jamuna S.	Singh	Banaras Hindu Univ.	Varansi	India
Nina A. C.	Smits	Utrecht Univ.	Utrecht	Netherlands
Eddy	van der Maarel	Univ. of Groningen	Haren	Netherlands
Otto J.	Wildi	Swiss Fed. Inst. Forest, Snow, Landscape Res.	Birmensdorf	Switzerland
J. Bastow	Wilson	University of Otago	Dunedin	New Zealand
Martin	Zobel	University of Tartu	Tartu	Estonia

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Council Minutes

Swansea, Wales, 21-22 July 2007

Regular Council Members present (elected in elections performed in 2007): J.P. Bakker (NL), M. Barbour (US), E.O. Box (US), H. Bruelheide (DE), A. Chiarucci (IT),  U. Deil (DE), M. Diekmann (DE), T. Herben (CZ), J. Lepš (CZ), E. van der Maarel (NL), L. Mucina (ZA), R. Peet (US), V. De Patta Pillar (BR), J.H.J. Schaminée (NL), N.A.C. Smits (NL) and J.B. Wilson (NZ), M. Zobel (ES)..  
Other Council Members present (co-opted on ad hoc basis; representatives of the regional sections): H. Thomas & A. MacDonald (local organisers of the Swansea 2007 meeting), S. Will-Wolf (representing the North American Section).
Further attendees: I. Tsiripidis (Monday only: on behalf of the planned meeting in Greece 2009), J. Dengler (invited to attend to explain the proposal for a new electronic journal).

Part 1, July 21: Recorded by outgoing Secretary Schaminée
1. Opening
E. Box, the incumbent President of the IAVS, opened the meeting at 20.00.

2. Approval of minutes of the last meeting
The minutes of the last meeting, in Palmerston North, February 2007, as sent by e-mail to all members of the new IAVS Council (2007-2011), were approved. The meeting in New Zealand was successful, thanks to the great effort of the Local Arrangements Committee, and J. Rapson in particular. 

3. Reports
3.1 Financial Report
The financial situation of the IAVS during the year 2006 was reported by the treasurer, J. Schaminée, based on figures delivered by the Administrator N. Smits. The negative balance over the year 2006 will change into a positive one as the 7,500 euro lent to the organizers of the Swansea symposium will be repaid. H. Thomas of the local committee reported that there will be a surplus, which will be donated to the IAVS. Furthermore, there will be some extra income in 2006 as a result of profit sharing with Opulus Press (see the report of the Publication Officer).
A proposal was accepted and approved that the Global Fund in the future also could be used for financial support of students and young scientists of so-called poor countries to attend the annual meetings. This is possible because of the improved financial situation as a result of the new policy of the Adoption Committee to grant electronic subscriptions of JVS and AVS. The definition of ‘poor countries’ will be handled by the Adoption Committee. 
3.2 Report of the Publication Officer
IAVS Publication Officer Martin Diekmann presented the report for the year 2006. Some figures from Opulus Press had become available only shortly before the meeting so the overview could not be sent to the Council members in advance. The written report will be distributed electronically to members of the Council by the Publication Officer.
3.3 Reports of Working Groups, Commissions and Regional Sections.
During the meeting in Uppsala in 1998, it was decided that Working Groups, Commissions, and Regional Sections should provide an annual report to the Council and that these reports should be published in the IAVS Bulletin. Annual reports of the Working Group on Long-term Vegetation Dynamics (by J. Bakker), the European Vegetation Survey (by J. Schaminée on behalf of J. Rodwell), the North America Section (by Susan Will-Wolf), and the Working Group on EcoInformatics (by Bob Peet) were presented and briefly discussed. L. Mucina informed the Council that the South Africa Section probably will be disbanded. The annual reports can be found elsewhere in the Bulletin.
3.4 IAVS Bulletin, Membership list, and News Alerts
IAVS Bulletin 10 was published in December 2006. It was distributed at the 49th IAVS meeting in Palmerston North, sent to all IAVS members by regular post, and made available over the Internet (www.iavs.org).
A new IAVS Membership List (March 2007) has been send by regular post to all IAVS members. It replaces the list that was distributed at the meeting in Lisbon (PT; July 2005). The new list was updated and corrected by E. van der Maarel in collaboration with N. Smits and J. Schaminée, and published by Opulus Press.
At the meeting in New Zealand the suggestion was made to develop a Newsletter, to be circulated by e-mail, which would appear several times a year, in additional to the IAVS Bulletin. So far three IAVS News Alerts have been e-mailed to all IAVS members.

4. Installation of the new Council and election of the Executive Committee.
The new Council, elected by e-mail ballot in spring 2007, was officially installed. A discussion took place on the filling of the positions of President, Secretary-Treasurer, and Publication Officer, after which a short list of ten candidates for the Executive Committee was compiled. Of these, seven persons were elected by the direct vote of the 17 Council members present and 10 proxy votes of Council members unable to attend. The following persons were elected to the new Executive Committee: V. De Patta Pillar, M. Diekmann, J. Loidi, L. Mucina, R. Peet, J. Schaminée and M. Zobel.
A short meeting of the newly elected Executive Committee took place at which the members agreed to assume the following positions:
President: R. Peet (US)
Secretary & Treasurer: L. Mucina  (ZA)
Publication Officer: M. Diekmann (DE)
Vice President: V. De Patta Pillar (BR)
Vice President: J. Loidi (ES)
Vice President: J.H.J. Schaminée (NL)
Vice President: M. Zobel (EE)

Part 2, July 21: Recorded by Secretary Mucina
After the announcement of the new officers, the Council meeting re-assumed under the chair of R. Peet (the new President), assisted by L. Mucina (the new Secretary-Treasurer).

5. Guidelines for the election of the Council and revision of the classification of countries for the purpose of this election
During preparations for the election of the new Council several issues emerged regarding the nomination of the candidates, eligibility of the candidates, their geographic affiliation (hence their possible representative function for particular regions), and the definitions of such regions. The outgoing Executive Committee received detailed proposals from E. Box (the outgoing President) and E. van der Maarel (Honorary Member). President Peet and the Secretary-Treasurer Mucina made the Council aware of their intention to re-visit our procedures for electing members of the Council as part of the formulation of new by-laws and potentially revising the statutes. Peet suggested that further comments and suggestions on the matter be addressed to Secretary Mucina who agreed to lead the process of formulation of new by-laws. The Secretary will approach all members of the Council for comments and suggestions. These suggestions will inform the drafting of new by-laws and revision of statutes by the Executive Committee. Proposed new bylaws and revised statutes will be sent to members of the Council for discussion and approval prior to the next meeting in Stellenbosch (South Africa).
Because of the late hour, the President adjourned the meeting at 22:50 and suggested that the meeting be resumed the next day.

Part 3, July 22: Recorded by Secretary Mucina
During the course of Monday, July 22, 2007 the President announced that the Council meeting would re-convene at 19:30 the same day to complete unfinished business.

6. Relationship IAVS – Opulus Press.
The Chair opened the meeting by addressing the issue of the relationship between IAVS and Opulus Press. He briefly summarised a lengthy exchange of e-mails within the new Council which took place prior to the Swansea meeting. This discussion addressed the current status and way forward of the relationship between IAVS and Opulus Press, publisher or our two journals – Journal of Vegetation Science and Applied Vegetation Science. The discussion and the accompanying vote to not extend the current contract was initiated by the old Council at the February 2007 New Zealand meeting. Then Secretary J. Schaminée and Publication Officer M. Diekmann explained in e-mail messages to the Council (sent prior to the Swansea meeting) the reasons for this decision. By electronic ballot the Council decided that the contract would not be extended automatically. Secretary Schaminée communicated this decision to Opulus Press and invited a proposal for a new contract.
The Chair reported that the need for re-examination of the contract was motivated by recent changes in the publishing industry as well as need for increased and more predictable income to IAVS. He further informed the Council that IAVS has been approached by several other publishers interested in publishing our journals. Several interested publishers have submitted written proposals.

Because of the seriousness of the matter, the Chair suggested that the Council establish a Publication Committee (of 5 members from within the Council) whose mandate will be to identify and compile a list of key issues and then prepare a formal request for proposals to be sent to Opulus and other interested publishers.
The discussion at the meeting revealed that the following initial list of issues of importance:

1. clear responsibilities of IAVS and Publishers
2. transparency of the revenue stream
3. ownership of the title and copyright
4. services to IAVS, editors, readers
5. quality and circulation of Applied Vegetation Science & Journal of Vegetation Science

The final list of issues and proposed request for proposals will be communicated to the Executive Committee and discussed therein. As soon as the Executive Committee agrees on the request for proposals the Publication Committee will approach interested publishers. The Publication Committee will review the proposals and forward them to the Executive Committee with their recommendations. The Executive Committee will review the recommendations, negotiate as needed with potential publishers and ultimately forward a proposed new contract to the Council for approval. The Chair indicated that a new contract has to be in place (signed) by May 1, 2008 at the latest.
Action: Executive Committee will establish (during the meeting in Swansea) the Publication Committee and charge it with further action in this matter.

7. Activities during the coming years
The yearly symposia of IAVS planned for the period 2008-2010 were discussed.
2008: L. Mucina presented a brief report on progress in organization of the meeting to be held in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Organization of the meeting is well on track; a website has been launched and, to-date, about 80 participants have declared their preliminary intent to attend. Some Council members suggested that the costs of the meeting (in general) be kept reasonably low with reduced rates for students, assistance to colleagues from poorer countries, and economical accommodation. Mucina assured the Council that all these issues are being taken seriously by the Local Arrangement Committee in Stellenbosch.
2009: I. Tsiripidis (on behalf of a group of colleagues from Hellas, headed by Prof. P. Dimopoulos, Agrinio, GR) conveyed the message that the 2009 IAVS symposium will be held in Crete (Heracleion or Chania), possibly in May. The Council unanimously welcomed the suggestion and agreed to the  proposal.
2010: The fate of the 2010 yearly symposium is still unclear, but two suggestions were discussed. M. Barbour reminded us that colleagues from Encenada (Baja California, MX) propoesd some time ago to host the meeting. Barbour will investigate and report back to the Council. V. Pillar suggested that the 2010 meeting could be held in South America again, perhaps in Argentina. He agreed to contact colleagues in Cordoba (AR) and will report back to the Council. Members of the Council expressed support for both suggested locations.
The Council further discussed several issues pertinent to organization of the yearly meetings. Particular attention was devoted to the question of involvement of the Executive Committee and/or the Council in supervising (co-coordinating, advising upon) the academic program.  Several colleagues felt that the IAVS leadership (Executive Committee or Council)) should be more actively involved in the academic program of the meetings, either directly or through appointment of a program committee.  Other colleagues felt that the Local Arrangements Committee should be given the freedom to decide on the topic, contents, and format of the meeting on their own. Many agreed that the local organizers should consult colleagues who have organised or otherwise managed symposia in the past to assure a high-quality scientific program. The Portugal symposium was mentioned as one where organizers involved colleagues in preparation of the scientific program (management of sessions, abstract screening, and abstract editing) with much success. There was general agreement on the issue that the Local Arrangements Committee should learn from the experience of previous meetings, consult the organizers of the early meetings, and involve other colleagues (perhaps Council members) in shaping the academic program. Mucina recommended that the setting of parameters for the yearly meetings be handled during the coming inter-symposium period, possibly as part of the establishment of new by-laws.

8. Discussion on a new Journal for Vegetation Classification
The Chair briefly informed the Council of an initiative started by J. Dengler (also present at this meeting) aimed at establishment of an electronic journal devoted to publishing of descriptive papers on topics such as vegetation classification and vegetation surveys. An e-mail discussion on the topic has been in progress, organised by J. Dengler, with strong involvement of L. Mucina, R. Peet and E. van der Maarel. J. Dengler informed the Council briefly about this discussion, which revealed that there is a need for a journal willing to publish descriptive papers, particularly long papers or papers with large amounts of supporting material. There was, in general, positive feeling about this initiative, especially because of the electronic nature of the publication. The e-mail discussion also revealed general support for linking such a journal to IAVS. However, some colleagues expressed the view that such a journal is not necessary because of other existing publications such as Phytocoenologia, Tuexenia and Folia Geobotanica, all of which might come under competitive pressure if a new journal is launched. Another concern raised was the size of the pool of potential authors (J. Dengler agreed to investigate the pool of potential authors). L. Mucina reminded the Council that the proposal is still in a preliminary stage and many issues (e.g., name, format, publication model, financial model, etc.) still have to be worked out. The Council asked Dengler to prepare a summary of the previous electronic discussion and forward the document to the President or Secretary for further consideration by the Council. As issues regarding the proposed journal become clearer, the Council will be informed and asked for input.

9. Issues emerging
9.1 Business outside the Annual Meeting
The Chair has emphasized that the Executive Committee will use electronic means of communication to manage the daily business of IAVS. Secretary Mucina informed the Council that the procedures of the Executive Committee and of the Council (communication, voting system, etc.) will be handled as part of the preparation of new by-laws.
9.2 Policies and Procedures: expansion of by-laws
The Chair and the Secretary reported that they feel that the ways IAVS pursues its business should undergo scrutiny and formalization. Such procedures should be captured in the form of a series of the new by-laws to be prepared, discussed and submitted by the Executive Committee for approval by the Council and ultimately for approval by the General Assembly at the 2008 IAVS symposium in Stellenbosch.
9.3 Membership – Sustainability
The Executive Committee recognizes that the membership issues, especially the negative trend in number of members, should be addressed as a matter of high priority. All members of the Council are encouraged to propose ways to boost membership. Several proposals were made in the course of the discussion including:

1. Upgrade the IAVS website to make it more attractive, especially for younger people;
2. Feature a number member benefits (such as a lower attendance fee for members at the meetings, awards at the meetings, privileged access to information about activities of IAVS, job-market announcements etc.);
3. Foster use of Associate Membership for colleagues from countries with currency problems as well as for students and young scientists;
4. Revisit the advantages IAVS members would have in publishing in the existing journals owned by IAVS;

Provide a clear separation of membership from journal subscriptions

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Palmerston North, New Zealand, 11 February 2007 (= 2006 Meeting)

Council Members present:
Elgene O. Box, Martin Diekmann, Kazue Fujiwara, Javier Loidi Arregui, Akira Miyawaki, Dieter Mueller-Dombois, Jörg Pfadenhauer, Richard Pott, Angelika Schwabe-Kratochwil, Otto J. Wildi, Bastow Wilson, Martin Zobel.
Other Attendees: Alessandro Chiarucci, Anselm Kratochwil, Joachim Hüppe

1. Opening
The meeting was opened at 7 pm by the President (Box), who also took the minutes for the meeting (in the absence of the Secretary-General). Since attendance was too low for major decisions, the meeting focused on a discussion of a few critical issues.

2. Executive Committee Report
The financial report for 2005, derived from data from the Wageningen and Göttingen offices, was already distributed via the Bulletin.  The overall balance for 2005, combining both offices, was positive (+4,684.08 Euros), but annual costs for the Wageningen office were not included (paid only at the beginning of 2006).

As noted before, the IAVS does not have the money or the income potential to continue providing support for annual meetings unless some changes are made, such as raising the annual dues. New Zealand did not request support money.

A report from the Publication Office, for the year 2005, was also available in the Bulletin. Library subscriptions to JVS have declined dramatically (e.g. from 368 paper subscriptions in 2004 to 240 in 2005), as have individual subscriptions (from 607 to 369). This is due to a removal from the list of those libraries/individuals that had not paid their fees for several years, but presumably also to the popularity of library “packages”, by which on-line access to many journals can be provided. For AVS, private subscriptions also declined significantly (from 319 to 240), while library subscriptions increased slightly (from 86 to 90). There was some discussion of this new trend, continuing the e-mail discussion which had begun shortly before the New Zealand meeting.

Problems of reviewing time and the work load on the journal editors were also discussed.

The relationship between the IAVS and Opulus Press was also discussed, in particular the inadequacies in the present contract. A resolution was passed to terminate the current Opulus contract and to renegotiate a more favorable publication contract, with Opulus Press or with another publisher - but without prejudice against Opulus Press (text of the resolution adopted by the Council concerning contract renegotiation: “The IAVS, in order to consider the contract with a publisher, terminates the present contract for the publication of JVS and AVS as of 31 December 2008, without prejudice to the present publisher”. This resolution will be presented to the full Council for a vote by e-mail. An Ad Hoc Contract Committee (Diekmann, Peet, and the journal Chief Editors) was appointed to handle these contract negotiations. It was noted that other proposals had already been received, including a new proposal from Opulus Press.

Finally, by vote of the Council members present, the following were formally reappointed as journal Chief Editors: Peter White, Bastow Wilson, and Alessandro Chiarucci.

There were no oral reports from Working Groups, Commissions or Regional Sections, as these are included in the Bulletin.

3. New Business
The upcoming election for the next IAVS Council was also discussed, including the procedure by which votes are counted and documented (for the Executive Committee as well as the Council itself). A ballot was included in the current Bulletin (available at the New Zealand meeting), but others may not yet have received their ballots, especially outside Europe. The deadline for votes may be extended.

In recent years the Bulletin has not appeared as quickly after the annual meeting as it once did. It also appears only once a year. A suggestion was thus made to develop a Newsletter, to be circulated by e-mail, which would appear several times a year and which would, in a sense, be interactive. A Newsletter Committee (Diekmann, Peet, Schaminée, and Smits) was appointed to develop the concept for such a newsletter.

The suddenly higher costs for the next IAVS meeting, in Wales in July 2007, were also discussed (although some necessary details were not yet available).

4. Activities in Coming Year

• 2007 Wales: Pre-symposium excursion in eastern Ireland
  Symposium 23-27 July (Monday-Friday) at Swansea University
  Post-symposium excursion to Cornwall
• 2008 South Africa: Stellenbosch, in September (already accepted)
  Excursions may include Namaqualand, the Eastern Cape, and Kruger National Park
• 2009 Greece:Proposal for a meeting in Greece, perhaps in Ioannina, perhaps in spring or early summer (subject to European academic calendars)

No other meetings are currently in planning, though some other possibilities have been identified and are being discussed.

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Lisbon, Portugal: 25 July 2005

Council members present: M.G. Barbour (US), E.O. Box (US), U. Deil (DE), M. Diekmann (DE), H. Dierschke (DE), K. Fujiwara (JP), E. van der Maarel (NL), L. Mucina (ZA), A. Miyawaki (JP), J.H.J. Schaminée (NL) and J.B. Wilson (NZ). The meeting was also attended by N.A.C. Smits (IAVS administrator), M.D. Espírito-Santo (organizing committee present meeting), G.L. Rapson (organizing committee for IAVS meeting 2006 New Zealand, to be hold in February 2007), H.S.C. Thomas (organizing committee for IAVS meeting 2007 in Wales), and J. Delgadillo (proposal IAVS meeting 2009/2010 in Mexico).

1. Opening
The president of the IAVS, Elgene Box, opened the meeting at 20:15.

2. Approval of minutes of the last meeting
The minutes of the last meeting, in Hawaii 2005 (as published in IAVS Bulletin 8), were approved.

2a. Financial Report
The financial situation of the IAVS during the year 2004 was reported by the treasurer, Joop Schaminée, based on figures delivered by Nina Smits (Wageningen office) and Hartmut Dierschke (Göttingen office). Revenue for 2004 was EUR 5 787.82 , of which EUR 430.22 were from membership fees paid in Göttingen and EUR 5293.07 from membership fees paid in Wageningen. Expenses were EUR 5 239.04, divided among 2 x EUR 2 495.00 for the office in Wageningen (Nina Smits), and EUR 249.24 for bank and other costs. The balance for 2004 was + EUR 53.83. Because the expenses also included the delayed payment of office costs for Wageningen for 2003, the actual situation is somewhat better. This made the total IAVS balance EUR 28 570.42 euros on 31-12-2004, divided into EUR 6 143.66 in the Global Fund account and EUR 22 426.76 in the savings account. An extra sum of SEK 51 743 (ca. EUR 5 300) will be added to the accounts, representing a percentage of the net profit of Opulus Press over the year 2003, as part of the formal agreement between IAVS and Opulus. The Göttingen account will be closed, because there is no longer any need for its continuation. Hartmut Dierschke will inform everybody paying in Germany by letter.

A discussion was raised by Laco Mucina about possibilities to improve the financial situation of the organization. Van der Maarel promised to gain some information on the possibilities of investments (without risks) by contacting the Dutch Botanical Society. Mucina launched the idea to share possible gains from annual meetings between the local symposium organizers and the IAVS, which money could be used for inviting young people to the next symposia. It was decided not to formalize this idea but to keep it optional, partly because the formal procedures to conduct it could be rather complicated.

At the Council meeting in Hawaii, the financial report for the year 2003 was not discussed in detail, since the information was lost in the E-mail exchange between the office in Wageningen and the organization of the Hawaii meeting. The detailed report will be sent by Nina Smits to all Council members.

2b. Report of the Publication Officer
Martin Diekmann presented his report of the IAVS Publication Officer for the year 2004. The report is concerned with the publication activities of the IAVS, mainly related to the two journals Journal of Vegetation Science and Applied Vegetation Science. This report actually covers the years 2003 and 2004. Further details are presented in the annual report of Bastow Wilson on behalf of the IAVS. Both reports are added to these minutes.

Ladislav Mucina asked about the treatment of descriptive and phytosociological papers. He would like to get an idea of the number of such manuscripts submitted and the percentage that are rejected.

2c. Reports of Working Groups, Commissions and Regional Sections.
During the meeting in Uppsala in 1998, it was decided that Working Groups, Commissions and Regional Sections should provide an annual report to the Council and that these (short) reports should be published in the IAVS Bulletin. These reports can be found elsewhere in this bulletin (see further under ‘Working Groups, Commissions and Regional Sections’) and are also made available on the internet (www.iavs.org).

2d. Membership list
A new IAVS Membership List (November 2004) was presented and made available on paper for all IAVS members. However, it proved that the new list contains a number of mistakes or omissions (for example, names beginning with the letter Z are missing), which makes it unacceptable in its present form. It was decided that an updated, corrected list will be prepared, by Eddy van der Maarel, Nina Smits and Joop Schaminée, and published by Opulus Press to substitute for the present list. This list will be sent to all IAVS members by regular post.

It was discussed how to improve future communication within the IAVS, using modern techniques. Eddy van der Maarel informed the Council that Opulus is preparing a renewed membership administration that easily could be extended to non-journal members. In the near future, this system will also offer the possibility to pay through the Website by credit card, which highly facilitates this part of the membership administration, certainly for many American members.

3. Symposium guidelines
Elgene Box prepared a draft of symposium guidelines (on paper) that may help candidates to organize future annual IAVS meetings. Everyone was asked to read them carefully and to deliver possible comments and additions. The status of this draft was discussed, and it was decided that it be sent to possible new organizers as a helping tool. These guidelines will not be published in the IAVS Bulletin, as they have no formal status.

4. New IAVS Honorary Members
For the first time since 1997, a proposal was made to appoint new IAVS Honorary Members. Three nominees were brought forward: Hartmut Dierschke (by Joop Schaminée), Eddy van der Maarel (by Ladislav Mucina) and Salvador Rivas-Martínez (by Javier Loidi). After a brief discussion, the nominations were formally approved by the Council. It was decided that the new Honorary Members would be presented during the General Assembly and that the laudations would be published in the IAVS Bulletin.

5. Election of the next IAVS Council
Formally, following the statutes, a new IAVS Council should be installed in 2006. Since the number of Council members present in Porto Alegre in 2002 was considered too low to elect an Executive Committee, however, the present Council was not installed until 2003, at the meeting in Naples. For this reason, and since there will be no annual meeting in 2006, it was decided to postpone the election and installation of the new IAVS Council to 2007. Members are asked to bring forward new candidates for the new IAVS Council. The secretary will prepare a provisional list that will be sent to all Council members for approval before the end of 2006. This list will form the basis for a postal ballot that will be organized in the first half of 2007, after which the new Council will be installed and a new Executive Committee elected at the meeting in Wales.

6. Activities of the coming years
As decided before, the IAVS annual meeting of 2006 will be held in Palmerston North, New Zealand, in February 2007. Details were presented by Jill Rapson to the Council members. In the same year, the 50th annual meeting will take place in Wales, organized by Hilary Thomas. The organizing committee of the meeting in Wales was hit heavily by the totally unexpected loss of Paddy Coker, one of the main organizers, but nevertheless has decided to go on with the preparations.

Options were also discussed for subsequent annual symposia. In 2008, the annual meeting will take place in South Africa, at Stellenbosch, combined with excursions in other parts of the country. The offer, made by Ladislav Mucina, was formally accepted by the Council. A new proposal was put forward by José Delgadillo to organize an IAVS meeting in 2009 or 2010 in Mexico, possibly in cooperation with Michael Barbour (California). This plan, too, got great approval. At the moment, there are no offers for Europe in 2009. The offer from Norway has been taken back. Some time ago, Irina Safronova from St. Petersburg offered to organize an IAVS excursion in Russia, but further plans have not appeared.

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Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, USA: 19 July 2004

Council Members present: Elgene Box, Valerio De Patta Pillar, Kazue Fujiwara, Georg Grabherr, TomበHerben, Dieter Mueller-Dombois, Bob Peet, Angelika Schwabe-Kratochwil, and Bastow Wilson. Other Attendees: Julie Denslow (local organizer), Anselm Kratochwil (Germany), Jill Rapson (organizer for New Zealand 2007), Joost van der Maarel (Opulus Press), Thomas Wentworth (USA), and Susan Wiser (New Zealand).

1. Opening
The meeting was opened at 7 pm by the President, Elgene Box. This was the first IAVS meeting that anyone could remember with both the Secretary-General and Publication Officer absent.

2. Executive Committee Report
A report on the financial situation of the IAVS (Göttingen and Wageningen offices) was read by Box. The balance for 2003 at the Göttingen office was very negative (minus 8 184.96 EUR), due to payouts for two annual meetings within the same calendar year. The balance at the Wageningen office was moderately positive (+ 602.48 EUR) (see details below). The financial situation of the IAVS from 1985 through 2003 was also listed.

A major problem is the financial support given in recent years to the organizers of each annual meeting, for supporting participants from less rich countries. The IAVS does not have the money nor the income potential to continue providing this support unless some changes are made, such as raising the annual dues. There is a buffer in advance for the Portugal meeting (2005), so this financial problem will not occur next year. Portugal and New Zealand have not requested support money.

For the Hawaii meeting,  51 000 USD were raised by the organizers. The amount of support needed depends on the location, for example the costs were lower in Brazil in 2002. Guidelines are needed for support provided from the IAVS treasury. In general, meeting costs are lower on university campuses, but meeting time may be constrained by the university operating calendar.

Some confusion remains concerning payment of section dues. Most payments come from Germany and Japan. Some new process may be necessary in order to simplify payments.

A new membership list is being prepared and should be ready by the end of 2004. It was suggested that the list could be made available on the IAVS website (with password protection).

A report from the Publication Office was given by Joost van der Maarel. The number of library subscriptions to JVS has increased from 407 (in 2003) to 446 (for 2004), and there is a further increase due to library subscriptions through BioOne. For AVS, private subscriptions have increased from 266 (in 2003) to 365 (in 2004), and library subscriptions have increased modestly from 92 (in 2003) to 109 (in 2004). Some discussion followed concerning paper versus electronic subscriptions.

No reports were presented from Working Groups, Commissions or Regional Sections.

3. Activities in coming years

• 2005: Portugal: Pre-symposium excursion 18-24 July 2005, in Madeira; Symposium 25-29 July (Monday-Friday) in Lisboa; post-symposium excursion to northern Portugal, about one week (possibly including Galicia).
• 2006: Two possibilities were proposed by New Zealand, November 2006 (Nov. 20 - Dec. 14) and February 2007 (Jan. 29 - Feb. 22). The February schedule falls more within the growing season and is logistically easier for the local organizers, but February 2006 would be too soon. Council participants (from Europe, Japan, N and S America) voted to accept the proposal from New Zealand, with the February 2007 schedule (vote: 12-0-0). Further information was provided by Jill Rapson (see further under ‘IAVS Symoposia’): probable costs (including excursions) about 2 000 NZD (New Zealand dollar), pre-symposium excursion to northern North Island, post-symposium excursion to South Island, including Nelson, Fox Glacier, Queenstown, Dunedin, Arthur's Pass, and Christchurch. If there is no IAVS meeting during calendar year 2006, an effort will be made to organize a major working-group meeting or similar.
• 2007: Wales: Already accepted (for July 2007).
• 2008: Proposals have been received from South Africa and from Trondheim (Norway), as well as more informal inquiries from Korea and Russia (excursions only). No one was present to provide further information.
  
  

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Naples, Italy: 9 June 2003

Council members present: E.O. Box (US), U. Deil (DE), M. Diekmann (DE), H. Dierschke (DE), K. Dierßen (DE), K. Fujiwara (JP), J. Loidi (ES), E. van der Maarel (NL), L. Mucina (ZA), A. Miyawaki (JP), F. Pedrotti (IT), R.K. Peet (US), S. Pignatti (IT), R. Pott (DE), J.S. Rodwell (GB), J.H.J. Schaminée (NL) and A. Schwabe-Kratochwil (DE). The meeting was also attended by J. van der Maarel (Opulus Press), M.D. Espírito-Santo (organizing committee IAVS meeting 2005), and P. Coker and H. Thomas (organizing committee IAVS meeting 2007).

1. Opening
The president of the IAVS, Elgene Box, opened the meeting at 20.10 with a word of welcome.

2. Approval of minutes of the last meeting
The minutes of the last meeting, in Porto Alegre (as published in Bulletin 7) were approved.

3. Financial Repor
The financial situation of the IAVS during the year 2002 was reported by Hartmut Dierschke. The income for 2002 was 4 127.97 EUR, of which 3 541.61 EUR were from membership fees and 586.36 EUR from interest. The expenses were 4 347.05 EUR, divided among 2 505.27 EUR for the office in Wageningen (Nina Smits), 1 706.86 EUR for notarial charges (second account), and 134.92 EUR for bank costs. The balance for 2002 was –219.08 EUR. This makes the total balance on 31.12.2002 for the IAVS 30 611.72 EUR.

Richard Pott brought forward a letter from Dieter Mueller-Dombois on financial support for the Hawaii symposium in 2004. After a long discussion, the request was granted to the amount of 5 000 EUR – the same support was given to the Naples symposium and earlier symposia had also received some subsidy. However, the financial situation of the IAVS does not allow such grants to continue. This subject will be put on the agenda of the next meeting of the IAVS Council. So far, each request for financial support has been voted on by the Council. When support is granted, the money may be used as a backup first and later to facilitate the attendance of young scientists. The organizing committee is free to spend this grant, provided: (1) the person or persons in question must present a paper or a poster at the IAVS symposium, and (2) it must be announced somewhere that participation at the symposium was made possible by a grant from the IAVS.

The council stated again that the IAVS cannot take any financial responsibility for the annual symposium, as the organisation does not have such a strong financial position itself.

This will be the last financial report Hartmut Dierschke presented. Hartmut has served the IAVS as Secretary and Treasurer for many, many years indeed. He has been an anchor in our association during
the period of rapid growth from around 500 members during the 1980s to ca. 1500 at the moment. The IAVS owes really very much to Hartmut’s continuous excellent service.

4. Report of the Publication Officer
Eddy van der Maarel presented his report of the IAVS Publication Officer for the year 2002. It deals with several aspects of the journals, Journal of Vegetation Science and Applied Vegetation Science. This will be his last report. From the beginning of JVS in 1989, Eddy has been the contact person between Opulus Press and IAVS, and editorially active. He has now resigned as Publication Officer, but he continues his help with the final editing of the journals. To give some credit to the work of Eddy, we here publish large parts of his full report, showing his dedication to the journals.

On the Journals
The number of member-subscribers to JVS (including free editorial board, adoptees), was: 864 on 01.03.2003 (against 872 on 01.06.2001); 31 subscribers (last year 25) take only the on-line version, and 7 (5) the combination of paper and electronic versions. The number of on-line subscriptions, although rising, is still disappointing. The number of library subscriptions increased. This is probably due to our agreement with SPARC (see below).

For AVS, the number of member-subscribers (including free editorial board, adoptees) is 521 (481). Of these 16 (11) take the on-line version only and 4 (3) take both. By far most of the AVS subscribers also take JVS. The number of library subscriptions is 104 (99).

There are four Editors, who serve both JVS and AVS. (These are currently Jan P. Bakker, Sandra Díaz, Peter S. White and J. Bastow Wilson, who act as Chairperson.) Bastow has been very active in raising issues of editorial policy, always involving the Publication Officer. The number of Associate Editors was further increased in order to improve the procedures for manuscript review and decisions about acceptance or rejection. JVS now has no fewer than 16 Associate Editors. The number of members of the Editorial Board has further decreased. Book Review Editor Carol Baskin resigned after seven years of service. She will be succeeded by Scott L. Collins. The Computer Program Review Editor Mike Palmer has started his work.

The number of manuscripts submitted, at least to JVS, is still growing. During 2002 almost 300 new manuscripts were received, as against 220-250 in earlier years. The popularity is certainly related to the high impact factor the journal has. The number of papers published in 2002 was 90, with an average size of 9.8 pp. In 2001, 98 papers were published with an average size of 9.5 pp. The size of JVS has not changed much in the last few years.

The time between acceptance and publication varied between 4 and 6 months. Unfortunately there was a serious delay in the publication of issue 13-6. This was mainly because of technical problems, especially printing and mailing. (Since these problems have been solved and the Editorial Office has speeded up the handling of manuscripts as much as possible, issues are now published promptly.)

The situation around AVS is stable. Interest in publishing in the journal is not growing, which has to do with the delay in accepting the journal for Current Contents and the Science Citation Index.

On the Adoption system
AVS has a Global Fund and an Adoption Committee that has, unofficially, functioned since the beginning of JVS. Since the Bilbao meeting (1999), the Committee has the following members: the IAVS Publication Officer as secretary, the IAVS Secretary as Treasurer and Administrator, and IAVS members Michael W. Palmer and Tomáš Herben. Consultations within the Committee are entirely by E-mail. Usually Eddy van der Maarel sends a proposal for adoptions through Global Fund and a survey of colleagues adopted more personally. The candidate adoptees receive a letter asking for an explanation that the adoption is still needed and for a list of local colleagues profiting from the adoption.

For 1996-2002 the number of adopted colleagues was ca. 40. However, the situation changed in 2002. First of all, the Global Fund, managed by the bankers of Opulus Press in Uppsala, suffered from the big losses on the stock market. Second, only a few colleagues pay directly for an adoption and almost all adoptions have to be paid from the profits of the Global Fund. Third, several adoptees had not answered an annual letter for several years. Fourth, we were behind with the yearly settlement of ins and outs between IAVS and Opulus Press regarding the Global Fund. As a result we decided to adopt only 21 colleagues for 2002. It was also arranged in principle that JVS adoptees could get an electronic subscription. Eddy van der Maarel arranged with Opulus Press that the firm should only take 100 SEK in administration costs (ca. 11 EUR) per electronic adoption. We had also agreed on starting with adoptions for AVS, but in view of the uncertain financial situation this has been postponed.

In order to make a fresh start for 2003, Eddy first cleared up the matter of financial settlement, and, to our pleasure, Opulus Press offered to consider the financial relation as settled. This means that Global Fund did not need to pay to Opulus for the adopted subscriptions over the last few years. This may mean an extra grant from Opulus of more than 15 000 SEK. We will now arrange with the bankers in Uppsala that the shares be sold and the money transferred to the special Global Fund account of IAVS which the Secretary and Administrator opened in Wageningen. (At the moment we have 6100 EUR on the account).

Eddy also proposed to the Adoption Committee and Opulus Press only to pay electronic subscriptions from the Global Fund and that adoptions for the printed version should be realized only from direct personal adoptions – of which few are left. Eddy arranged with Opulus Press that we would have to pay only 10 EUR for each electronic subscription. A further proposal was to carry out a ‘campaign’ in Naples to get more money for the Global Fund and to encourage colleagues to adopt a colleague, at least for an electronic subscription. Finally Eddy suggested that centres for which a JVS subscription can be arranged should send in exchange a selection of publications to a generally accessible library, for which he suggested the Alterra Library in Wageningen.

On the Relation IAVS - Opulus Press
Due to rising costs in Sweden, the net income for 2001 was negative. The prognosis based on the preliminary figures for 2002 shows a continuing negative trend, which has been reinforced by a decrease in the number of reliable private subscribers. On the other hand, the number of library subscriptions is growing. Opulus has taken decisive steps to break the negative trend. By moving the office to another location, Opulus has been able to cut costs on a number of in-house items. Since December 2002, JVS and AVS are now being printed in Latvia, resulting in 30% lower printing costs. We are further investigating alternative ways of dispatching the journals, with a possible outcome that all journals will be dispatched from the US. (In the end the UK was chosen!) Due to the ca. 10% increase in library subscriptions, as well as the overall reduction in costs, we are optimistic for 2003 and expect a positive net result for the first time in several years. (This was indeed achieved.)

Opulus Press wishes that fees for private subscriptions be raised by 10 EUR. Library subscriptions should be raised by 10%, as prices have not been raised for the past four years. We propose to quote 2004 prices in USD and EUR only.

As to the renewal of the agreements concerning JVS and AVS between IAVS and Opulus Press, Eddy will prepare copies of the agreements which can be signed during the meeting at Naples.

Miscellaneous items
AVS was accepted by the Institute of Scientific Information for inclusion in Current Contents and the Science Citation Index. This will certainly contribute to an increase in the number of submitted manuscripts and the number of library subscriptions. (Meanwhile the impact factor for AVS was published for the first time.)

The negotiations with SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition, have resulted in a Memorandum of Understanding between the Association of Research Libraries, the organization running SPARC, Opulus Press and IAVS regarding support of JVS. Eddy van der Maarel signed the Agreement on behalf of IAVS. One of the benefits of this agreement is that all libraries supporting SPARC will promise to enter a subscription to JVS. It seems that this effect is already clear!

BioOne will provide uniquely integrated, cost-effective access to a thoroughly hyperlinked information resource focused on biological, ecological and environmental sciences. Electronic versions of BioOne journals, basically journals published by small publishing houses and societies, are offered as a package to research libraries as a complement to the journal packages offered by the big commercial publishers. BioOne is supported by SPARC, which makes it all the more interesting to join it. JVS and AVS have been accepted by the BioOne organization. JVS and AVS have been accepted by the BioOne organization, and the journals have been included in the BioOne aggregation since the autumn of 2002.

5. Election of the new Executive Committee 2002-2005
Hartmut Dierschke, Eddy van der Maarel and Akira Miyawaki want to end their involvement in the Executive Committee; Elgene Box is available again as president; Joop Schaminée is available again as Secretary General & Treasurer; and Martin Diekmann is available as Publication officer. The present members of the Council voted anonymously, with the following result:

Executive Committee 2002-2005:
President: Elgene O. Box
General Secretary & Treasurer: Joop H.J. Schaminée
Publication Officer: Martin Diekmann
Vice-Presidents: Kazue Fujiwara, Javier Loidi, Ladislav Mucina and John S. Rodwell

6. Reports of Working Groups, Commissions and Regional Sections
During the meeting in Uppsala in 1998, it was decided that Working Groups, Commissions and Regional Sections should provide an annual report to the Council and that these (short) reports should be published in the IAVS Bulletin. These annual reports can be found elsewhere in this bulletin and are also made available on the Internet (www.iavs.org).

7. Activities in the coming years
Options were discussed with regard to the organization of the annual symposia for the next years:

• 2004: Symposium in Hawaii.
• 2005: The Council voted for Portugal (offer made by Maria Dalila Espírito-Santo).
• 2006: Several options, but the first choice is New Zealand (offer made by Jill Rapson), as they were also in the running for 2004. Other possibilities are a symposium in South Africa (offer made by Laco Mucina) or in Russia (informal offer made by Irina Safronova). Irina has also shown interest in organizing an excursion, maybe possibly in combination with a symposium in Trondheim.
• 2007: The Council voted for Wales (offer made by Paddy Coker and Hilary Thomas).

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Porto Alegre, Brazil: 2 March 2002

The meeting was attended by Michael Barbour (US), Elgene Box (US), George Bredenkamp (ZA), Janus Falinski (PL), Kazue Fujiwara (JP), Akira Myawaki (JP), László Orlóci (CA), Valerio de Patta Pillar (BR), Michael Palmer (US), Franco Pedrotti (IT) Jörg Pfadenhauer (DE), Richard Pott (DE) and Irina Safronova (RU). As Secretary General Joop Schaminée could not attend the meeting, Nina Smits attended on his behalf; she had been appointed as representative by Laco Mucina and Hartmut Dierschke.

1. Opening and installation of the new Council
The president, E.O. Box, opened the meeting at 17:00 with a word of welcome. As there were some troubles with the late arrival of the latest bulletin, offering the members a relatively short period to vote, the Council discussed whether the preliminary result of the election had to be accepted as final. As the number of people that sent in their votes (150) was about the same as with previous votings, and no new ballots were received over the last days, the voting was accepted as final by the Council. The results are presented elsewhere in this Bulletin. The new Council members will soon be approached with the question whether they want to participate in the new Council (2002-2005). As the election of the Council was delayed, the old Executive Committee offered to stay on for another year. This was approved by the Council. The new Executive Committee will be elected in Naples.

The voting list contained 110 candidates, of which 40 receiving the most votes are elected directly. To guarantee that each major world region is represented in the newly elected Council, at least one representative from each region will be voted, i.e. the candidate that receives the most votes among those in the region). During the meeting in Freising, Box presented a provisional list of major world regions, which was discussed; amendments were put forward by van der Maarel and others. The revised list has been approved. Altogether, 12 regions have been distinguished. After the name of the region, the countries involved and numbers of members are shown.

• Region 1: Northern Europe (NW Europe + Scandinavia + Baltic countries). Total = 243. Belgium 12; Denmark 14; Estonia 13; Fćroes 1; Finland 19; Iceland 4; Ireland 5; Latvia 7; Lithuania 1; Luxemburg 2; Netherlands 53; Norway 30; Sweden 42; United Kingdom 40.
• Region 2. Central Europe (German Europe). Total = 295. Austria 21; Germany 238; Switzerland 36; Liechtenstein.
• Region 3. Southern Europe. Total = 175. Andorra; Cyprus; France 47; Israel 7; Italy 34; Malta; Portugal 7; Spain 87; Turkey 1.
• Region 4. Eastern Europe (Eastern Europe + Balkan peninsula). Total = 165. Albania 2; Bosnia-Herzegovina 1; Bulgaria 4; Croatia 8; Czech Republic 33; Greece 9; Hungary 32; Macedonia; Moldavia; Poland 50; Romania 9; Slovakia 7; Slovenia 9; Yugoslavia 1.
• Region 5. East Slavonic countries Total = 70. Belarus; Russia 64; Ukraine 6.
• Region 6. Middle East including Middle Asia (Minor and Central Asia). Total = 18. Afghanistan; Armenia; Azerbajdzjan; Bahrain; Georgia 2; Irak; Iran 4; Jordan 1; Kazachstan; Kuwait; Lebanon; Oman; Pakistan; Saudi Arabia 2; Syria; Turkmenistan; Uzbekistan 1.
• Region 7. South and Southeast Asia. Total = 19. Bangladesh; Brunei 0; Burma 0; India 11; Indonesia 1; Malaysia 1; Indonesia; Nepal 2; Philippines; Réunion; Singapore 1; Sri Lanka 2; Thailand 1; Vietnam.
• Region 8. East Asia. Total = 181. China 52; Japan 112; Korea Republic 13; Korea DPR 1; Mongolia; Taiwan 3.
• Region 9. Africa. Total = 48. Algeria 6; Botswana 1; Egypt 9; Ethiopia 4; Ghana 1; Namibia 2; Nigeria 4; Senegal 1; South Africa 12; Tanzania 2; Tunisia 1; Uganda 1; Zambia 1; Zimbabwe 3.
• Region 10. North America (USA + Canada + English speaking Carribean). Total = 318. Canada 46; Jamaica 0; USA 272.
• Region 11. Latin America, including Central America and non-English Carribean. Total = 68. Argentina 29; Brazil 8; Chile 5; Colombia 1; Costa Rica 3; Ecuador; Honduras; Mexico 19; Nicaragua; Panama; Peru 1; Surinam; Uruguay 1; Venezuela 1.
• Region 12. Australia and New Zealand plus Pacific islands (Oceania). Total = 41. Australia 26; French Polynesia; New Caledonia 1; New Zealand 14; Papua New Guinea.

2. Approval of the minutes of the last meeting
The minutes of the last meeting, in Freising (as published in Bulletin 6) were approved with a change in section 8: the offer to organize an IAVS symposium came from Newport, not from Bangor; the offer was made by Hillary Thomas and Paddy Coker.

3. Report of the Executive Committee
The financial report for 2001 was made by the treasurer (Hartmut Dierschke). The revenues were 14,440.28 DEM: 10,805.37 DEM membership fee and 3,634.91 DEM interest. The expenses were:
10,000.00 DEM for the symposium in 2001 in Freising;
10,054.45 DEM for the symposium in Porto Alegre in 2002;
2,473.61 DEM for the notary who approved the Statutes (necessary for legalizing IAVS);
1,603.52 DEM for the office in Wageningen (administrator);
457.48 DEM for the office in Göttingen;
536.30 DEM to Opulus Press;
327.31 DEM bank costs.

The total expenses were 25,452.67 DEM. As the expenses of the symposium of Porto Alegre in 2002 were already paid in 2001, the balance turned out to be negative (–11,012.39 DEM). The balance of the IAVS on 31-12-2000 was 71,312.18 DEM and on 31-12-2001 60,299.79 DEM = 30,830.79 EUR.

On 1 September 2001, Nina Smits, Wageningen, member of IAVS, was appointed assistant for membership administration and maintenance of the home page.

Eddy van der Maarel (Publication Officer) had sent a written report to the members of the Council.

Several items were put forward during the meeting. With regard to the Journal of Vegetation Science (JVS) and Applied Vegetation Science (AVS), there are now four Editors who serve both journals. The Council confirmed the nomination of Jan P. Bakker as new Editor after Ladislav Mucina. Bastow Wilson acts as Chairperson. The number of Associate Editors was further increased in 2001 in order to improve the procedure for manuscript review and decisions about acceptance or rejection. On the other hand, Associate Editors Julie Denslow and Deborah Goldberg (JVS) and Trudy Watt (AVS) resigned. Finally, Robert K. Peet, former Editor of JVS, was nominated as the second Consulting Editor, along with Eddy van der Maarel. In addition to the Book Review Editor there will be a Review Editor for ‘reviews of digital products for vegetation scientists’, i.e. packages of computer programs and large databases. The first colleague in this position is Michael W. Palmer, a former Associate Editor of JVS.

Both JVS and AVS are now available in electronic form for reasonable prices. The number of electronic subscriptions is still low but is expected to rise steadily. Considering the number of submitted manuscripts, 230 in 2002 against 200 in 2001 and 180 in 2000, JVS is still growing in popularity. This is certainly related to the high impact factor of JVS. The number of papers published in 2002 was 92, with an average length of 9.7 pages. In 2001 98 papers were published, with an average of 9.5 pages. This means that the rejection rate is ca. 55%, with a trend towards 60%. Although we had some delays in publication during the winter of 2000/2001, papers are now being published soon after acceptance. For the papers in issue 12-4 the time between acceptance and publication was 5 months, for 12-5 it was 4.5 mo, for 12-6 3.7 mo, and for issue 13-1 it will be less than 3 mo. The time between submission and acceptance varies considerably – as has always been the case. The average for the last few years has been roughly 12 mo, but the papers in the recent issue 12-6 were accepted only 9 mo after submission. Further recent initiatives to increase the attraction of JVS include the activation of the Forum section, which now has its own Editor, and the solicitation of Guest Editorials.

After the Dutch version of the IAVS Statutes was adapted to Dutch law and society rules and finally accepted by the Dutch Notary in December 2001, the application for registration of IAVS was delivered to the Dutch Chamber of Commerce in December 2001. We were registered shortly thereafter. At last IAVS has received legal status! Now the IAVS can, among other things, open a bank account for IAVS Global Fund and prepare payment of membership fees with credit cards.

IAVS has a Global Fund (GF) and an Adoption Committee that has, unofficially, functioned since the beginning of JVS. Since the Bilbao meeting the Committee has the following members: the IAVS Publication Officer as secretary, the IAVS Secretary, Treasurer and Administrator, and IAVS members Michael W. Palmer and Tomáš Herben. Since 1996, the number of adopted colleagues has been around 40. Adoptions go to Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Chile, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Georgia, India, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, and Zambia. The list of adoptees has not been changed recently, mainly while waiting for the transfer of the money from an account in Marijke van der Maarel’s name to an account of IAVS. This account can now soon be opened in The Netherlands. From 2002 onwards, the standard adoption will concern an electronic subscription. So far adoptions have been to JVS (with one exception). We will now also include AVS in the adoption system. We will contact Opulus Press for establishing an amount that has to be paid from GF to Opulus for each adopted electronic subscription. Present adoptees are being sent a letter of explanation with an application form for continued subscription. The financial situation of GF is somewhat unclear because we still have to balance incoming and outgoing amounts with Opulus, which is pending the opening of a special IAVS account. By the end of 2001 there was ca. 57,000 SEK (ca. 6000 EUR) on the GF account.

The negotiations with SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition, have resulted in a Memorandum of understanding between the Association of Research Libraries, the organization running SPARC, Opulus Press and IAVS regarding support of JVS. Van der Maarel has signed the Agreement on behalf of IAVS. One of the benefits of this agreement is that all libraries supporting SPARC will promise to enter a subscription to JVS. Negotiations were also made with BioOne. BioOne ‘will provide uniquely integrated, cost-effective access to a thoroughly hyperlinked information resource focused on biological, ecological and environmental sciences’. Electronic versions of BioOne journals, basically journals published by small publishing houses and societies, are offered as a package to research libraries as a complement to the journal packages offered by the big commercial publishers. BioOne is supported by SPARC, which makes it all the more interesting to join it. JVS and AVS have been accepted by the BioOne organization, and Opulus Press has found solutions for several practical problems included in joining the organization, so that the journals will probably be added to the BioOne aggregation in the course of 2002.

The draft of the contract between Opulus Press and the IAVS about JVS/AVS was presented to the Council. Members were invited to give their comments over the E-mail. The definitive contract text will be presented at the meeting in Naples.

4. Reports of Working groups, Commissions and Regional Sections
During the meeting in Uppsala (1998), it was decided that Working Groups, Commissions and Regional Sections should provide an annual report to the Council and that these (short) reports should be published in the IAVS Bulletin. These annual reports can be found elsewhere in this bulletin (see further under ‘Working Groups, Commissions and Regional Sections’).

5. Statutes (including by-laws) and official registration of IAVS
The statutes were accepted by all the Council members present.

6. IAVS Bulletin and Home page
In consultation with Opulus, it was decided to leave the home page housed in Sweden, as costs are much lower there. The next Bulletin will be available in 2003, the next membership list will be prepared in 2004.

7. Activities in the coming years
As decided earlier, the annual symposium in 2003 will be held in Napoli (Naples), Italy, from Sunday 8 June to Friday 13 June 2003. Also pre-symposium and post-symposium excursions will be organized. The theme of the symposium will be ‘Water Resources and Vegetation’. Further details are given elsewhere in this Bulletin, in the section ‘IAVS Symposia’.

Several offers were made for 2004 and further: (1) USA (Hawaii; invitation by Dieter Mueller-Dombois and Michael Barbour); (2) South Africa (Pretoria; invitation by George Bredenkamp and Ladislav Mucina); (3) New Zealand (Dunedin; invitation by Jill Rapson); (4) Portugal (Lisboa; invitation by Maria Delila Espirito Santo); (5) UK, Wales (Newport; invitation by Hilary Thomas and Paddy Coker); (6) Russia (Saint Petersburg; invitation by Irina Safronova).

The Council voted in April 2002 by postal ballot to have the venue of the 47th IAVS Symposium in Hawaii, organized by Dieter Mueller-Dombois and Michael Barbour.

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Freising, Germany: 30 & 31 July 2001

Apart from Council members, the meeting was attended by some guests, partly on behalf of forthcoming excursions and annual meetings. The attendance list was signed by the Council members J.P. Bakker (NL), R. Bornkamm (DE), G. Bredenkamp (ZA), E.O. Box (US), H. Dierschke (DE), K. Fujiwara (JP), D. Goldberg (US), T. Herben (CZ), M. Hill (UK), E. van der Maarel (NL), A. Miyawaki (JP), D. Mueller-
Dombois (US), R. Pott (DE), A. Schwabe-Kratochwil (DE) and J.H.J. Schaminée (NL), and the guests
P. Coker (UK), M.D. Espirito Santo (PT), A. Fischer (DE), J. van der Maarel (SE), A. Mueller-Dombois (US), J. Pfadenhauer (DE), I. Safronova (RU), N. Smits (NL), H. Thomas (UK) and J.B. Wilson (NZ).

1. Opening
The president, E.O. Box, opened the meeting at 18:00 with a word of welcome.

2. Approval of minutes of the last meeting
The minutes of the last meeting, in Nagano (24 July 2000), were formally approved after correcting some spelling mistakes.

3. Report of the Executive Committee
The Treasurer (Hartmut Dierschke) presented the financial report for 2000. The income for 2000 was 5,080.28 DM, and the expenditues were 5.281,85 DM. So the balance for 2000 was –201.61 DM. This makes the total assets on 31 December 2000 for the IAVS: 71.312,18 DM.

Dierschke mentioned that quite a number of people (not subscribing to a journal) that received a reminder last year have indicated that they would like to stay a member of the IAVS and have since paid their membership fee: 185 out of 281 that were reminded. All members were informed that the annual fee from 2001 onwards will be 20 USD or 20 EUR, as was decided during the Annual Meeting in Bilbao. In Bilbao, it also was decided to offer the possibility to pay for more than one year at a time (75 USD or 75 EUR for a 5-year subscription).

As in 2001 (Freising), it was decided to support the next IAVS symposium (Porto Alegre) with 5000 EUR to facilitate the attendance of young scientists. The organizing committee is free to spend this grant under the following conditions: (1) the person or persons in question must present a paper or poster at the IAVS symposium, and (2) it must be announced somewhere that participation at the symposium was made possible by a grant from the IAVS. The grant includes IAVS membership for at least one year. A proposal was discussed to appoint an assistant for the office in Wageningen for membership administration (including financial administration of members not subscribing to a journal). It was decided that a maximum of 2500 EUR yearly will be made available for this task, starting 1 September 2001. This certainly will facilitate the exchange of information between Opulus Press and the office in Wageningen. Following the announcement by Hartmut Dierschke that he would like to hand over the function of Treasurer to someone else next year, this also makes it possible to combine the functions of Secretary General and Treasurer again from 2002 onwards, after the Council meeting in Porto Alegre. The Secretary General is authorized to appoint this assistant.

A written report of the IAVS Publication Officer (Eddy van der Maarel) was brought forward and discussed.

The number of IAVS members in June 2001 was 1644, which is somewhat lower than last year. The simple reason for this decrease is that many members who had not paid for years have been removed from the list, both those taking a journal and those not doing so. Of the members, 872 were subscribing to the Journal of Vegetation Science (including free subscriptions to members of the Editorial Board and some 40 adoptees). Of these 872 subscribers, 25 take only the electronic version and 5 the combination of paper and electronic versions. The number of library subscriptions is 425. Altogether 481 members were subscribing to Applied Vegetation Science and there are 99 library subscriptions; both figures are higher than last year. A new membership list has been completed and has been distributed during the Freising symposium; a copy will be sent to all members by mail.

After resigning from the Editorial Board, the Publication Officer stopped collecting information on the composition of the Editorial Board and number of submitted and accepted manuscripts, because it was assumed that this information will now be provided by or through the Chairman of the Editorial Board. Through a misunderstanding this has not yet happened. Nevertheless, a few words have been included in his report on this matter. There are now four Editors who serve both JVS and AVS. Editor Ladislav Mucina resigned in the autumn of 2000 because of his start as a professor of botany in South Africa. Laco has been an Editor since 1995, and we owe him many thanks for his input. Associate Editor Jan P. Bakker from Groningen was asked to replace him. This nomination has been formalized by the Advisory Council. The four Editors are now J.P. Bakker, J. Oksanen, P.S. White and J.B. Wilson. Bastow Wilson acts as Chairperson. The number of Associate Editors was increased in 2000 in order to improve the procedure of manuscript review and decision about acceptance or rejection. There were nine Associate Editors after Prof. Rob Marrs from Liverpool was invited to take Jan Bakker’s place. In 2001 the number was increased to 12 by inviting Helge Bruelheide from Göttingen, Exequiel Ezcurra from Mexico City and Paul Harcombe from Houston, Texas. There are four Associate Editors for AVS. Rob Marrs took over the position of Jan Bakker, who became an Editor.The members of the Editorial Boards change regularly because most members serve only one or two terms. New in the Board of JVS are Milan Chytrý from Brno, Rasmus Erjnćs from Rřnde, Jonas Lawesson from Aarhus and Meelis Pärtel from Tartu. Since 2000, JVS has one of the Associate Editors, Sandra Díaz, acting as Forum Editor, with the purpose to solicit more manuscripts with a critical or commentary character on current topics in vegetation ecology. Several Forum papers have appeared in the 2000 issues and the 2001 issues published so far. The submitted manuscripts are received by the Editorial Office in Länna, Sweden, and their review is organized by Lena Lundgren, Head of the Office. An electronic system for handling manuscripts is under preparation. The final step in this system, the announcement of accepted papers on the website of Opulus Press, is already in use.

Since the beginning of JVS there has been an adoption system. Partly through personal adoptions by members and partly through contributions to a special Global Fund, the journal has been made available to many colleagues in countries with currency-exchange problems, most of them leaders of active research groups. To arrange and manage this, an Adoption Committee has functioned, unofficially, since the beginning. Since the Bilbao meeting, the Committee has the following members: Eddy van der Maarel (Publication Officer), Joop Schaminée (Secretary), Hartmut Dierschke (Treasurer), Marijke van der Maarel (former IAVS administrator), Michael W. Palmer and Tomáš Herben. Adoptions go to Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Chile, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Georgia, India, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraina, Yugoslavia, and Zambia. Since there is now the possibility of an electronic subscription for an adoptee, which is clearly cheaper, more adoptees can be included and AVS adoptions can be considered as well. Therefore, it was proposed to inform the JVS adoptees that, from 2002 onwards, the standard adoption will involve an electronic subscription. As per April 2001, the capital of the Global Fund was 65.671 SEK. There were 43 adoptees. For the Global Fund, 850 SEK were donated. The number of adopters decreased, mainly because most of the new members of the Editorial Board now made use of the offer for a free subscription. Opulus Press, feeling sorry for the negative result on JVS/AVS over 2000, promised to take over 10 adoptions. This means that 16 x 750 SEK has to be paid to Opulus, minus the 850 SEK donations (see above), = 11.150 SEK. The payment of this amount will soon be arranged, whereafter the available capital of the Global Fund will be (65.671 – 11.150) = 54.521 SEK. This amount is not much less than that available two years ago, but there is a negative trend now and we have to diminish our expenses – which we easily can achieve through limiting the number of paper copies and the provision of electronic copies to adoptees. It was discussed and decided that from 2002 onwards, the financial administration of the Global Fund will be controlled by the Treasurer, for which a separate account will be opened.

A financial report for 2000 has been sent by Opulus to the Secretary General. This report reveals that there is again no profit. There are mainly two reasons for this situation: (1) the number of new subscribers did not increase and we had relatively many subscribers who did not pay but still cost money; and (2) Opulus had to invest in the electronic facilities. As follows from the figures on subscriptions, the investment may start paying off immediately.

Because Opulus Press uses to keep newly established prices for at least one more year, and in view of the expected positive development of the economy of the journals, it was arranged with the Press that the prices for 2002 will be the same as for 2001.

Finally, some miscellaneous topics were brought forward: (1) Several editors and also the Publishers were not happy with the demand that authors of published papers should in principle subscribe to the IAVS journal in which they publish. Accordingly it has been proposed to terminate page charges. (2)
Acceptance of AVS by “Current Contents” and the “Science Citation Index” appears closer. They are waiting to check issue 4-1 – the main criterion at the moment seems to be that the journal is published on time. The issue was published in June and sent directly to the ISI office. Probably AVS will then be accepted. (3) As was mentioned last year, the Publication Officer is in touch with SPARC, the Scholarly
Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition, an American organization aimed at breaking the dominance of the commercial publishing houses with their ever increasing subscription prices. SPARC receives support from a growing number of major libraries, at the moment ca. 150, mainly university libraries from the US and Canada. SPARC supports journals which are cheap alternatives to very expensive journals, and even promotes the start of new journals which may be able to out compete commercial counterparts. After SPARC received all the necessary information on JVS earlier this year, the organization decided to adopt IAVS as a partner eligible for such support. Soon we will receive the text of an agreement, which has to be signed by representatives of IAVS – maybe the Publication Officer and the Chairperson of the Editorial Board – and Opulus Press. One of the benefits of this agreement will be that all libraries supporting SPARC will commit themselves to enter a subscription to JVS! Although many of these libraries already subscribe to JVS, it may imply that we will get at least 50 more libraries to subscribe

This again would mean a considerable improvement in the journal’s finances. Box emphasized that the increasingly international nature of the IAVS also can been seen from the list of participants at this year’s symposium: Argentina (7), France (10), Africa (23, apart from South Africa), Australia (6), New Zealand (7), Israel (5), India (4), and Russia (29) among others.

4. Election of the Advisory Council and Executive Committee (2002-2005)
A provisional list of candidates was put forward by the Secretary General and was discussed during the meeting, based on a set of criteria. The final list contains all candidates from the 1998 list of candidates insofar as far as they (1) received at least 20 votes during the 1998 election, and (2) have not indicated that they want to be excluded from the list (Bornkamm, Theurillat, Willems, Wilmanns). A number of 1998 candidates have been removed, who (1) have not attended at least once IAVS meeting during the last five years and (2) could be presumed not willing to be nominated again his time. Added are some new candidates whose names were brought forward by Council members by e-mail. The present list contains 111 names, of which 40 will be elected directly by receiving the most votes. To guarantee that each major world region will be represented by the newly elected Council, at least one representative from each region will be admitted, regardless of how many votes are received (i.e. the candidate that receives the most votes among those in the region). An initial list of major world regions suggested by Box was discussed, resulting in the following 11 regions: (1) Northern Europe including British Isles and Baltic countries, (2) Central Europe, (3) Southern Europe, (4) Eastern Europe including Russia and Ukraine, (5) Middle East including Middle Asia, (5) South and Southeast Asia, (7) East Asia, (8) Africa, (9) North America, (10) Latin America including Central America and non-English Carribean, and (11) Australia and New Zealand plus Pacific islands.

5. Report of Working Groups, Commissions and Regional Sections
During the meeting in Uppsala (1998), it was decided that Working Groups, Commissions and Regional
Sections should provide an annual report to the Advisory Council and that these (short) reports should be published in the IAVS Bulletin. These annual reports can be found elsewhere in this bulletin (see further under ‘Working Groups, Commissions and Regional Sections’). Two extra regional sections were formally announced, a Regional Section for Japan (contact person: Kazue Fujiwara) and a Regional Section for the Pacific Islands (PABITRA, contact person: Dieter Mueller-Dombois).

6. Statutes
Preceding the meeting of the Advisory Council, an updated version of the Statutes of the International
Association for Vegetation Science (a translation of the Dutch draft-statutes as made by the public notary, and corrected and partly restructured by Eddy van der Maarel) was sent to all Council members. The changes were elucidated by van der Maarel at the council meeting. A complete version of the statutes was posted at the Symposium registration desk for all IAVS members. One of the items that was discussed concerned the name of the Advisory Council. After voting, it was decided to change the name to ‘Council’; 10 against 4). The formal Statutes will be accompanied by ‘By-Laws’ to settle everyday business. A draft will be prepared by Eddy van der Maarel, which will be discussed at the meeting in Porto Alegre next year.

7. IAVS Bulletin, Membership List and Homepage
The IAVS Bulletin and the Membership List was made available for all IAVS members at the symposium registration desk. In connection with the election of the new Council and the early timing of the annual meeting in 2002 (March), the next Bulletin will be prepared in autumn 2001 and should be sent to all members by mail before the end of November. The next Membership List will be prepared in 2004. Nina
Smits attended the Council meeting to present some information concerning the homepage (www.iavs.org). There have been some minor problems with the server, that will be solved as soon as possible. The homepage will be housed in Wageningen.

8. Activities of the coming years
As decided before, the annual IAVS Meeting of 2002 will be held in Porto Alegre, Brasil. In 2003 the annual IAVS Meeting will take place in Napoli (Naples), Italy, according to earlier proposals by Prof.
Pedrotti (Camerino) and Prof. Pignatti (Rome). In 2004 Korea will organize the INTECOL meeting and so it is unclear whether this will interfere with their former plan to organise the 2004 IAVS Symposium.
For the coming years several proposals were made, some supported by formal letters. The list includes:
Cape Town (South Africa; formal letter from George Bredenkamp and Laco Mucina); Lisboa (Portugal; formal invitation by Maria Delila Espirito Santo); Bangor (Wales, UK; invitation by Paddy Coker and Hilary Thomas); Dunedin (New Zealand; invitation by Bastow Wilson); St. Peterburg (Russia; invitation by Irina Safranova); and Hawaii (USA; invitation by Dieter Mueller-Dombois).

9. Relationship IAVS and Opulus
A proposal was made to continue the agreement between IAVS and Opulus Press with regard to the Journal of Vegetation Science (JVS) and to formalize this agreement also for Applied Vegetation Science (AVS). The Publication Officer was asked to prepare a draft document to renew the agreement for another five years. This draft will be sent for discussion to all members of the Executive Committee and to the Publisher. The proposed changes in the Editorial Board of JVS have been accepted by the Advisory Council.

According to the formal agreement between IAVS and Opulus Press, the Press received the equivalent of 20 DM (the membership fee if paid to Germany) for each subscriber to JVS or AVS, of which amount
50 % was kept to improve the journal’s finances and 50% was transferred to IAVS. During the meeting of the Advisory Council in Uppsala in 1998, simplification of this arrangement was discussed, so Opulus
Press would keep the entire membership part but in exchange would extend its work on behalf of IAVS, i.e. not only take care of total membership administration but also edit the membership list and have it printed every few years. In fact, this has happened with the Membership Lists of December 1998 and
June 2001. Moreover, since initiation of the Bulletin, Opulus Press has done the desk-editing and taken care of the printing of the Bulletin, which could also be part of this deal. It is difficult to estimate whether this is economically advantageous for IAVS or for Opulus; according to Opulus, the net result of ins and outs is roughly zero. And, of course, for both partners the administration is simplified. Based on the information presented, the Council decided to formalize the Uppsala agreement for at least the next five years. The Secretary General and Publisher will propose a list of services that will be extended by the Publisher in return for the 10 DM for each journal-subscribing member. This list will be sent to the members of the Executive Committee for approval.

Eddy van der Maarel announced that, after eight years of service, he will not be electable for another term as Publication Officer. As his possible successor, Martin Diekmann was brought forward. This proposal received full support of the Council members. Van der Maarel promised to prepare a job description for the functions of Publication Officer and send it to the Secretary General.

10. Issues Emerging
The Council granted the request of the publisher of Phytocoenologia (Gebr. Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung) to make use of IAVS mailing labels to inform members about a special offer for a reduced subscription price for this journal.

As requested by the Secretary General, the procedure was discussed how to deal with associate (nonpaying) membership. As mentioned in the IAVS Membership list, in June 2001, the members of the IAVS are from 83 countries. Of these countries, 38 have been interpreted as so-called ‘poor’ countries (e.g. having currency-exchange problems). People from these countries may apply for an associate membership. Nevertheless, each request will be judged individually, among other things, depending on professional status of the person in question (student/unemployed). Furthermore, it has been decided that the total number of associate members may not exceed the number of paying members.