The 37th annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, August 5-9 2000. The meeting is jointly hosted by Morehouse College and Zoo Atlanta.

The Animal Behavior Society was founded in 1964 to promote and encourage the biological study of animal behavior, using both descriptive and experimental methods, under natural and controlled conditions. Animal behavior is a highly integrative and interdisciplinary science, and the range of subjects being presented at this year's meeting reflects this diversity.

Among the talks and posters are presentations concerning mate choice, sexual conflict, predator-prey interactions, foraging, social behavior, parental care, dispersal, perceptual abilities, communication, and learning; the animals studied range from insects to human beings.

The Society has three juried competitions annually. The W.C. Allee award recognizes the best student paper, and these presentations are generally regarded as among the best at the meeting. In fact, Allee winners are often the same society members who are later recognized for their outstanding careers. There is also a competition for best poster presentation, with the Founder's award given to the most outstanding presentation. Finally, commercially produced and non-commercial films are reviewed and ranked for the Animal Behavior Society Film Competition, and the Jack Ward Memorial Award recognizes the best non-commercial film. The outstanding films, which are viewed during the conference, beautifully portray animals in action, and they are invariably of the highest technical quality.

During the meeting there will be special lectures by outstanding researchers who will discuss highlights of their careers.

This year's keynote speaker is Robert Trivers, Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He will present a lecture titled The evolutionary logic of self-deception. Dr. Trivers' research focuses on social evolution and the evolution of selfish genetic elements.

Two Fellows of the society, Christine Boake of the University of Tennessee, and Hugh Drummond at the Instituto de Ecología in Mexico's National Autonomous University in Mexico City, will also present lectures. Dr. Boake, who studies sexual communication in Hawaiian fruit flies, will present a talk entitled New Promises for Behavior Genetics for a New Decade. Dr. Drummond has been studying an island population of Blue-footed Boobies for more than 20 years, and he will present a talk entitled Controlling Siblings.

P. Dee Boersma from the University of Washington, will deliver a Plenary Lecture sponsered by the ABS Conservation Committee. Dr. Boersma is very interested in conservation issues, and she will present Magellanic Penguins and Marine Protection: Using Behavior and Ecology for Conservation.

Of particular interest this year are special symposia organized by various ABS members. A symposium titled Dispersal Behavior: Variation in Movement Patterns and Decisions. organized by Veronica Doerr at the University of Nevada-Reno and Australian National University, will focus on the important behaviors which link the juvenile and adult stages of an animal's life.

Invited speakers represent a diverse array of perspectives, and they will discuss such topics as the historical development of research on dispersal behavior, recent empirical studies of individual movement tactics, methods for quantifying movement tactics, variation between the sexes, and habitat selection. A symposium organized by Dr. John Wright of Mercer University, will focus on applied animal behavior. The first session, titled Learning Theory: Applications in animal management and husbandry will feature presentations on such diverse topics as the application of learning theory in laboratory animals to medicine, training captive-born animals for introduction into the wild, and avoidance learning in companion animals. The second session, Critters that go bump in night, and other tales of animal behavior, will be held on Saturday, Aug 5th from 12:30 pm to 3:00, and it will be open to the general public. Dr. Lori Marino, from Emory University, will host a symposium called Comparisons between Primates and Cetaceans.

Beyond the Wild Kingdom: Media Insight on Reporting Animal Behavior Research, will be a lively panel discussion on how to enhance interactions between animal behaviorists and the science media on Monday, 7 Aug. from 7 - 9pm. The five science journalists will talk about different aspects of science journalism and what they need to cover your research, followed by a question-answer period.

There will also be a special image display at the meeting. Photographs and other artwork that represent animals, behavior, or methodology will be displayed during the meeting, and they will later be added to the ABS website for use as a teaching resource. This is one way that the Animal Behavior Society is making use of technology to facilitate the work of its members. More information on the meeting, or the Society itself, can be found on our website: http://www.cisab.indiana.edu/ABS/Program/