Month: December 2012

Reflections: how social media has changed my life

/ Chris Buddle / 9 Comments

About a year ago I started to write blog posts regularly - this was partially because I was invited to give a talk on social media in Academia at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of Canada (held this past November). It was around the same time that I started using Twitter more regularly. Up until that point, I was a casual user of twitter, and did not understand it.

After one year, I can sum up my feeling about blogging, twitter and social media in one word: exhilarating.

Writing regular blog posts has changed my professional life. It has allowed me to hone my skills as a writer, and learn to write in a different way - a way that attempts to bring science to a broader audience - an audience beyond the walls of the University in which I work. An audience that is articulate, intelligent, interested, engaging, and passionate. Writing blog posts has forced me to articulate clearly about my research, and to think about what I do as a scientist, and why I work on small, obscure animals. It helps me think about the sort of advice I might give to graduate students, whether it be reviewing papers or thinking about how to succeed as a Professor.

I have learned that there is an incredible community “out there” and this community has something to offer. I can now keep track of key happenings in science by following Malcolm Campbell, Ed Yong, Carl Zimmer, and others. I can learn about Higher Education in Canada by paying attention to Melonie Fullick, and I can learn more about my own University thanks to McGill’s amazing twitter feed. I can learn about Entomology around the globe, and take part in inspired, meaningful (and sometimes hilarious) conversations with new friends and colleagues including Morgan Jackson, Derek Hennen, Dr. Dez, Chris MacQuarrie, Bug Girl, the Bug Chicks, Crystal Ernst, Alex Wild, and many more…. These interactions are barrier-free. It doesn’t matter if the conversations are among Professors and undergraduate students, or with high school students. It’s about keeping the conversations relevant, of high quality, and respectful.

I now have new colleagues from different countries - colleagues that I now collaborate with, including Graham Scott in the UK - he and I share many similar ideas about the value of field work in University courses. Or Leslie Brunetta - she and I are now discussing neat ways to take spider silk research into new areas. Social media has also changed how I teach, and using blogs and twitter in the classroom has allowed students to see value in their course work that goes beyond the classroom. My undergraduate students tell me that they feel their University education is more valuable when they can interact with other experts.

Writing blog posts allow me another way to share my passion for all things Arachnida, from spiders to Opiliones and Pseudoscorpions. Yes, our eight-legged friends are awesome, whether they are on your ceiling, in your windowsills, or living on the tundra. Social media has allowed me to write about things that I write about anyway - I am constantly answering emails about spiders, whether it be identification help, or general queries about venomous spiders. By writing a blog post about these topics, (including “spiders do not bite” - my most popular post!), I can now refer people to posts instead or writing emails. Writing posts does take some time, but it is a productive use of time.

On a more personal level, social media has given me meaningful and important connections to people: really good people. People that I respect, people that are now part of an evergroing circle of friends. We need to surround ourselves with good people. Life seems to throw a lot of challenges - whether it is managing with the work-life balance, coming to grips with local and global tragedies, constant worrying about the health of our planet, or struggling with mental or physical health. It’s a big, sometimes scary and often intimidating world out there - and it’s easy to feel insular, lonely, and scared. Social media is one antidote. Social media is not a cure, nor should it be used as escapism - instead, I am saying that it brings a ray of light, a smile and a shot of optimism. I am grateful to have become a part of this community.

As my PhD student Crystal Ernst and Bug Girl discussed (partially reflected in this post): social media is a tool that allows for productive discussion about science, life and the confluence of these. It’s a discussion that can take part in a REALLY long hallway - a hallway that is inclusive, honest, and filled with bright lights.

I will finish with a big “thank you” to all my followers and friends (of this blog, and on twitter). Your interest, comments and enthusiasm are so important to me and highly valued.

I wish everyone terrific end to 2012 and I look forward to continued discussions into the new year!

Taxonomic sufficiency in biodiversity research: Is it always necessary to identify species?

/ Chris Buddle / 10 Comments

It’s been a successful few weeks in the lab! Two weeks ago I promoted an exciting paper about spider silk and herbivory and just after that paper come out, another publication from our lab was published, titled: “Does species-level resolution matter? Taxonomic sufficiency in terrestrial arthropod biodiversity studies“. This paper evolved out of a past graduate-level class in Forest Entomology at McGill, and was re-worked and re-written by post-doc Laura Timms, former Phd student Joseph Bowden, and my colleague Keith Summerville.

Let me provide a plain language summary of this work and I will also touch upon some of the controversy that has arisen because of this paper:

Biodiversity science is about the discovery and description of all the different kinds (species) of organisms living on our planet. It is a vitally important area of research because different species play important roles in our ecosystems, and as a consequence, are important to us. The different number of species in an area can also inform us about how we might be harming or helping ecosystems. This is an active area of study in the context of forestry, since some forest practices (for example, cutting all the trees down in an area) can cause changes in the number of species (and whether they are rare or common) and these changes can inform us about whether our forestry practices are harming our ecosystems. All of this kind of work, however, depends on the ability of scientists to collect, sort, and identify different kinds of species. Since most described species on the planet are Arthropods (e.g., spiders, insects, and their relatives), these animals are often used as a way to indicate how biodiversity might be affected by environmental change. However, there is a problem: it takes a very long time to identify different arthropods, and it is costly and difficult - requiring highly specialized training, by people known as taxonomists. In our research project, we asked whether not you always need to know the exact differences between insects and spiders in order to tell if a disturbance is affecting biodiversity. We did this by looking at a series of data-sets about beetles (Coleoptera), moths & butterflies (Lepidoptera), and spiders (Araneae). These data-sets were from past research projects about how forest disturbance affects biodiversity.

Here is how we did the work: Different kinds of organisms are classified using a two-part name: the genus and the species. There can be many different species within one genus. You can then classify different genera (the plural of genus) into grouping called Families. For example, all wolf spiders are in the Family Lycosidae. A common genus within this family is Pardosa - there are dozens of species of Pardosa in Canada; Pardosa mackenziana, Pardosa moesta, Pardosa hyperborea, etc. We first took our big data-sets and using the lowest level of naming (the species) we asked whether forest disturbance affected biodiversity. We then grouped all our species into their respective genera -this meant that the data-sets got smaller (i.e., there are necessarily fewer genera than species). We did the same analysis to see if we could still get a signal about the effects of disturbance on biodiversity, but now with the ‘reduced’ data. We did this again at the family level. We did this because we wanted to know if you could take a short-cut. Stated another way, if you don’t have the time or ability to figure out all the species in your research project, can you still see if there is an effect of forestry on biodiversity?

A wolf spider (Lycosidae)

A wolf spider - do you need to know its name?

Our results showed that in most cases, you do not need to know the species identity to see the effects of forestry practices on the biodiversity of spiders, beetles and moths & butterflies - you do not get as clear answers when things were grouped into Families, but the datasets with species grouped into genera were almost as good as when you group things into species. This was surprising, because an assumption in biodiversity science is that species-level identifications are necessary and should be the ‘gold standard’ for this kind of research. We showed that in many cases, you can get your answer by identifying arthropods to the generic level: this can save you a lot of time (and money). Some researchers (including taxonomists) may not be thrilled with this result as it might suggest that species are not important, and specialized taxonomic knowledge is not essential to complete biodiversity research. This is certainly not the case, which leads me to the caveats:

1) Our results do not mean species are not important! Instead, we are saying that if there are logistical and financial constraints, you might be able to answer your research question without having to identify all the species. If you have a project about large-scale disturbance and are looking to see whether there are any broad affects on biodiversity, our approach might work. However, you might miss some subtle effects, so this approach must be taken with caution. Although our suggestion is a short-cut, it would still be important to save all the samples, and at a later time (as money and expertise permits) the species could be determined.

2) Our study is specifically geared towards research about insects and spiders in relation to large-scale forestry disturbances. We are not saying that this will work in all situations and with all different kinds of organisms! The context is important. Related to this, if an overarching research question is about species in an ecosystem, species-level identifications are essential. Everything depends on the research question and the research context.

3) This general approach that we have discussed is highly dependent on what kind of organisms you are studying. If you are working with a group of organisms that do not have too many different species within a genus, our approach may work. If, however, there are many species within a single genus, our suggestion will not work as well. Therefore, a researcher should look at the general relationship between the number of species per genus for their study organisms and use this ratio as a guide when thinking about taking the short-cut that we discussed in the research.

In sum, we are quite excited about this research - we think it will provide more opportunities for biodiversity projects to get done, and will help answer certain research questions when there are substantial constraints on time and money. This is one way to be pragmatic about biodiversity research.

Please share your thoughts!

Reference:

Timms, L., Bowden, J., Summerville, K., & Buddle, C. (2012). Does species-level resolution matter? Taxonomic sufficiency in terrestrial arthropod biodiversity studies Insect Conservation and Diversity DOI: 10.1111/icad.12004

Trying to find Profs at a University? Just 5.4 clicks away…

/ Chris Buddle / 8 Comments

Here’s a rant for you.

Yesterday I was trying to find lists of Entomology researchers and staff at various Universities. This turned out to be a very frustrating experience, and I decided to follow up on this a little more closely. I pretended I was a potential graduate student who was interested in Entomology, but who did not necessarily know who (i.e., by name) to look for. So, I went to main University homepages and attempted to navigate my way to a list of faculty within, for example, a Department of Entomology.

This was a stunningly frustrating and annoying process. In my largely unscientific approach, it took me an average of 5.4 clicks (range 3 to 7) to get to Faculty listings in a series of Canadian and US Universities (my sample size was 20). The best was Ohio State and Iowa State - in three clicks I was able to get to the list of Entomology Faculty. These worked - essentially you move from University Page to Academics, where there is a complete list of Departments and from the Departmental page there is a clear link to ‘people’. The most clicks was seven, and of these, Penn State was the worst because once you got to the Department of Entomology, you still could not easily access a list of people and had to instead navigate through ‘research areas’. At my own institution, it took me 7 clicks to find a list of faculty within my department (yikes!). The most significant challenge of this exercise was to ‘guess’ what College or Faculty (or Department) to navigate to (Faculty of Science? College of Life Sciences and Agriculture?)

Department of Entomology at Iowa State - a winner!

Department of Entomology at Iowa State - a winner!

You might argue this is useless exercise, because people will just use Google. However, if you don’t know who you are looking for you are forced to deal with University websites.

I tweeted about this issue yesterday, and Alex Wild and Crystal Ernst suggested this is one key reason why researchers need to set up their own profiles through Google Scholar profiles (e.g., here is Alex’s) or through their own websites. I agree with this, but it is still important that you can be found at your own institution!

Think of this again in terms of a potential graduate student searching for staff listings in an area of study that interests them. How quickly will someone give up and seek a site that is easier to navigate?

A bigger question: who is the audience for a University website? Donors? Alumni? Staff? I would argue the audience is students, and as such, these sites must be designed for students - and in many cases (especially for potential MSc and PhD students), students are looking for people: informative and easy-to-find listings of faculty should be a priority.

In sum, University websites are not easy to navigate. Try to find a list of people? Good luck.