For Love of Ecology

Happy Valentine's Day! A shortlist of loves.

  • I loved this episode of Major Revisions podcast— PLoS Ecology Community Editor Jeff Atkins interviews Rob Nowicki. Their conversation covers Nowicki's analysis of keywords in ecology papers over the past three decades which finds that ecologists today are centering management, and thinking about predictions to a greater degree than their 90s predecessors. Jeff & Rob also compare their fears of bears (the marine ecologist's fear) and sharks (the forest ecologist's fear) and talk about the decline of taxonomists and their own personal failings as naturalists in their study systems. (This honesty is so refreshing! I feel like I am a pretty good naturalist in a very narrow study system, and my skills drop off dramatically as I hike away from the alpine zone, or into southern New England.) Great episode of a fun podcast.

  • And #ValentineASpecies has been a super fun twitter hashtag.