Oikos Blog

Canadian Government axes funding for the Experimental Lakes Area (UPDATED)

Jeremy Fox — Fri, 18 May 2012 03:34:33 +0000

The Canadian federal government is going to cease funding the Experimental Lakes Area. Since the late 1960s, the ELA and its 58 small lakes have been doing amazing long-term monitoring and experiments on whole lakes, including groundbreaking studies of eutrophication and acid rain. Closer to home, they have arguably the best long-term phytoplankton and zooplankton [...]

Must-read: on ordinary language vs. scientific understanding

Jeremy Fox — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:56:42 +0000

One of my pet themes on the Oikos blog is how subtle scientific errors can arise from using ordinary words to describe technical concepts (e.g., see here, here [especially the comments], and the last item on this list). Here’s a lovely passage on this, from physicist N. David Mermin. The context is a discussion of [...]

Postdoc in theoretical/experimental community dynamics

Jeremy Fox — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:14:14 +0000

My collaborator Dave Vasseur is seeking a postdoc for an NSF-funded project combining theoretical and experimental work on environmental variability and community dynamics. Details here. Dave is a super-smart and super-nice (and super-tall) guy, so this is a super-awesome opportunity. Filed under: Jobs

Maybe we need even more stability concepts!

Jeremy Fox — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:50:34 +0000

p.s. to the previous post: Commenter Christopher Eliot (indirectly) makes the important point that all those stability concepts related to equilibria and other attractors assume that whatever system you’re studying can be described by a model with unchanging structure and parameter values. It’s only species’ densities (or whatever your “state variables” of interest are) that [...]

Advice: 20 different stability concepts

Jeremy Fox — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:57:59 +0000

The comments on a previous post indicated some understandable confusion on the part of some commenters as to the relationship (or lack thereof!) between various measures of “stability” in ecology. The term “stability” is infamous for meaning different things to different people, so that entire areas of the literature, particularly on the links between “diversity” [...]

From the archives: bandwagons in ecology

Jeremy Fox — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:10:43 +0000

What are some of the biggest bandwagons in ecology right now? Why do some research topics turn into bandwagons, while others don’t? How do you tell a bandwagon from a non-bandwagon? Can a bandwagon be stopped? For the answers, check out this old post. Filed under: New ideas

Crowdfunding crowdfunding

Jeremy Fox — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:57:31 +0000

What if you want to crowdfund your science but are having trouble developing a professional-looking and compelling pitch? xkcd has the answer! Filed under: Just for fun

An important but little known fact about compensatory dynamics

Jeremy Fox — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:56:31 +0000

Many ecologists expect competing species to exhibit compensatory dynamics, meaning that the densities of any two competing species should be negatively correlated over time or across space. If your competitor increases in abundance, you ought to decline, right? After all, to the extent that two species are competing, that means that when one increases, it’s [...]

Turn your study system into a funny meme! (UPDATED)

Jeremy Fox — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:25:19 +0000

In a previous post I expressed a bit of wariness that crowdfunded science, by requiring new forms of salesmanship on the part of scientists, might tend to favor style over substance. But if the style is going to be this funny, I’m all for it! Zen Faulkes’ SciFund project is about the environmental and evolutionary [...]

On the use and care of mathematical models

Jeremy Fox — Thu, 10 May 2012 23:19:52 +0000

A wonderful passage from Simon Levin (1975): Most models which find their way into the pages of journals such as this one are not meant as literal descriptions of particular situations, and thus generate predictions which are not to be tested against precise population patterns. On the other hand, such models, if handled skillfully, can [...]