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Are recent TT ecology hires at “elite” R1 universities different in any measurable way from recent hires at “non-elite” R1s? | Dynamic Ecology
For many years, I had a side project in which I tried to identify every ecologist newly hired into a tenure-track (TT) assistant professor position in North America. You can find summaries of the results, links to the posts, and a paper summarizing much of the data here. I think and hope that the data…
Why Spanish Friday linkfests rarely start with F | Dynamic Ecology
This week: best math video ever, ecology book blogging, against averaging, how everything everywhere is going, and more. This is the greatest math (and abstract art) explainer video I've ever seen. I know it's an hour long, but drop whatever you're doing and watch it. So well done in terms the script, the narrative flow,…
Who are the top science influencers on YouTube, TikTok, and podcasts? And are any of them scientists? | Dynamic Ecology
Way back in 2021, I asked who or what is the "public face" of ecology. What defines "ecology" in the minds of the largest mass of people? University courses that cover ecology aren't the right answer. Most people don't take them, because most people either don't go to university, or go but don't take any…
Highlights from recent comment threads | Dynamic Ecology
Our commenters are still the best! If you haven't been reading our comment threads recently, you missed: Rich Lenski on why his famous Long-Term Evolution Experiment hasn't inspired many imitators (although it has inspired a few). Erik Pedersen on how to run a lab exercise in which you have lab members read and discuss a…
This Friday linkfest can sing all the lyrics to “It’s the End of the World” (UPDATEDx2) | Dynamic Ecology
This week: the self-handicap principle, COPE vs. retractions, terrible activism and terrible science in one convenient package, separation theorems, one album wonders (?), and more. Stephen Heard and Bethann Garramon Merkle's new book on teaching and mentoring scientific writing now has a cover and blurbs. New Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines for journal retraction…
I wish journals didn’t ask for ms revisions with tracked changes | Dynamic Ecology
At some point (not sure when), some ecology journals began asking authors to submit revised mss with changes tracked. I wish they wouldn't. As a reviewer, editor, and author, I find this useless at best, and often worse than useless. As a reviewer and editor, I don't see what's wrong with the old-fashioned practice of…
Studies that didn’t start bandwagons, even though you’d think they would have (UPDATED) | Dynamic Ecology
Way back in 2011, one of my first posts for Oikos Blog (my OG blogging home) was about bandwagons in ecology.* Specifically, what gets them going. My not-especially-original thought was that bandwagons get going when somebody invents a promising research approach that's easy for others to apply themselves. You just have to follow the template,…
This Friday linkfest can swim at a low Reynolds number | Dynamic Ecology
This week: leaving evolutionary biology, economics vs. LLMs, current events vs. John Adams, llama vs. Napoleon Dynamite, and more. I'm a bit late to this. Writing in the March 2025 issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution, Avarez-Ponce and Vesper compiled data on over 49,000 papers from eleven leading evolution journals, and found that the peer-review…
Bleg: how do you tell a funding agency about your most significant research contributions over the last six years, when the biggest one is a book that hasn’t come out yet? | Dynamic Ecology
I'm currently writing an application to renew my NSERC Discovery Grant, the federal grant that funds 100% of my research program. As part of the application, I need to describe my most significant research impacts over the past six years. NSERC Discovery Grants are meant to fund high-quality long-term research programs, and so in order…
Friday linkfests peaked in 1958-1963 | Dynamic Ecology
This week: ecology faculty job market advice, beyond graphical abstracts, The New Yorker vs. Mark Vellend, against prediction markets, weird obsessions, going long, ultimate frisbee > korfball, sheepdogs vs. sheep, visual anagrams, and more. Lots of links this week, strap in. This ESA Bulletin piece by Clarkson University's Tom Langen is a couple of years…
Noble lies about the sixth mass extinction | Dynamic Ecology
Years ago, I polled readers on the most controversial ideas in ecology. Or at least, ideas I thought would be controversial among our readers. A few of them turned out not to be controversial at all. The least controversial idea in the entire poll was that the Earth is "currently undergoing" a sixth mass extinction.…
You wanna be where everybody knows your name | Dynamic Ecology
As I was walking towards the ESA meeting registration desk on Sunday to pick up my badge, a staff member recognized me and got my badge out for me before I even got to the desk, much less said my name! That is the first time I've ever had that experience, but I assume it's…
The tower of Friday linkfests | Dynamic Ecology
This week: revisiting sociobiology, what can a cell remember, LLMs vs. the Kelly criterion, questioning the friendship recession, how and why air travel is getting worse, the Diet Coke test, and more. Also: Jeremy is traveling today so comment moderation will be slow. Revisiting the sociobiology debate 50 years on. What can a cell remember?…
Here’s the first copy of my book! | Dynamic Ecology
Well, the first copy of the uncorrected page proofs. Which were still exciting to finally hold! If you are at the ESA meeting in Baltimore, you too should head over to the University of Chicago Press booth and hold my book. As a prelude to ordering a copy, of course. :-)
Come find me at the ESA meeting, especially if you want to talk about my book. ;-) | Dynamic Ecology
I am at the ESA meeting in Baltimore. I'll be here all week. Feel free to ask me about my book*, or just come say hi. *An uncorrected proof of which will be on display at the University of Chicago Press booth! I'm very excited. :-)
Where to eat and drink in Baltimore for the ESA meeting | Dynamic Ecology
Back in 2015, we ran a couple of guest posts from Baltimore locals on where to eat and drink during the ESA meeting in Baltimore. They're here and here. I can't promise they're still totally up to date, but just offhand I think most of the suggestions are still good.
Tenure-track Asst. Professor of freshwater ecology at the University of Calgary – please apply! | Dynamic Ecology
The Dept. of Biological Sciences at the University of Calgary (my dept.) is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the area of freshwater ecology. Link goes to the ad. Below are a few key details, plus a bit of information and perspective from someone (me) who's been in the department for over 20 years and…
This Friday linkfest is a criminal enterprise run by monkeys | Dynamic Ecology
This week: Geekologist, arguments about geology, arguments about arguments about anthropology, a good null hypothesis test, and more. Also, note that I'm traveling today, so comment moderation will be slow. Geekologist is the blog of Bruno Silva, Frederico Mestre, and Vinicius Bastazini. I applaud their attempt to get blog-reading ecologists today (already an old fashioned…
Can you schedule individual presentations in the ESA 2025 meeting app? And do you really need to get a new login link via email every time you log in? | Dynamic Ecology
On the ESA 2025 meeting website (which I'm accessing via my laptop), I can't figure out how to add individual presentations to my schedule, only entire sessions. Is there a way to schedule individual presentations? If not, that's super-annoying (to put it mildly). Also, every time I visit the meeting website to look at my…
Pre-order The Ecology of Ecologists from University of Chicago Press at the ESA meeting and get a 30% discount and free US shipping! You can do this even if you won’t be at the meeting! Plus, check out the great blurbs from Mark Vellend and Stephen Heard! | Dynamic Ecology
You can pre-order my forthcoming book, The Ecology of Ecologists: Harnessing Diverse Approaches for a Stronger Science, from the University of Chicago Press at the upcoming ESA meeting and get a 30% discount and free US shipping. Click that link for a summary of the book, and great blurbs from Stephen Heard and Mark Vellend.…
Science finally retracted that controversial arsenic-based life paper from 15 years ago. Does that really “draw a line” under the controversy? | Dynamic Ecology
Last week, the famous and controversial "arsenic-based life" paper was been retracted, 15 years after it was published. The authors disagree with the decision and continue to stand behind the paper. Link goes to a news article in Science, that summarizes the controversies around both the paper itself and the retraction. Note that the controversies…
I milk my ideas for 25% of what they’re worth. I wish it was 100%. (UPDATED) | Dynamic Ecology
One of my weaknesses as a scientist is that I'm bad at following up on my own ideas. I get a research idea, and publish something on it. But rather than taking any of the obvious next steps to pursue the idea further, I drop it and move on to something else. And in the…
Generative AI vs. graduate supervisory committees | Dynamic Ecology
Lizzie Wolkovich will no longer chair defenses, or sit on supervision or examining committees, for graduate students who use generative AI as a writing aid. I was interested in this because my own department is planning its own AI use policy for grad students. One proposed policy (which hasn't yet been fully fleshed out, much…
The Friday linkfest sings of love | Dynamic Ecology
This week: remembering Margaret Davis, the academic coalface, paradigms in psychology (or the lack thereof), sluggard waker, human population growth versus climate change, Anonymous 4Chan Poster et al., and more. Including a rare link from Brian! From Jeremy: Writing in the ESA Bulletin, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Sarah Hobbie, and Elizabeth Borer remember pioneering paleoecologist Margaret Davis,…
Unreplicable results are an open secret | Dynamic Ecology
A couple of new preprints claim that the large majority of results in fruit fly immunology are replicable. Link goes to a news article in Science. The authors of the linked preprints both reviewed the literature to identify published results that were independently verified by subsequent research, and did experiments to replicate some published results…
Most Friday linkfests become Friday linkfests because they want to be Friday linkfests, not because they want to share links | Dynamic Ecology
This week: climbing the magic mountain, condensing the iceberg, replicating the replication crisis, information vs. attention, #appropriatelyhonestmethods, location, location, location (scientific research edition), and more. A new NBER working paper (which I haven't read, just passing news of it along) compares scientists' research outputs before vs. after moving from one institution to another, and finds…
Different ecological studies of the “same” thing typically give very different results. What would it look like for ecologists to get serious about explaining that variation? | Dynamic Ecology
Different ecological studies of the "same" thing typically give very different results. In a typical ecological meta-analysis, over 90% of the variance in effect size is due to "heterogeneity", meaning true variance in the mean effect size among studies* (Senior et al. 2016). Further, that 90% is not a big slice of a small pie;…
List your job talks on your CV as invited seminars, just like any other invited seminar | Dynamic Ecology
Quick post to address a question that came up on the ecoevojobs.net discussion forum recently: as a faculty job seeker, should you list job talks on your CV, and if so, how? My advice is to do as I did: list your job talks on your CV as invited seminars, along with any other invited…
No, not everyone can be a hunter-gatherer. But should we consider the possibility anyway? | Dynamic Ecology
Back in college, I took a class on "Human Ecology" from an anthropology prof. One of our assignments was to evaluate a manifesto from a small group of US environmental activists in the late 1960s or 1970s (I don't recall exactly). They announced that they were going to live off the land as hunter-gatherers in…
Get to the point | Dynamic Ecology
Over the years, I've found myself getting bored and even impatient with the introduction sections of many of the papers I read and talks I see. I want authors and presenters to get to the point. I don't want to read or hear background information I already know. Nor do I want to read or…
This Friday linkfest is American | Dynamic Ecology
This week: the scientist who wasn't there, an ecological history of religion, preregistrations in psychology aren't improving, can you be daunted retroactively, tortoise vs. Excel, and more. American. An ecological history of religion in what is now the US over the last 11,000 years. Preregistrations in psychology often lack methodological detail, deviations from the preregistered…
Most Friday linkfests aren’t real | Dynamic Ecology
This week: Meltdown, highbrow climate misinformation, meaningless means, EcoEvoApps, unpacking yourself, and more. Writing in Science, Anna Henderson reviews former ULethbridge hydrologist Sarah Boon's memoir Meltdown. Going on my reading list. This link is from my interview with Rachel Germain earlier this week, but I don't want folks to miss it so here it is…
Demystifying ecological theory: interview with Rachel Germain | Dynamic Ecology
Welcome to our latest author interview post! (click that last link for the previous post in the series) Today, we'll hear from UBC prof Rachel Germain on her work with many others on demystifying ecological theory and making it more accessible to empiricists (Germain and Schreiber 2024, Ou et al. 2022, Grainger et al. 2022).…
This is an award-winning Friday linkfest | Dynamic Ecology
This week: ASN award winners, affirming and also questioning the sixth mass extinction (?), prediction markets vs. futures markets vs. gambling, defensive forecasting, if Jonathan Swift was a university prof today, the long slow death of literary fiction, one two hit wonders, and more. Congratulations to the 2025 ASN award winners! A complicated week in…
Have you received a peer review that appeared to have been written by AI? | Dynamic Ecology
An experienced academic ecologist emailed me last week, reporting that a former student of his just had a paper rejected from Plos One at least in part due to a shoddy negative review that appeared to have been written entirely by AI. Yes, it's of course difficult to tell for sure if any given piece…
Bleg: Sources of long transect data, and/or big grid data, for any ecological variables? Looking for some illustrative examples for an upcoming talk. | Dynamic Ecology
I will be speaking at the CSEE conference in July about estimating and comparing the intrinsic predictability of different ecological variables. I'll be asking questions like: is forecasting hard because nature is intrinsically unpredictable, or because our forecasting models aren't capturing all of the available information about the past that could be used to make…
The Second Science* | Dynamic Ecology
Note from Jeremy: this is a guest post from Mark Vellend. *** When the Covid pandemic sent everyone home in the spring of 2020, Françoise Cardou and I – amidst some guilt about our generally good health and lack of immediate personal emergencies to deal with – formed the two-person online Sherbrooke Critical Reading Society.…
Why Friday linkfests explain more than we think | Dynamic Ecology
This week: Mark Vellend's new book, Queen's University vs. Trump, the incredible shrinking p-value, remembering Brian Wilson, forgetting Pat Benatar, and more. The bully's pulpit comes home. Friend of the blog Mark Vellend has written an ambitious popular science book Everything Evolves: Why Evolution Explains More Than We Think, From Proteins to Politics. It'll be…