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Sharing is Caring: Working With Other People’s Data
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Category Archives: General
In the Spotlight: Wife-Wife Ecologists
Post provided by Chloe and Jessica Robinson
For LGBTQ+ Pride month, we are inviting LGBTQ+-identifying ecologists and evolutionary biologists to share their experiences of being LGBTQ+ in their field and present their thoughts on how the STEM can improve lives for LGBTQ+ individuals. For this post, wife-wife team Chloe and Jessica Robinson from Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at the University of Guelph, share their experiences of being married ecologists in STEM.
C: “Find a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life” is a quote many of us are familiar with and it is something I have always strived to achieve. In my experience, by adding “Find a job you love & someone who shares your passion and you’ll never have to work a day in your life” to this quote gives the recipe for a happy marriage also. That ‘someone’ for me is my wife, Jessica.
Continue readingMethods for Ocean Conservation: World Ocean’s Day 2020
Post provided by Chloe Robinson
Whether you refer to them as the ‘briny deep’, the ‘seven seas’ or ‘Davy Jones’ locker’, the world’s oceans play a huge part in all of our lives. Consisting of 70% of the earth’s surface, oceans driving global weather patterns, through regulating a conveyor belt of heat from the equator to the poles. Oceans are also teeming with life, from single-celled organisms to large apex predators, such as the killer whale (Orcinus orca).
As with every other ecosystem on earth, the world’s oceans and the marine life they provide a home to, are under increasing pressure from human-related activities. At the 1992 Earth Summit, Canada proposed the concept of a World Ocean Day as a day to celebrate our oceans and to raise awareness about the crucial role the ocean plays in our lives and the important ways people can help protect it. Since 2002, the Ocean Project has been coordinating and promoting of World Ocean Day.
Continue readingThe Ecology of Dance
Post provided by Chloe Robinson
Dance has been part of human culture for millennia. Some scholars refer to dance as a specific language, dependent on the space and time in which it exists and dependent on the power structures that rule in that time. April 29th marks International Dance Day; a day initiated in 1982 by the International Dance Committee of the UNESCO International Theatre Institute to commemorate the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre, a distinguished French choreographer.
For humans, dance is considered a sacred ritual, sometimes a form of communication and sometimes an important social and courtship activity. A recent study has even linked the innate ability to dance with greater survival rates in prehistoric times. However, for certain species of wild animal, dance-like behaviours are crucial for communication and mating. In this blog, I am going to highlight the evolutionary foundations of dance in wild animals and explore some of the ways that dance is used in ecology.
Continue readingEarth Day 2020: Monitoring Biodiversity for Climate Action
Post provided by Chloe Robinson
The demands of a growing human population are putting increasing pressure on the Earth’s natural systems and services. Dubbed the ‘Anthropocene’, we are currently living in a period where human actions are directly altering many earth processes, including atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic and biospheric processes. Climatic change and the resulting consequences, including rising temperatures, changing precipitation (i.e. rainfall, snow etc) and increase in frequency of storm events, represent the biggest challenge to our future and the life-support ecosystems that make our world habitable.
In 1970, Earth Day was launched as a modern environmental movement and a unified response to an environment in crisis. Earth Day has provided a platform for action, resulting in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), The Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts in the US and more globally. This year, 22 April marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and the number one environmental crisis theme which needs immediate attention is ‘Climate Action’. Many of our ecosystems on earth are degrading at an alarming pace and we are currently experiencing a species loss at a rate of tens or hundreds of times faster than in the past.
Continue readingH.A.P.P.Y: How Are People Preventing Yearning in Academia?
Post provided by Chloe Robinson
Academia and university culture in general are high-paced, demanding environments to work and study in. In the UK alone, a Unihealth study identified that 80% of students studying in higher education experienced stress and anxiety. Similarly, staff and faculty are currently under tremendous pressure and the effects are apparent. A study for the Higher Education Policy Institute revealed that university counselling referrals have risen by three-quarters between 2009 and 2015. So it’s hardly surprising that universities are being coined primary ‘anxiety machines’.
A multitude of factors can cause the kinds of stress being experienced by so many in universities. Unmanageable workloads, lack of permanent contracts, research exploitation, discrimination, sexism, lack of sufficient support and supervision, pressure to be successful and high competition are just some of the reasons. University bosses state they are aware of the issues and are actively working to improve well-being in institutions, but a lot still remains to be done to tackle the issues.
Continue readingInternational Women’s Day 2020: Retaining Girls and Women in STEM
Post provided by Chloe Robinson
Girls and women make up half of the world’s population and therefore contribute to half of the talent and potential on our planet. Despite representing 3.9 billion people, women are yet to receive the equal rights and opportunities which are currently provided to men. As of 2014, 143 out of 195 countries guarantee equality of women and men in their constitutions, but in practice this is rarely achieved for women.
International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality. This year, the theme is #EachforEqual, highlighting that an equal world is an enabled world. One of the key missions for this theme is ‘forging inclusive workplaces so women can thrive’. This is particularly important for retaining women in STEM fields. Ultimately this mission needs to start in schools, because girls as young as 10 are reported to feel ‘out of place‘ in STEM subjects.
This blog post features some of the initiatives aiming to retain girls in STEM fields and shines a light on how far we have to go before girls and women are treated and represented equally in STEM.
Continue readingNew Associate Editor: Saras Windecker
Today, we are pleased to announce the latest new member of the Methods in Ecology and Evolution Associate Editor Board. Saras Windecker joins us from the University of Melbourne, Australia as an Applications Editor. You can find out a little more about her below.
Saras Windecker
“I’m a quantitative ecologist who started out as a wetland ecologist. I’m interested in developing and applying models for a range of applied and theoretical questions, spanning decomposition, species distributions, and more recently, public health forecasting. I’m interested in software development for scientists and thinking about how we develop literate programming skills and promote open science in ecology.” Continue reading
Blog Editor Vacancy: Work on the Methods.blog
The Methods.blog has been run by the journal’s Assistant Editor since it was launched way back in 2009, but that’s about to change…
We’re looking for a researcher passionate about communicating new methods in ecology and evolution to join the team and help take the blog to the next level. If you’re looking to gain experience in commissioning, writing, editing and science communication, then this is an excellent opportunity for you.
The Blog Editor will be responsible for commissioning and/or writing content for the Methods.blog. They will work closely with the rest of the journal’s Editorial Board and Editorial Office to determine regular content. We would expect the Blog Editor to be responsible for 2-3 posts per month.
This is a remote working post, so you can apply from anywhere in the world. We welcome applicants from any career stage too.
You can find more information about the vacancy on the BES website here or by contacting Chris Grieves. The deadline for applications is Friday 27 September.
Finding the Links between Prey and Microplastics
Below is a press release about the Methods in Ecology and Evolution article ‘What goes in, must come out: Combining scat‐based molecular diet analysis and quantification of ingested microplastics in a marine top predator‘ taken from Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
Wild grey seals. By Philip Newman, Natural Resources Wales
A brand new method has been developed by scientists at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) and the University of Exeter, in collaboration with Abertay University and Greenpeace Research Laboratories, to investigate links between top predator diets and the amount of microplastic they consume through their prey. It offers potential insights into the exposure of animals in the ocean and on land to microplastics.
An estimated 9.6-25.4 million tonnes of plastic will enter the sea annually by 2025. Microplastics in particular have been found on the highest mountains and in the deepest seas. New techniques are needed to trace, investigate and analyse this growing concern. Continue reading
