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

中文翻译：

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我们现在是谁？三个进化社会的人口统计评估

科学社团有潜力为历史上被排除在科学之外的社区提供支持。许多这些协会成立了委员会来提出和管理促进其成员职业和福祉的倡议，特别强调种族和少数民族。然而，这些社会很少有数据来为他们的提议提供信息。三个进化协会（美国自然学家协会，“ASN”；系统生物学家协会，“SSB”；进化研究协会，“SSE”）在过去几年也成立了多样性、公平和包容委员会. 作为确定社会需求的第一步，这些委员会收集了有关社会人口特征的数据。通过对 Evolution 2019 会议的与会者进行调查，从而对选民进行调查。在这里，我们报告了参加会议的不同人口群体的比例，并将这些比例与博士学位获得者的人口统计数据进行了比较。在进化生物学或更广泛的生命科学以及美国人口统计方面获得学位。我们的结果表明，历史上被排除在外的群体在美国进化生物学专业协会中的代表性仍然不足。我们探讨了不同职业阶段的人口构成是否有所不同，并发现女性和 LGBTQ+ 成员的代表性随着职业阶段的进展而减少。我们还发现了一些关于种族构成方面跨社会异质性的证据。最后，我们讨论了我们程序的注意事项和局限性。我们的结果将有助于为未来在社会层面收集人口数据的努力提供信息，而这些数据又应用于设计和实施以证据为基础的包容性和公平性举措。这份报告应该是系统性努力的起点，以表征进化生物学中不断变化的表征，并努力将所有群体都包括在内。本文受版权保护。版权所有。