Dynamic Ecology
This is the most bullshit Friday linkfest you’ve ever seen. You’ll be actively angry it exists.
The political geography of TT ecology faculty hires in the US post-Trump
Diversity is variance, and Friday linkfests are built to minimize variance
Poll results on sending revised mss back out for review
Friday linkfests are mostly fine
The corporatization of universities in both mission and governance
What if publication bias isn’t that? At least not always?
One of the most prominent Friday linkfest items might be wrong
As an editor, do you send revised mss back to the reviewers? (includes short poll)
Spoiler: the Easter egg in my new book
A wind-powered herd of beach animals merge into a Friday linkfest (UPDATED)
Neither the publisher nor the editor has confidence in this Friday linkfest
Jeremy decided normal Friday linkfests would not cut it
Poll results on up front reference letters for faculty positions: almost everybody dislikes them, but the people who dislike them most are the people who don’t have to write them
ESA 2026 reflections
Come find me at the ESA meeting to tell me what you thought of my book, and I’ll give you a signed bookplate!
This is a very normal Friday linkfest which is not drawing any special attention to itself whatsoever
On unrealistic extreme scenarios in ecology
Poll on up front reference letters for faculty positions
The decline of Friday linkfests
Friday linkfests look bad every 50 years or so
Where to eat and drink (and run and bike) in Salt Lake City for the 2026 ESA meeting
‘Then a miracle occurs’: share your creative ways to relieve student anxiety about exams and other assignments
Where to find the Friday linkfests your screen can’t show you
Rachel Germain reviews The Ecology of Ecologists in BioScience
Poll results: acknowledgements in scientific papers are the least controversial topic in the world
I beg you to read this Friday linkfest, even if you will be rude to me in the comments
How many recent TT ecology hires in N. America got their bachelor’s and PhD degrees at the same place?
The first citation of The Ecology of Ecologists! And some new reviews!
Friday links: RIP Stephen Fretwell, and more
When is it inappropriate to acknowledge people and organizations in a scientific paper, if ever? Take our poll!
How I use Claude
Friday links: RIP Peter Klopfer, and more
Robert Ricklefs – in memoriam
“I’ve come to see the lack of model validation in ecology as shocking and embarrassing”: interview with Peter Adler on applying modern coexistence theory
Scientific answers vs. doing science
Defining preregistration down
Friday linkfests are 15% straight-up entertainment, and that’s OK
I used to think that I could tell which TT jobs I had a really good shot at, and which TT jobs were longshots for me. I was wrong every time.
Is there any such (one) thing as disturbance ecology any more?
The fall of the Friday linkfest economy
Are academic labs kind of like baseball teams?
It’s hard to see how all the social structures that support Friday linkfests will avoid major disruption over the next few years
Even microcosm experiments can be difficult to replicate
A striking retraction from Ecology Letters
“Designing a statistics project to show that we ecologists are doing something wrong is not my idea of fun”: interview with Scott Peacor on meta-analysis in ecology
Why did it take so long to invent Friday linkfests?
On rejection and ways academia is like baseball
AI and robustness checks
The greatest lie that textbooks teach is that the hard part is coming up with a Friday linkfest. No, the hard part is usually coming up with a worthwhile title.
On Venn diagrams of knowledge
Friday linkfests never die. They merely become embarrassing.
Evolutionary biology vs. Obi-Wan Kenobi
Hot potatoes
I have seen the future of science. It is ruled by Friday linkfests.
Which US colleges and universities hire the most ecologists and evolutionary biologists? Which hire the most relative to their enrollment?
You’re not being unfair if you treat mentees differently
Laziness, impatience, and hubris, the basis of good Friday linkfests
I’m much less sure about where to submit my papers than I used to be
Backing in to experimental design: how to design experiments (and other studies) in the face of constraints
Confusing the normal Friday linkfest for the exceptional
How often, and how far, do N. American ecologists typically move before landing a TT job?
Just for fun: share your highly specific teaching tips
Friday linkfests are hard, and people, scientists or not, like to avoid hard things
The art of teaching is learning how to selectively lie
Friday linkfests are akin to life forms from another planet
The geography of US EEB faculty job applications, take 4: everyone wants to work at my alma mater, apparently. And also hates crab cakes and cheese steaks, apparently.
It’s okay to try things again that have failed in the past
Friday links: RIP Paul Ehrlich and Robert Trivers
The majority of new TT ecology hires in N. America have master’s degrees–with one exception
On re-evaluating sabbatical goals and doing sabbatical wrong
This Friday linkfest is not LLM-friendly, but arguably it should be
“If you keep your mind too open, your brain falls out”: interview with theoretical ecologist Chuliang Song
What’s the best example of ecological research that’s of both great fundamental interest AND has direct applications?
Large parts of the surviving Friday linkfest corpus are neglected
Posts I haven’t written (yet), and posts I never will
Is the peer review system going to melt down? If so, when?
What shape do you think of when you think of Friday linkfests?
The geography of North American EEB faculty job applications (take 3)
How to make a living writing Friday linkfests
The reviews are in on The Ecology of Ecologists! (well, one review anyway)
The value of close replications and how to get more of them: interview with Kate Laskowski
You can get an extension on reading this Friday linkfest if you’re competing in the Olympics
Visiting assistant professor positions in the US and Canada hardly ever convert into tenure-track positions
Introduction section hot takes
A Friday linkfest is not a thing but an aggregation of billions of decisions, each made on the basis of incentives, opportunities and desires
How often should scientific results to be ‘marked to market’?
How the Friday linkfest became list slop
How to make your sample size sound more impressive than it actually is
Friday linkfests will eat themselves
Survey on number of applicants to tenure-track ecology faculty positions advertised in N. America over the last five years
A great conference to go to this summer – who could oppose unifying ecology on multiple scales?
The long slow decline of this blog (which can’t be blamed on the pandemic)
Friday linkfests are tools with collaborator-like affordances
Confirmed: science (all of it) really did peak in 2021
Science (all of it) peaked in 2021
Do you use generative AI to help identify literature you missed? If so, how?
This Friday linkfest will teach you how much you should suffer
There’s an Easter egg in my new book
A statistical summary of the teaching experience of ecologists hired into TT faculty positions in N. America during the 2024-25 job season
Spread the word about The Ecology of Ecologists and get a free signed bookplate! (UPDATED)
The man who mistook his Friday linkfest for the truth
Happy Hogswatch!
In case you didn’t know: tenure-track faculty positions in North America ordinarily start with an initial fixed-term contract
Everything I need to know I learned in Friday linkfests
Is it true that you can’t get hired as a TT prof at a purely teaching-focused undergraduate college if you’ve published too much research?
Data on the career paths of newly hired TT ecologists who took more than six years post-PhD before landing a TT job in N. America
It’s hard for tenured profs to move to a different TT job. But if you want to try, here’s some advice.
This Friday linkfest is a Christmas movie
I just got my copy of The Ecology of Ecologists, now get yours–for 30% off!
Weird PhD defense rules are fine
People believe in Friday linkfests and are willing to pay for them
Students: here are protips for meeting one-on-one with visiting speakers
Black Friday linkfest
Long-term trends in the number of ecology PhDs awarded in the US
No need to publish this Friday linkfest
Should scientific papers be written more like blog posts?
Are R^2 values declining in every scholarly field? And if so, what could or should be done about that?
Would 2004 me get hired in today’s ecology faculty job market?
This is where Friday linkfests are produced and sustained
How many people are on the North American ecology faculty job market at any one time?
The 2024-25 North American ecology faculty job market: same as it ever was
What in the actual hell is going on with this Friday linkfest?
Don’t try to follow-up a faculty interview by providing a better answer to a question you flubbed
Did I just make one of the most impressive forecasts in ecological history, only to bury that fact in a paper that’s not even about forecasting? (includes poll)
Friday linkfests are more important than ever
Who would you nominate for the 2027 Crafoord Prize?
Your carefully crafted Friday linkfest? The primary reviewer read it thoroughly. The other two panelists skimmed it. Everyone else glanced at the summary.
All of our awesome interviews, now in one place!
Interview: Robin Snyder on modern coexistence theory, how to write a gripping introduction section, R as a quilting aid, and more
Have our Friday linkfests become pathological?
Why don’t ecologists predict probability distribution shape more often?
This Friday linkfest has achieved the goals of both political tribes simultaneously, without any of the ideological warfare
You heard it here first: sample sizes of ecological correlation coefficients are declining
Poll results: geographically restricted job searches by people on the North American ecology faculty job market
Replacing Friday linkfests with AI is harder than it seems (UPDATED)
I updated my crude analysis asking whether the pandemic reduced the number of EEB faculty job seekers and/or the number of jobs they’re applying for
Poll on geographically restricted job searches by people previously or currently on the North American ecology faculty job market
What would you like to know about the North American ecology faculty job market, that my previous data doesn’t address?
Belated perfect pop song of the week
This Friday linkfest is performance art
Transparency vs. trust
Yawn: when “best practices” become standard practice
The desperation of Friday linkfests in ecology
What’s the core of ecology?