Ecology is not a dirty word

A lot happened last year.

Twelve months ago I’d been breathing bushfire smoke for months and I was struggling with despair and anxiety (personal and empathetically global) over Australia’s devastating bushfire summer, after our hottest and driest year on record, and the lack of responsible climate action our government maintains.

Now, we’re on track to have experienced one of the wettest years on record for our region, with some areas flooding in recent months, others seeing welcome regrowth in farms, forests and gardens. After severe drought and bushfires, some places may not find the sudden deluge so exciting. While our new garden is loving the conditions, our garage has suffered some minor flooding as the dehydrated clay soils slowly drown under the weight of water. (Nice reminder that climate change brings rapidly changing extremes, not static increases or decreases.)

In between, we’ve suffered from pandemic anxieties, losses and inconveniences, along with the rest of the world.  

But I’m an optimist who believes personal challenges deliver indirect benefits (just like ecosystem disservices!). And we all experienced some happiness last year, despite the stresses. I had a few personal achievements that I’m so grateful for: I bought my first house with my husband (approaching 40, I’ve been dealing with the stresses and uncertainties of rental life for way too long and am so grateful to finally have an ‘owned’ place in the world); I escaped the curse of the postdoc and got my first Lecturer job (kind of like tenure track, for North American readers); and I won my first competitive grant (after 10 years as an early career researcher, more than 15 grant applications, and deflecting many disparaging judgements from the type of academics who think a researcher’s skill is synonymous with grant success).

Thanks for joining this journey – I love writing and it’s great to know you’re reading! Looking forward to this inspiring new year.

Here are my top five posts published in 2020:

• Academia isn’t all bad, and a PhD is definitely worth it
• Breaking the Curse of the Postdoc
• Teaching resources: history and philosophy of ecology
• Insect declines: Apocalypse Now to Great Expectations
• All impact metrics are wrong, but (with more data) some are useful

And my five most read posts on the blog during the last 12 months:

• How do you review a conceptual paper?
• The windscreen phenomenon: anecdata is not scientific evidence
• Academia isn’t all bad, and a PhD is definitely worth it
• Humanities vs Science: is writing a dying art?
• Applied vs. Pure: it’s all ecology at the end of the day

(Note: it’s always fun for authors to look back at what our audience read each year, but I can’t help wondering how these ‘top blogs for the year’ posts influence future readership stats… Maybe a topic for a future paper on blog reach!)

© Manu Saunders 2021