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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…
You’re probably why it takes so long for your paper to get reviewed and your excuses are bad | Dynamic Ecology
A weird thing happened in scientific publishing during COVID. And it hasn’t gone away. Publications went up 30-50%. And responses to requests to review went down 30-50%. I know the actual statistics for one journal, but I think those numbers are pretty representative for what editors experienced across journals (not just in ecology, but all…
Peer review protip: even if you’re SURE the author made an elementary mistake, hedge your review | Dynamic Ecology
As a peer reviewer, sometimes you'll find that the ms author(s) made an elementary mistake. Possibly, a mistake so elementary that, in your view, it really should not have been made in the first place. If this happens, you will probably be annoyed at the author(s). How dare they make you, the reviewer, do their…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…