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This Friday linkfest is wreaking a tremendous amount of carnage. What it is not doing, however, is winning. | Dynamic Ecology
This week: RIP Jim Estes, Trump vs. Harvard, weaponizing open science, a little statistical knowledge is a dangerous thing, prediction markets vs. Jesus, the history of Flushing, and more. Sad news I just learned: Jim Estes passed away on May 20, after a long decline. He worked for decades for the US Fish & Wildlife…
Where to eat and what to do in Sherbrooke during the CSEE annual meeting | Dynamic Ecology
Sherbrooke prof and friend of the blog Mark Vellend kindly provided some suggestions on where to eat and what to do during the upcoming CSEE annual meeting in Sherbrooke. There's advice both for conference attendees, and families and others who will be accompanying attendees. Thanks Mark!
Do ecologists all study the “same” topic? And if so, is that a problem? | Dynamic Ecology
I just came across this interesting little blog post from a couple of years ago. Sociologist Turgut Keskintürk finds that, to a rough-but-decent first approximation, every paper in every leading sociology journal is about inequality. To the point where sociology could almost be defined as "the study of inequality." Without wanting to deny that inequality…
Feed in data, pull crank, get a Friday linkfest | Dynamic Ecology
This week: ecologists' endless quest for the Holy Grail automatic inference, Francesca Gino fired, RIP Alasdair McIntyre, RIP text-based social media (?), the beatings post-tenure reviews will continue until morale research improves, for Preston North End but against its trains, worst teaser trailer ever, and more. Ecologists' endless, futile quest for a method that will…
Jeremy’s forthcoming book has a cover! | Dynamic Ecology
The Ecology of Ecologists: Harnessing Diverse Approaches for a Stronger Science now has a cover! Here it is: Coming Dec. 2025! Order direct from the publisher, or from your preferred seller. In case you missed it, here are 13 ways of looking at a blackbird my book.
Friday linkfests are down a long way over the past fifteen years, particularly in Alberta | Dynamic Ecology
This week: no gender bias in Canadian EEB working group participation, LLMs vs. plot twists, science (well, "science") vs. ghosts, how to visit a British pub, Star Wars memes vs. Orioles fans, and more Writing in FACETS, Wei et al. find no gender bias in working group participation among Canadian ecologists and evolutionary biologists, and…
A high-profile fraud in economics research | Dynamic Ecology
Remember Michael LaCour, the political science graduate student who faked a Science paper ten years ago?* (see here, here, and here if you don't) Anyway, a new Michael LaCour just dropped, this time in economics. A very high-profile preprint** about the effects of AI use on innovation in materials science, from an economics PhD student…
Will you be replaced by a Friday linkfest in the near future? (UPDATED) | Dynamic Ecology
This week: 2025 ESA award winners, new CIEE director and host university sought, observed vs. predicted (or vice-versa), meet the new boss paradigm, same as the old boss paradigm, Yoda vs. LLMs, and more. Congratulations to the 2025 ESA award winners! The Canadian Institute of Ecology and Evolution (the "Canadian NCEAS") is seeking a new…
Commitments vs. meta-commitments, scientific edition | Dynamic Ecology
In which I elaborate a bit on a recent comment... I'm still thinking about Max Dresow's fascinating post on why American geologists resisted the idea of continental drift for so long. There were various intertwined reasons for this, which Dresow's post covers. I want to focus on just one key reason, that I think provides…
The problem with actually existing Friday linkfests is that they have little internal variety | Dynamic Ecology
This week: Brian Eno vs. Adam Przeworski, visualizing PDEs, Dan Bolnick goes to Washington, the next Laurentian (?), American geologists vs. continental drift, vibe coding, and more. Interactive simulations of various abstract models of ecological complexity (e.g., a Prisoner's Dilemma game on a lattice). An interactive website for drawing and illustrating partial differential equation models…
Highlights from recent comment threads | Dynamic Ecology
Our commenters are still the best. :-) Bethann Garramon Merkle argues that graphical abstracts and "plain language" abstracts aren't improving the accessibility of the scientific literature. Thomas Givnish had sensible pushback against my claim that trait-based ecology needs population ecology. Jacob Levine pushed back against the pushback. Mark Westoby has mixed feelings, including guilt, about…
Do ecology grad students need different coursework or training than they used to? | Dynamic Ecology
The ways in which ecologists go about their research is changing. It always is. So it's always worth asking whether the coursework and other training that ecology grad students receive needs to change too. Just off the top of my head, here's a short list of things on which I think many ecology grad students…
Can you use LLMs to improve the accessibility of the scientific literature? | Dynamic Ecology
Ten years ago, Meghan posted on the Up Goer Five challenge: the challenge to explain your scientific research using only the 1000 most common words in English. The challenge is intended as a fun exercise that teaches scientists to de-jargonize their writing for a broad public audience. That post sparked a long and spicy comment…
Older Friday linkfests affected a Latinate style (UPDATED) | Dynamic Ecology
This week: 2025 ESA Fellows, Thomas Crowther latest, the definition of ecology (?), sentences are getting shorter, correlation vs. car insurance, and more. Congratulations to the 2025 cohort of ESA Fellows and Early Career Fellows! ETH Zurich has released its redacted report into the conduct of star ecologist Thomas Crowther, and a Swiss court has…
Two-year fixed term teaching faculty position at the University of Calgary for intro-level biology courses including ecology. Please apply! | Dynamic Ecology
The Dept. of Biological Sciences at the University of Calgary (my department) is hiring a two-year fixed term Asst. Professor (Teaching). The successful applicant will help teach our big team-taught intro courses for biology majors, including but not limited to our "ecology, evolution, and the biosphere" course. The link above goes to the ad. Application…
Horseshoe theory (scientific edition) | Dynamic Ecology
Attention conservation notice: a half-baked post on a quarter-developed thought. Definitely even more likely than usual that I'm either way off base, musing aimlessly, or both. Online discussions of politics sometimes refer to "horseshoe theory", the idea that the political far-left and far-right are actually only a short distance apart in "political belief space." Here's…
This is a Friday linkfest for an alternate timeline | Dynamic Ecology
This week: optimal quibbling, feral card catalogs, Rossi's metallic rules, anti-anti-QRPs, LLMs vs. shrimp sandwiches, Olympians vs. you and me, and more Paleontologist Richard Fortey has passed away at the age of 79. He was best known for his work on trilobites, for his work on the Burgess Shale, and for his popular science books.…
I still think that trait-based ecology needs population ecology | Dynamic Ecology
Eight years ago, I confessed--to my own embarrassment--that I was just not that into trait-based ecology, and tried to articulate why not. It came down to my sense that trait-based ecology had, up to that point, mostly tried (consciously?) to bypass population ecology. Trait-based ecology seemed to me like an attempt to go straight from…
Imagine spending a couple of years on a mountaintop with this Friday linkfest | Dynamic Ecology
This week: prehistoric psychopaths, book ban backfire, the light of an older heaven, whatever happened to genetic algorithms, the pros and cons of poaching, and more. Lots of good stuff this week, even though some of it is good stuff about bad stuff. A (pre)history of violence. Long, deeply researched, very interesting, but necessarily speculative.…
The best time to integrate mathematical modeling into ecology was a century ago. The second best time is right now. (updated) | Dynamic Ecology
AJ Lotka published Elements of Physical Biology in 1925. In it, he introduced what's now known as the Lotka-Volterra predator-prey model into ecology. It's known as the Lotka-Volterra predator-prey model, rather than the Lotka model, because Vito Volterra independently published the same model in 1926. Sharon Kingsland's Modeling Nature is a wonderful, readable history of…
Is the storage effect overrated? Interview with Simon Stump and David Vasseur | Dynamic Ecology
Welcome to our latest interview with authors of really interesting recent(ish) papers. Today, I'm talking with Simon Stump and David Vasseur, the authors of Stump & Vasseur 2023 Ecol Monogr. Their paper is about the storage effect--a famous, widely-studied mechanism by which fluctuations in abiotic environmental conditions over time can promote coexistence of competing species.…
One has to have more courage than Hamlet to always be guided by a Friday linkfest | Dynamic Ecology
This week: major new reporting on the accusations against star ecologist Thomas Crowther, zombie social science, unusual combinations of datasets = impact (?), how to prevent AI from taking your job, and more. A Swiss newspaper has published a major investigation into the misconduct accusations against star ecologist Thomas Crowther. I've read the linked report,…
Forget about whether ecologists argue with each other about ecology any more. Do they even talk about ecology with each other any more? | Dynamic Ecology
A little while back, I shared my casual impression that ecologists have stopped arguing with one another publicly about ecology. Recently, prompted by a conversation with a visiting speaker, I began wondering if that post was missing the bigger picture. Maybe that it's not that ecologists have stopped arguing per se. Rather, it's that they've…
This Friday linkfest is a pretty flower that smells bad | Dynamic Ecology
This week: seven centuries of pandemics, inside arXiv, all bets are off, is administrative bloat actually a thing, whales vs. LLMs vs. global warming, the funeral Claude Shannon didn't get, and more. An architectural walk down Victoria Street. As a former resident of London, I enjoyed this. Deeply informed multi-paragraph comment from Shan Kothari coming…
Don’t hate the player, hate the game (faculty job ad edition) | Dynamic Ecology
Attention conservation notice: this post is addressed at an imagined audience that might well be pretty small, if not entirely non-existent. I dunno. As a blogger, sometimes you just write a post to get it out of your head, so you can think about other things. As a faculty job seeker, you will sometimes read…
The question isn’t the quality of this Friday linkfest, it’s what depending on this Friday linkfest does to us (UPDATEDx2) | Dynamic Ecology
This week: crafts vs. LLMs, waiting your turn for the Nobel Prize, and more. The age at which Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, and medicine did their prize-winning work hasn't budged over time, but the age at which winners are awarded the Prize has been climbing slowly but steadily. Does that tell us something…
Should I include “in prep” manuscripts on my CV? | Dynamic Ecology
Academics world-wide use a fairly standardized CV format. Note that a CV includes *everything* which is the opposite of a resume (that summarizes and highlights). If you're applying for government or industry jobs, you may need to know the difference and prepare an actual shorter resume as well. For a CV, the sections in a…
How many pop artists’ careers did this Friday linkfest kill? | Dynamic Ecology
This week: 2025 ASN awards, "conceptual purity" vs. computer science, Daniel Kahneman's last decision, self-citations (but not in the way you're thinking of), "stealth advocacy" in conservation biology, and more. Congratulations to all 2025 American Society of Naturalists award winners! Paleontologist Elisabeth Vrba has passed away at the age of 82. She did hugely influential…
Here are some of the best lines from my forthcoming book, The Ecology of Ecologists, in my totally biased opinion :-) | Dynamic Ecology
You can, and totally should, pre-order my forthcoming book, The Ecology of Ecologists: Harnessing Diverse Approaches for a Stronger Science. You should do so for many reasons, one of which is that it is chock full of good lines. Here are some of my favorites: The first sentence of the Introduction: Ecology has long been…
Friday linkfests are cultural and social technologies | Dynamic Ecology
This week: survey on EEB researchers' attitudes about scientific publishing, feminism vs. animal behavior, microplastics research needs to raise its game, a new era for bioRxiv, and more. The ESA, ASN, and I believe other scientific societies in EEB, are collaborating to survey EEB researchers' attitudes about publishing. The survey topics include but aren't limited…
Which cities originate the most Dynamic Ecology traffic? (UPDATED) | Dynamic Ecology
WordPress recently started showing blog owners data on the cities from which their pageviews originate. I had some fun looking at the numbers. Before I show them to you, take a guess: which city has been the #1 source of pageviews for us over the past year? Answer below the fold... If you guess Ashburn,…
Boring Friday linkfests are flying with big tech in the AI boom | Dynamic Ecology
This week: Carl Zimmer interview, communication vs. debate, baking vs. AI, cybernetics vs. Marvel movies, the latest on the "hot hand," Mesopotamian jokes, humans vs. Microsoft Word (but not how you're probably thinking), nerd sniping Stephen Heard, and MOAR. This might be a record-long Friday linkfest, which is funny because two days ago I thought…
You can now pre-order The Ecology of Ecologists! | Dynamic Ecology
Exciting news: you can now pre-order my forthcoming book, The Ecology of Ecologists: Harnessing Diverse Approaches for a Stronger Science, from the publisher. You'll get it in December 2025, just in time for all your Spring 2026 graduate seminar and pleasure reading needs. It would also make a great Christmas gift for every ecologist in…
On which ecological topics is the consensus opinion most likely to be dubious, overstated, or just plain wrong? | Dynamic Ecology
Recently, I interviewed Tanya Rogers and Stephen Munch about their work questioning the longstanding consensus that chaotic population dynamics are rare. Also recently, I've been thinking about work from Lenore Fahrig and her group, showing that habitat fragmentation per se (i.e. breaking up a contiguous habitat into smaller patches of equal total size, as opposed…
But how is this Friday linkfest – which so far must seem to you more like a curious sort of “literary” journal – used in intellectual production? | Dynamic Ecology
This week: CW Mills vs. blogging, game theory vs. Conclave, undergraduates as beavers, code/software availability is overrated, contrarian movie review, and more. CW Mills (and Kieran Healy) on intellectual craftsmanship. This is old, but it's so, so good. (update: link text corrected. Thank you to a commenter for pointing out that I'd somehow mixed up…
Hoisted from the comments: the ESA meeting vs. the AGU meeting | Dynamic Ecology
Following up on yesterday's post, here's another substantial, thoughtful comment we got on our recent poll about ESA meeting attendance. It's from a US-based professor who last attended the ESA meeting in 2023. It suggests that some subfields of ecology are migrating to the AGU meeting, and also that there may be trade-offs between different…
Hoisted from the comments: what the ESA annual meeting could learn from ASM meetings | Dynamic Ecology
Recently I polled y'all on whether you're going to the 2025 ESA meeting in Baltimore, and if not, why not. A couple of poll respondents provided exceptionally lengthy and thoughtful comments. They're basically blog posts, so I thought, why not turn them into blog posts? So here's an interesting suggestion from an asst. prof in…
Poll results: Are you going to ESA 2025? If not, why not? | Dynamic Ecology
Recently, we polled our readers on whether they're going to the 2025 ESA meeting. We also asked readers who aren't going why they're not going. Here are the results! tl;dr: our readers have various reasons for not attending, some of which are associated with geography and career stage. Sample size and demographics We interrupt your…