Society for Freshwater Science

The Society for Freshwater Science was founded in 1953 in Havana, Illinois by 13 charter members, and was called the Midwest Benthological Society.[1] It was later known as the North American Benthological Society before being renamed the Society for Freshwater Science.

Currently, SFS has over 1800 members.[2] The majority of members are students and are from North America. Members are employed in academia, consulting, federal and state agencies, and other governmental positions.

SFS hosts an annual meeting for its members. On occasion, SFS has partnered with other scientific societies, such as the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), the Phycological Society of America, and the Society of Wetland Scientists to host joint meetings.[3]

The main publication of the Society is the journal Freshwater Science.[4] 4 issues are published each year. The journal was first published in 1982 and called Freshwater Invertebrate Biology. In 1986 the title was changed to Journal of the North American Benthological Society, and the title was changed again in 2012 to Freshwater Science.

About once a year the journal publishes open-access fact sheets called BRIDGES that cover new ideas in aquatic science using non-technical language.

SFS gives out awards annually to its members, including naming members as SFS Fellows. Recent SFS Fellows include Emily Bernhardt, Lucinda Johnson, Jennifer Tank, Valeria Souza, R. Jan Stevenson, Nancy Grimm, Mary Power, N. LeRoy Poff, Matt Whiles, Jeremy Monroe, Alan Covich, and Richard Hauer.[5]

The Instars mentoring program supports underrepresented groups in freshwater science. Students who are accepted into the program as mentees are assigned a graduate student mentor who helps them network at the Annual Meeting.[6]

SFS partners with the Stroud Center to provide an aquatic invertebrate taxonomic certification program for its members.[7]

SFS has several programs focused on outreach to broader audiences.[8] 'Making Waves' is a podcast hosted by society members that comes out semi-monthly and discusses freshwater science for a general audience. Society members also maintain media libraries through Flickr for general use. SFS holds a leaf pack workshop at the annual meetings for local environmental groups and educators. Finally, a group of SFS members recently developed the Ecological Evidence Exchange to create a publicly available database of scientific information to inform environmental management.