The paradigm in fieldwork of travelling to remote locations, extracting data, and leaving to publish findings without engaging with local communities – particularly Indigenous ones – must be challenged. As students on a long term research project, we distributed a survey to better understand what local people wanted from us. Community engagement needs to be more than purely research-focused initiatives, and engagement with Indigenous peoples can require specific and separate efforts.
No spoilers here. The villain in The Avengers: Infinity War understands ecology pretty well and we should consider his motivation as an ecologist. We need to talk a lot more about how to slow population growth.
We seek out ecologists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to highlight their work and share their stories and experiences. Check out this week’s Ecologist Spotlight: Katherine O’Reilly.
The lag that many graduate students experience between gathering feedback on their ideas and publishing leaves them vulnerable the unethical tactics of scooping “hawks”. How much do we need to worry about this? Game theory can help us decide.
This is a series of posts entitled “Reflections on the Past”, a series by Hari Sridhar. Hari interviews authors of well-known papers in ecology for first-hand accounts of the ins-and-outs of high-impact research. Posts in this series are archived at reflectionsonpaperspast.wordpress.com.
We seek out ecologists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to highlight their work and share their stories and experiences. Check out this week’s Ecologist Spotlight: Dr. Bala Chaudhary.
Simple “comparison of means” experiments … train our brains to think that this is the goal of science – to discover if an effect exists.
The process of putting together a conference session is strange at first, but what you soon realize is that what you are actually doing is making a science mixtape for all your closest friends. And if you want that mixtape to shine, you need to make sure your session is diverse, inclusive, and focused.
“How I Work” is a interview series that demonstrates there are many ways to be successful in academia and students, post-docs, and professors need to find the approach that is best for them. This is the second installment in the series.
Would you like to comment about and discuss posts in Rapid Ecology? Or other issues in our field? This post is here just for your comments.
We seek out ecologists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to highlight their work and share their stories and experiences. Check out this week’s Ecologist Spotlight: David Hamilton.
Many graduate student ecologists will propose thesis work that contains both a lab and a significant field component. However climate change is shifting where species occur, when they occur, and if they occur, often in ways we are ill prepared to predict. How should mentors shift the advice they give their graduate students as they work to develop the fieldwork component of their research, to avoid risky and potentially impossible projects?
This is the inaugural post in a periodic series that details the late-night, midday, and early morning musings “Of a Graduate Student”.
As ecologists, we study biodiversity in ecosystems. Here, we look at diversity of ecologists themselves and make recommendations on how best to recruit and retain underrepresented groups. Entering ecology and other field sciences face additional challenges due to the privileged nature of outdoor careers. We believe outreach programs designed to engage underrepresented groups at a young age as well as initiatives to promote inclusive excellence during graduate school will help increase diversity of ecologists. Contribute to the discussion using #ecologist_diversity on Twitter!
We seek out ecologists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to highlight their work and share their stories and experiences. Check out this week’s Ecologist Spotlight: April M.H. Blakeslee.
Here are some pointers to consider if you’re a guy who wants to support fair treatment for women scientists.
This post details some of the obstacles I’ve faced as a single mom pursuing a PhD. These two paths don’t often intersect, and while this lifestyle can be challenging, I’ve struck a balance that works for me. I hope to let other young women in academia know that you don’t have to choose career or family, you can have both!
Networks of early career researchers (ECRs) have long existed as unofficial groups, yet only within the last decade have they been widely formalised within universities, societies and other groups of researchers. Often the benefits of participating in these groups are difficult to convey to ECRs and others within the wider community, yet they are wide and numerous.
We seek out ecologists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to highlight their work and share their stories and experiences. Check out this week’s Ecologist Spotlight: Alyssa Frederick!
There is a growing need to create equitable experiences in academia- for everyone.
What our team does when we aren’t doing fieldwork – happy in facilitating access to the land in a community camp-out.
We need new tools to start teaching best practices from day one.
We seek out ecologists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to highlight their work and share their stories and experiences. Check out this week’s Ecologist Spotlight featuring Auriel Fournier!
The potential for scientific discovery is a frequent justification for biodiversity conservation. Yet we rarely acknowledge the species, conservation initiatives, and human communities that make our discoveries possible. I argue that biologists should make these links explicit in papers and other communications, and donate money or time to compensate species and human communities for their roles in discovery.
Rejection in ecology is something we all go through, so how do we not feel like a failure?
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