I spent last week in Tromsø, Norway, for the 4th Conference of the Norwegian Ecological Society. With the conference focussing on policy-relevant ecology, I summarised some of my thoughts from the event.
Current Issues
Seeing Ourselves in Animals: The Pitfalls of Anthropomorphism
The thought of an orca playing with its food – a cute seal – can be a grim one. But is it useful to project our ideas of morality onto other species? In this guest post, Mary Shuttleworth looks at the problems with interpreting animal behaviour the way we would interpret our own,
Does the Individual’s Fight For Sustainability Matter?
There seems to be a pattern of thought currently floating around regarding sustainable living. The take home message goes something like this: “it makes no difference whether an individual tries to live sustainably, big corporations are the ones making all the difference anyway”. I want to challenge the notion that the actions of individuals are meaningless.
The Concept of Certainty in Ecological Science
Go through any scientific paper and you’ll find it littered with uncertainty. Scientists qualify parameters, give standard errors, make way for random processes even when experiments have been planned to the finest detail. So why is uncertainty such a crucial part of science? How does this affect the non-scientific public’s perception of science? And does this relationship with knowledge need to change in the future?
From the Experts
Towards Gender Equity in Ecology: Part One
Today is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Rather than go into depth about gender in ecology myself, I thought that I’d share some of the thoughts of prominent female ecologists that we’ve spoken to over the last year. We asked these scientists two simple questions. Has the gender gap closed during your time in the discipline, and what needs to happen to close it further?
Invasive Species & Paper of the week
Our Responsibility Regarding Invasive Species (A Counterpoint to Mark Davis)
A short follow-up to last week’s interview with invasion ecologist Mark Davis.
Blending In
We look at the difference between natural selection and evolution, in a study investigating natural selection on mice colour.
