This week, a syndicated article appeared across a number of online media platforms under various different headlines. It covers the doomsday insect apocalypse narrative and appears to cast doubt on the issue of insect decline, largely blaming media and ‘activists’ for promoting the hype. The author links to my blog posts on the insect apocalypse, my BioScience paper co-authored with Jasmine Janes & James O’Hanlon, and my American Scientist article as evidence against the hype, and some sections paraphrase or directly quote from my work. To the average reader, it could appear that I have talked to the author, and that I endorse the article. I did not, I do not, and I was not aware the article was being written.
Continue readingblogging
Last year
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.
Continue readingNo evidence of seasonal blog post views in the southern hemisphere: response to Leather (2020) and Ollerton (2020)
Leather (2020) and Ollerton (2020) both suggest that views of insect-related blog posts are associated with seasonal factors.
Here I show there is no evidence that this is worldwide phenomenon, with data from the southern hemisphere (n = 1).
Continue readingHappy 10th birthday to Ecology is not a Dirty Word!
Cheers to everyone who has read and shared my blog posts over the years. I’ve had some great discussions here and made some really worthwhile connections because of this little blog. Most importantly, it’s kept me inspired and connected through the highs and lows of academia. Here’s to many more blog posts, discussions, and connections to come!
I’m so happy that my current second most visited post is ‘On the importance of observations to Ecology’, an ode to natural history notes and a reminder that ecological science will stagnate without observing natural interactions occurring around us. It sums up many of the reasons why I started blogging in the first place. (It was pipped to the post by one of my insectageddon articles)
Some more on why I love blogging:
The buzz on (ecology) blogging
On 7 years of ecology blogging
Our paper on why ecology blogs are so valuable to the academic community: Bringing ecology blogging into the scientific fold: measuring reach and impact of science community blogs. For anyone who still needs convincing that academic blogs are not a waste of time, this paper is an excellent piece of evidence: co-authors are from Don’t Forget the Roundabouts, Scientist Sees Squirrel, Dynamic Ecology, Jeff Ollerton’s Biodiversity Blog, and Small Pond Science
© Manu Saunders 2019
Times have changed: dealing with dodgy science in the internet age
Dodgy science, dodgy scientists and dodgy humans are not a new thing. And dodgy scientific papers have been published since the dawn of scientific publishing. In 1667 an article on ‘snakestones’, a pseudoscience medical cure with absolutely no basis in truth, appeared in one of the first issues of the oldest known scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (now Phil Trans A, one of the most prestigious modern scientific journals).
Since then, disreputable papers have made regular appearances in reputable journals. And there are different scales of disreputable. The paper claiming that octopi originated from outer space was clearly far-fetched, while the scholars who recently argued there was a ‘moral panic’ over free-ranging cats simply highlighted how interdisciplinary research is often challenged by opposing methodological approaches (note: I agree with most ecologists that free-ranging cats are not good for wild animals, including insects). Continue reading
My first podcast!
Thank you to James O’Hanlon for inviting me on to his awesome science podcast In Situ Science. It was my first podcast, but it was just like a good radio interview where you’re given the time to have a conversation, not produce soundbites.
We chat about the Wild Pollinator Count, the challenges of running citizen science projects (data quality, science vs. engagement etc.), how ecosystem services might be one of the most unifying but misunderstood concepts in research, media portrayal of science, James Bond, science community blogging and more!
You can listen to the podcast here (and if you’re new to the site, be sure to subscribe and check out the previous episodes!):
Ep. 41 Pollinators, Bond films, and ecosystem services with Manu Saunders
The buzz on (ecology) blogging
Leading on from the ‘buzz’ of our recent paper on science community blogging, here is a nice Q&A from my university’s media team (thank you UNE!) about how I started blogging and why I love it. If you’re thinking about blogging, but not sure where it will take you, I hope this gives you some insight!
Read the full story here: The buzz on blogging
Blogging for the science community
I’m very excited to present a new paper on blogging that is a direct result of me blogging! The paper is co-authored with some of the awesome ecology bloggers I have been following for years.
I’m proud to fly the flag for the southern-hemisphere blogosphere. Social media are dominated by the northern hemisphere, particularly North America. The timezone effect and geographical silos have a strong effect on how academics interact via social media, and southern hemisphere perspectives can be easily overlooked. Yet, compared to the northern hemisphere, the southern hemisphere has more countries, plenty of unique ecosystems and wildlife, and quite different higher education and academic systems! So I really hope this paper inspires more southern hemisphere ecologists to engage with blogs. Continue reading
On 7 years of Ecology Blogging
I have been blogging here at Ecology is Not a Dirty Word for 7 years this month! Thank you to everyone who has read and shared my posts over the years!
I remember registering this site, keeping it private and then sitting on it until I decided if it was a good idea. Eventually I gave up deciding and wrote my first post…and I’m glad I did.
Here are a few things I’ve learned about ecology blogging over the years:
What is an Ecology blog? Ecology blogs weren’t really a ‘thing’ when I started, so I had no baseline to work off. And not much has changed, according to a Google trends search for “ecology blogs” vs. “science blogs”. The red line is ‘ecology blogs’ (i.e. no data):
If you ask bloggers and readers, everyone has different opinions on what an ecology blog is. Some ecology blogs are academics writing about doing ecology for their peers; some explain ecological science or application to a general audience; some do both. I prefer audience diversity so I aim for both. But I get far more engagement from non-academic audiences, which I love (see my top posts below). I think it really helps to start blogging with a particular audience in mind, but it’s also okay if that changes over time. Continue reading
Ecology is not a dirty word 