From Dynamic Ecology by Lynette Strickland, Ph.D. alumnus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, soon-to-be postdoc, Texas A&M Corpus Christie A diversity of metallic beetles This is a guest post by Lynette Strickland, who just defended her PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She will be moving to Texas A&M Corpus Christie to do…
Category: science
News and notes from your librarian: Strange Days edition
Scott and his mammoth. Mammoth says “We got this.” by Scott Martin, Biological Sciences Librarian, University of Michigan Library Hey all! When the call went out on Twitter for submissions to the blog, I figured I’d better get in line early. Nobody wants to be the follow-up act to Sharon the shark, right? Like many…
Creating environments where it’s okay to make mistakes and ask questions
From Dynamic Ecology by Meghan Duffy, a University of Michigan ecologist and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology When I first started at Georgia Tech, I had the tremendously good fortune to hire a really, really, really good technician. (One of my first blog posts was on hiring a tech vs. a…
Fish body size matters for important top-down and bottom-up processes
From National Geographic’s Open Explorer by Katrina Munsterman, incoming University of Michigan Ph.D. student in ecology and evolutionary biology, Jake Allgeier lab Diagram of functional compensation by Katrina Munsterman Herbivorous fishes comprise a large proportion of consumer biomass on reefs. By eating algal resources and excreting nutrients, herbivores influence top-down and bottom-up processes. In my…
8th Annual BioBlitz
by Naim Edwards, director, Michigan State University-Detroit Partnership for Food, Learning and Innovation and University of Michigan EEB alumnus (MS 2014) On May 11, University of Michigan students and faculty partnered, with Michigan State University Extension, the Great Lakes Regional Center of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), and members of the Detroit Black Community Food…
Testing artificial reef (AR) design and efficacy
From National Geographic’s Open Explorer by Katrina Munsterman, incoming University of Michigan Ph.D. student in ecology and evolutionary biology, Jake Allgeier lab Building an artificial reef in the Bahamas. Last December, Jake Allgeier and lab technician, Mona Andskog, built new artificial reefs in the Bahamas. Less than six months later, the reefs are already teeming…
Am I frantically juggling when I should be letting things go off the edge of a cliff?
From Dynamic Ecology by Meghan Duffy, a University of Michigan ecologist and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology When I started my first faculty position at Georgia Tech, I felt like I was juggling as fast as I could; every time it felt like I was starting to get a hang of…
Field botany videos (Lecythidaceae)
From the CW Dick Lab blog 2018 Lecythidaceae crew (left to right) Chris, Tamara, Drew, Nicolli, Priscila, Paulo, Cunha. by Christopher William Dick, University of Michigan professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Summary: This post links to videos of Lecythidaceae tree species identifications from the Brazilian Amazon. The videos should be useful for students of…
With public engagement, it’s also okay to start small
From Dynamic Ecology by Meghan Duffy, a University of Michigan ecologist and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Yesterday, I had a post about how it’s okay to start small when it comes to learning R or any other new technical skill. Today’s post takes that same “it’s okay to start small”…
Call for mentors and mentees for #EEBMentorMatch: linking students from underrepresented groups with grad school and fellowship application mentors
From Dynamic Ecology by Meghan Duffy, a University of Michigan ecologist and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Graduate programs still have a long way to go before they reflect the diversity of society more generally. This is a problem both because it is inherently unjust, and because science is done better…
Friday links: #LGBTSTEMDay edition!
LGBT STEM cake. Image from Twitter @TopPhysicist Matt LeBlanc From Dynamic Ecology by Meghan Duffy, a University of Michigan ecologist and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology All this week’s links are related to #LGBTSTEMDay (including links explaining why such a day is needed): Yesterday was the first #LGBTSTEMDay, and even the…
Four easy tips for preparing a field experiment (Part I)
by Sara Colom, graduate student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan Preparing a successful field project can be boiled down into two major themes, a good experimental design and organization of time and materials. To keep things short and sweet I will go over the experimental design here…
Challenging the extractive paradigm in field work: suggestions from a case study in community engagement
View of the St Elias Mountains from the Kluane Red Squirrel Project field site. Image: Jack Robertson From Rapid Ecology, a science community blog by Matt Sehrsweeney, a 2017 University of Michigan alumnus (ecology and history) and Jack Robertson, an MSc candidate at University of Guelph Though we generally fail to acknowledge it, ecological research…
Book review: Merchants of Doubt
From Dynamic Ecology by Meghan Duffy, a University of Michigan ecologist and associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Thanks to #readinghour increasing my reading pace, I recently finished reading Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. I really enjoyed it and think it’s a very important book, including for…
The detour that led me to a bright future
by Xorla S. Ocloo, a University of Michigan graduate student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology I can’t remember the first time I participated in a STEM outreach as a kid. Maybe it was because I wasn’t exposed to those opportunities or maybe because they weren’t as prevalent or maybe just because I…