Major Revisions

Jon and Jeff explore the utility of the "hot take." Should or can scientists be more provocative in how they frame their science or how they interact with the public? What are the advantages? Disadvantages? Who can even do this--hint, hint it's clearly a privilege issue.

Jon and Jeff are joined by Drs. Cristy Portales and Lauren Hallett to talk about the nebulous concept of the "early career" scientist. When does "early career" start? When does it end? We discuss whether it is purely a concept based on time since degree, achievement of certain milestones, or just how one defines themselves.

Jon, Jeff, and guest co-host Tess Grainger talk about bridging the gap between ecological theorists and empiricists. Where are the challenges? What are the ways forward? What do we gain? Paper for discussion: Grainger et al. 2022 (https://tessgrainger.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/grainger-et-al.-2022-amnat.pdf) .

Jon and Jeff address the absurdity of reviewing two articles a day, Jeff offers up a revolutionary idea for review papers, and both address whether they would or would not change any of the advice they have given out on the podcast over the years.

Jon and Jeff are back and talking future directions and making plans--with a big announcement and a fair amount of navel-gazing

Grace, Jon, and Jeff discuss the potential occurrences and frequency of data fabrication and scientific fraud in ecology. Just how rare is rare? What is scientific fraud? How do we detect it and how do we prevent it?

Grace, Jon, and Jeff reconvene still during the pandemic and talk about career changes, switching universities, what pandemic-induced changes they hope stick around, and whether giraffes are believable as animals.

Grace, Jon, and Jeff talk about the beginnings of quarantine and then jump into the murky waters that are applied vs. basic ecology. Is there really a difference? Does it matter?

Grace, Jon, and Jeff are talking the phosphorous cycle in part one of a multipart radio play about the often forgotten element cycle. The gang also revisit five questions, debate Chacos, and delve into a fascinating hypothetical scenario regarding publishing. What if you could only write a specific number of papers? How would that change the science you do?

How does one prepare for their first major science conference? We brought along a ton of friends including Drs. Susan Cheng, Ben Bond-Lamberty, Alexey Shiklomanov, and other conference veterans Lisa Haber, Amy Hudson, and Bill Hammond to offer their tips. Jon and Jeff jump in too.

Grace, Jon, and Jeff talk about the hidden costs of publishing, referencing Josh Schimel's famous blog post on the subject. Where does open access and preprints fit into the current state and future of publishing? How would we alter the publishing landscape? How do you decide where to publish? Also, Jeff gets his license plate stolen.

Grace and Jon sit down with Mike Pace from the University of Virginia to talk about data sharing and how the ecological data landscape has changed over the last couple of decades.

Grace, Jon, and Jeff recount some summer activities and talk about ESA2019, but the main focus of the show is talking about a recent Nature Communications op-ed on statistical vs. mathematical modeling.

Jeff sits down with professor and ecohydrologist Ryan Emanuel from North Carolina State University to talk about crossovers in ecology and hydrology, introducing students to interdisciplinary work, and his work with American Indian/Indigenous communities. Ryan also gives us a big announcement.

Grace, Jon, and Jeff are back at it with Classic Ecology V: SE Hobbie's 1992 opus "Effects of plant species on nutrient cycling." The gang also talk about the experiment Jeff is apart of and debate, at length, nitrogen and phosphorous limitation. Hold on to your hat there buckaroo, this one is a doozy.

Jon and Jeff do a deep-dive into the PLOS: Computational Biology paper "Ten Simple Rules for Better Figures." This one is kind of nerdy, but at this point, isn't that what y'all want?

Grace, Jon, and Jeff do a round of Would You Rather? Academic Style and then follow up with a conversation about the quintessential paper Power 1990 "Effects of Fish in River Food Webs" as they jump back into the Classics in Ecology series. Mary Power's work established the importance of understanding river food webs from a trophic perspective, rather than just a flow-dominated system.

Grace, Jon, and Jeff do some spring cleaning via the latest buzz from Twitter and the blogosphere including way-out-there poster designs, what constitutes a real ecosystem, comparing male-female ratios in publications, and how ecology programs are put together. Grace also details her wine-o-mometer for the changing seasons while Jon doubts the existence of white wine.

Grace, Jon, and Jeff are talking March Mammal Madness 2019 ! Jeff questions dandelions, Jon goes all in on owls, Grace has speciation questions, and we are joined by friend of the podcast Bob, our local sea turtle and marine specialist. The gang also discuss the issues of bothersome acronyms and seminar titles in science.

Jeff and Jon sit down with Patrice Connors and Marc Kissel, two of the folks behind March Mammal Madness 2019 (#2019MMM). Marc and Patrice give us the behind the scenes, inside baseball look at the process of creating the narratives and organizing #2019MMM as well as sharing their love and interest behind the amazing science communication juggernaut. Did you know that MMM reaches over 100k students? All this and more! We are also announcing the Major Revisions 2019 MMM tournament. It's a multi-round game where every round is based on MMM. The points are cumulative, but you get to make new picks every round! No busted bracket worries. Whoever picks the most right gets to pick a topic for a future episode of Major Revisions!