Pub Date : 2017-11-10DOI: 10.4033/IEE.2017.10.8.PSI
A. Rosenblatt
Over the last five U.S. presidential election cycles, public concern about environmental issues has seemingly declined while concerns about national security and economic issues have remained steady or increased. These changes in public attitudes have been associated with decreased attention to environmental issues amongst policymakers, a situation that contrasts strongly with the 1970s when public concern about environmental issues was high and environmental legislation was a U.S. federal government priority. “Framing” has been proposed as a tool that environmental scientists could use to increase the relevancy of their research to U.S. society at-large, thereby helping to change public attitudes and influence policymaking. However, if done haphazardly, some framing efforts can actually have the opposite effect. To combat this weakness, environmental scientists should join with experts in psychology, decision science, and social science to create interdisciplinary teams that can effectively communicate with the public, positively affect public opinion, and make environmental science more relevant and meaningful to society at-large.
{"title":"Is it possible to make environmental science relevant to society at-large?","authors":"A. Rosenblatt","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2017.10.8.PSI","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2017.10.8.PSI","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last five U.S. presidential election cycles, public concern about environmental issues has seemingly declined while concerns about national security and economic issues have remained steady or increased. These changes in public attitudes have been associated with decreased attention to environmental issues amongst policymakers, a situation that contrasts strongly with the 1970s when public concern about environmental issues was high and environmental legislation was a U.S. federal government priority. “Framing” has been proposed as a tool that environmental scientists could use to increase the relevancy of their research to U.S. society at-large, thereby helping to change public attitudes and influence policymaking. However, if done haphazardly, some framing efforts can actually have the opposite effect. To combat this weakness, environmental scientists should join with experts in psychology, decision science, and social science to create interdisciplinary teams that can effectively communicate with the public, positively affect public opinion, and make environmental science more relevant and meaningful to society at-large.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4033/IEE.2017.10.8.PSI","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45472839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-10-24DOI: 10.7287/PEERJ.PREPRINTS.3282V2
C. Lortie
There are few truly bad ideas in authentic science. We need to embrace science as a process- driven human endeavour to better understand the world around us. Products are important, but through better transparency, we can leverage ideas, good and bad, ours and others, to do better science. In a brief analysis here inspired by a recent discussion of the topic and previous introspections by other ecologists, it is proposed that whilst it is a good idea to track ideas and all the processes that generate outcomes such as publications, there is inherent merit in all scientific ideas. That said, organizing and framing our ideas into the networks that we already use to examine hypotheses and questions in science is a window into our workflows including ideation, implementation, data analyses, and how we can better map ideas into open science outcomes. Formalizing and describing the linkages between ideas, data, and projects we produce as scientists will enhance and diversify the value of the work we do individually and collectively.
{"title":"Idea farming: it is a good idea to have bad ideas in science","authors":"C. Lortie","doi":"10.7287/PEERJ.PREPRINTS.3282V2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7287/PEERJ.PREPRINTS.3282V2","url":null,"abstract":"There are few truly bad ideas in authentic science. We need to embrace science as a process- driven human endeavour to better understand the world around us. Products are important, but through better transparency, we can leverage ideas, good and bad, ours and others, to do better science. In a brief analysis here inspired by a recent discussion of the topic and previous introspections by other ecologists, it is proposed that whilst it is a good idea to track ideas and all the processes that generate outcomes such as publications, there is inherent merit in all scientific ideas. That said, organizing and framing our ideas into the networks that we already use to examine hypotheses and questions in science is a window into our workflows including ideation, implementation, data analyses, and how we can better map ideas into open science outcomes. Formalizing and describing the linkages between ideas, data, and projects we produce as scientists will enhance and diversify the value of the work we do individually and collectively.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45524547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Globally, scientific enterprises seek to diversify interest and participation in STEM fields, to both provide equitable opportunities and to push research forward. However, diversity in STEM remains low in many institutions. Internet-based video has emerged as a dominant communication medium that scientists can use to communicate the motivations, process, and products of their work to a diverse, mass audience. Here I describe my use of internet-based video about my research and career as a marine biologist as a tool to inspire broad public interest in science. With my YouTube videos, I have reached a diverse and growing global viewership, amassing >10,000 hours of watch time at the time of this writing. Viewer surveys revealed that my videos have improved individual perceptions about science and science careers, particularly among women and minority groups. I conclude that the emergence of internet-based video as a dominant, ever-expanding communication medium provides an unprecedented but largely untapped opportunity for scientists to broadly communicate their research and to inspire diverse interest in STEM careers.
{"title":"YouTube videos of 'research in action' foster diverse public interest in science","authors":"M. Gil","doi":"10.4033/iee.2017.10.6.f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/iee.2017.10.6.f","url":null,"abstract":"Globally, scientific enterprises seek to diversify interest and participation in STEM fields, to both provide equitable opportunities and to push research forward. However, diversity in STEM remains low in many institutions. Internet-based video has emerged as a dominant communication medium that scientists can use to communicate the motivations, process, and products of their work to a diverse, mass audience. Here I describe my use of internet-based video about my research and career as a marine biologist as a tool to inspire broad public interest in science. With my YouTube videos, I have reached a diverse and growing global viewership, amassing >10,000 hours of watch time at the time of this writing. Viewer surveys revealed that my videos have improved individual perceptions about science and science careers, particularly among women and minority groups. I conclude that the emergence of internet-based video as a dominant, ever-expanding communication medium provides an unprecedented but largely untapped opportunity for scientists to broadly communicate their research and to inspire diverse interest in STEM careers.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4033/iee.2017.10.6.f","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49174674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrea E. Glassmire, J. Jahner, Kevin J. Badik, M. Forister, Angela M. Smilanich, L. Dyer, Joseph S. Wilson
Myriad unexplored mechanisms potentially drive ecological speciation and could help explain global variation in diversity. Here, we develop a novel hypothesis focused on variation in biotic, chemical, and physical properties of soil as a factor contributing to diversification in communities of plants and animals. The Soil Mosaic Hypothesis (SMH) suggests that differences in soil attributes can affect intraspecific variation in phytochemistry, leading to cascading ecological and evolutionary effects on higher trophic levels. To illustrate the potential importance of the SMH, we examine three underlying ideas: (1) plant species and species assemblages shift over time, exposing them to novel soil environments, which can lead to ge netic differentiation; (2) differences in soil properties can alter phytochemistry via plasticity and local adaptation; (3) phytochemistry can drive herbivore diversification via divergent natural selection (i.e. ecological speciation). The SMH provides insight into the process of diversification in a variety of landscapes and at a variety of scales and may inform analyses of diversification at local, regional, and global scales.
{"title":"The soil mosaic hypothesis: a synthesis of multi-trophic diversification via soil heterogeneity","authors":"Andrea E. Glassmire, J. Jahner, Kevin J. Badik, M. Forister, Angela M. Smilanich, L. Dyer, Joseph S. Wilson","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2017.10.5.N","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2017.10.5.N","url":null,"abstract":"Myriad unexplored mechanisms potentially drive ecological speciation and could help explain global variation in diversity. Here, we develop a novel hypothesis focused on variation in biotic, chemical, and physical properties of soil as a factor contributing to diversification in communities of plants and animals. The Soil Mosaic Hypothesis (SMH) suggests that differences in soil attributes can affect intraspecific variation in phytochemistry, leading to cascading ecological and evolutionary effects on higher trophic levels. To illustrate the potential importance of the SMH, we examine three underlying ideas: (1) plant species and species assemblages shift over time, exposing them to novel soil environments, which can lead to ge netic differentiation; (2) differences in soil properties can alter phytochemistry via plasticity and local adaptation; (3) phytochemistry can drive herbivore diversification via divergent natural selection (i.e. ecological speciation). The SMH provides insight into the process of diversification in a variety of landscapes and at a variety of scales and may inform analyses of diversification at local, regional, and global scales.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46138852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-06-06DOI: 10.4033/IEE.2017.10.4.PSI
Sapna Sharma
Media interest in global change biology can help scientists find wide audiences for their work. In this editorial, I provide personal perspectives on science communication and tips for scientists on engaging with journalists to disseminate their findings.
{"title":"Value of communicating global change biology in the media","authors":"Sapna Sharma","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2017.10.4.PSI","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2017.10.4.PSI","url":null,"abstract":"Media interest in global change biology can help scientists find wide audiences for their work. In this editorial, I provide personal perspectives on science communication and tips for scientists on engaging with journalists to disseminate their findings.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4033/IEE.2017.10.4.PSI","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44728332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The role of the seed rain in affecting recruitment, regeneration, and plant community dynamics continues to be debated. Studies show that seed limitation for recruitment is more likely as ecosystems become colder and more species-poor, as in boreal forests, and for species that have large seeds and short-lived seed banks. Even if there is a limiting effect of the seed rain for recruitment, however, clumping seen for mature trees and other evidence suggests that its effect diminishes with time. I posit that the dynamics of plant communities are largely determined where the seed rain is abundant and not limiting—in local spaces close to dispersing plants. Putting all the evidence together, I conclude that it is what happens to seeds after dispersal—such as loss to predation and pathogenic attack, or germination success resulting from environmental tolerances—that has a greater effect on recruitment, regeneration and plant community dynamics. And thus the variation in the workings of seed fate mechanisms and environmental tolerances, deserve more research attention. The importance of the seed rain in affecting recruitment of individual plants, regeneration of individual plants, and plant community dynamics has been over-emphasized in plant modeling and theory.
{"title":"Does the seed rain limit recruitment, regeneration, and plant community dynamics?","authors":"R. Myster","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2017.10.3.C","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2017.10.3.C","url":null,"abstract":"The role of the seed rain in affecting recruitment, regeneration, and plant community dynamics continues to be debated. Studies show that seed limitation for recruitment is more likely as ecosystems become colder and more species-poor, as in boreal forests, and for species that have large seeds and short-lived seed banks. Even if there is a limiting effect of the seed rain for recruitment, however, clumping seen for mature trees and other evidence suggests that its effect diminishes with time. I posit that the dynamics of plant communities are largely determined where the seed rain is abundant and not limiting—in local spaces close to dispersing plants. Putting all the evidence together, I conclude that it is what happens to seeds after dispersal—such as loss to predation and pathogenic attack, or germination success resulting from environmental tolerances—that has a greater effect on recruitment, regeneration and plant community dynamics. And thus the variation in the workings of seed fate mechanisms and environmental tolerances, deserve more research attention. The importance of the seed rain in affecting recruitment of individual plants, regeneration of individual plants, and plant community dynamics has been over-emphasized in plant modeling and theory.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4033/IEE.2017.10.3.C","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43134022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Why are we the only human species? This is one of the most intriguing unanswered questions in evolutionary biology. Many other Homo species once existed, and some at least (notably Neanderthals and Denisovans) are known to have interacted—and for some, based on recent genomic evidence, interbred—with modern humans. But this interbreeding resulted in no persistent hybrids—only a few alleles incorporated into the Homo sapiens genome. It is indeed remarkable that there is apparently — as Varki (2016) put it — no “...other example wherein a single (sub)species from one geographic origin completely replaced all extant crossfertile (sub)species in every planetary location, with limited introgression of functional genetic material from replaced taxa, and leaving no hybrid species. Typically, one instead finds multiple cross-fertile (sub)species, with hybrid zones in between.” We alone then are “the last ape standing” (Walter 2013). And so what is the sapiens advantage? This is explored as a conspicuous theme in a recent book: Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human Mind, by medical researcher Ajit Varki, and (the late) geneticist Danny Brower. The conventional view is that early humans, at some point, evolved a cerebral ‘toolkit’ that enabled a remarkable advance in social intelligence, variously called the ‘great leap forward’, the ‘human spark’, or the ‘mind’s big bang’. This is generally attributed to cognitive functions associated (especially) with awareness of time, theory of mind, capacity for symbolic thinking, and (eventually) complex spoken language and cooperative culture — and this advance became associated (at some point) with an awareness of personal mortality, and an anxiety evoked by this awareness. As Dobzhansky (1967) put it, “A being who knows that he will die arose from ancestors who did not know.” Connected with this is a long history of literature suggesting that immortality is one of the most universal of human obsessions (Schellhorn 2008, Gollner 2013). And several writers have interpreted human motivations for mortality-anxiety buffers involving self-deception of various kinds (Choron 1964, Becker 1973, Shneidman 1973, Cave 2012, Solomon et al. 2015), including some with interpretation in terms of explicit consequences for genetic fitness, i.e. involving Darwinian evolutionary roots (Aarssen 2007, 2010, 2015). Self-deception is, of course, characteristically human (Dobzhansky 1967, Becker 1971, Smith 2007; Trivers 2011). Poet T.S Eliot mused, “...humankind cannot bear very much reality” (Eliot 1943, No. 1 of Four Quartets), and as philosopher Albert Camus (1956) put it, “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” Homo sapiens, then, is apparently the only species that has (and possibly has ever had) motivational domains that function, adaptively, to buffer mortality anxiety. And from this Varki and Brower (2013) offer their main postulate (Figure 1a): other Homo species went extinct mostly
{"title":"The sapiens advantage","authors":"L. Aarssen","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2017.10.2.B","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2017.10.2.B","url":null,"abstract":"Why are we the only human species? This is one of the most intriguing unanswered questions in evolutionary biology. Many other Homo species once existed, and some at least (notably Neanderthals and Denisovans) are known to have interacted—and for some, based on recent genomic evidence, interbred—with modern humans. But this interbreeding resulted in no persistent hybrids—only a few alleles incorporated into the Homo sapiens genome. It is indeed remarkable that there is apparently — as Varki (2016) put it — no “...other example wherein a single (sub)species from one geographic origin completely replaced all extant crossfertile (sub)species in every planetary location, with limited introgression of functional genetic material from replaced taxa, and leaving no hybrid species. Typically, one instead finds multiple cross-fertile (sub)species, with hybrid zones in between.” We alone then are “the last ape standing” (Walter 2013). And so what is the sapiens advantage? This is explored as a conspicuous theme in a recent book: Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human Mind, by medical researcher Ajit Varki, and (the late) geneticist Danny Brower. The conventional view is that early humans, at some point, evolved a cerebral ‘toolkit’ that enabled a remarkable advance in social intelligence, variously called the ‘great leap forward’, the ‘human spark’, or the ‘mind’s big bang’. This is generally attributed to cognitive functions associated (especially) with awareness of time, theory of mind, capacity for symbolic thinking, and (eventually) complex spoken language and cooperative culture — and this advance became associated (at some point) with an awareness of personal mortality, and an anxiety evoked by this awareness. As Dobzhansky (1967) put it, “A being who knows that he will die arose from ancestors who did not know.” Connected with this is a long history of literature suggesting that immortality is one of the most universal of human obsessions (Schellhorn 2008, Gollner 2013). And several writers have interpreted human motivations for mortality-anxiety buffers involving self-deception of various kinds (Choron 1964, Becker 1973, Shneidman 1973, Cave 2012, Solomon et al. 2015), including some with interpretation in terms of explicit consequences for genetic fitness, i.e. involving Darwinian evolutionary roots (Aarssen 2007, 2010, 2015). Self-deception is, of course, characteristically human (Dobzhansky 1967, Becker 1971, Smith 2007; Trivers 2011). Poet T.S Eliot mused, “...humankind cannot bear very much reality” (Eliot 1943, No. 1 of Four Quartets), and as philosopher Albert Camus (1956) put it, “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” Homo sapiens, then, is apparently the only species that has (and possibly has ever had) motivational domains that function, adaptively, to buffer mortality anxiety. And from this Varki and Brower (2013) offer their main postulate (Figure 1a): other Homo species went extinct mostly","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4033/IEE.2017.10.2.B","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48940896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A review of a recent book on data science is framed within the context of open science. I propose that R is a natural bridge between data and open science and a powerful ally in promoting transparent, reproducible science.
{"title":"Open Sesame: R for Data Science is Open Science","authors":"C. Lortie","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2017.10.1.E","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2017.10.1.E","url":null,"abstract":"A review of a recent book on data science is framed within the context of open science. I propose that R is a natural bridge between data and open science and a powerful ally in promoting transparent, reproducible science.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4033/IEE.2017.10.1.E","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49238860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Grant and fellowship proposal writing are key skills for professionals in scientific and research-driven fields, and early exposure and training in proposal writing substantially benefit early career scientists. Here, we present a framework for a student-led workshop for graduate fellowships that is built upon four years of implementation at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (Seattle, USA). This framework was designed for applicants to the United States National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP), but the workshop format is flexible and easily tailored to other fellowships. We describe the primary components of the workshop, the implementation of the workshop, and the major benefits as reported by participants at the University of Washington. The core of the workshop framework is a small group structure that facilitates valuable in-depth interactions among mentors and applicants. The primary outcomes of the workshop include improved writing and communication skills for graduate students and experience with peer review and critical feedback for both applicants and mentors. These outcomes are achieved while maintaining a reasonable time commitment for mentors. The workshop format is sustainable, promotes community-building within and across departments, and facilitates equal access to mentorship and resources for all students.
{"title":"The benefits of workshopping graduate fellowships: a how-to guide for graduate students and early career scientists","authors":"Meryl C. Mims, E. Hodgson, L. Kuehne, M. Siple","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2016.9.6.N","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2016.9.6.N","url":null,"abstract":"Grant and fellowship proposal writing are key skills for professionals in scientific and research-driven fields, and early exposure and training in proposal writing substantially benefit early career scientists. Here, we present a framework for a student-led workshop for graduate fellowships that is built upon four years of implementation at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (Seattle, USA). This framework was designed for applicants to the United States National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP), but the workshop format is flexible and easily tailored to other fellowships. We describe the primary components of the workshop, the implementation of the workshop, and the major benefits as reported by participants at the University of Washington. The core of the workshop framework is a small group structure that facilitates valuable in-depth interactions among mentors and applicants. The primary outcomes of the workshop include improved writing and communication skills for graduate students and experience with peer review and critical feedback for both applicants and mentors. These outcomes are achieved while maintaining a reasonable time commitment for mentors. The workshop format is sustainable, promotes community-building within and across departments, and facilitates equal access to mentorship and resources for all students.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4033/IEE.2016.9.6.N","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70235945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Golden Ratio (a ratio of ~1.618:1) appears repeatedly in nature including structural and functional traits of organisms (e.g. Fibonacci spirals of snail shells and certain seed heads), the spiraled shape of galaxies and hurricanes, and even in much cultural architecture and art. In the mid-19th century, branching structures in plant and animal vascular systems were found to follow the Golden Ratio; that is, successive branches in the vascular systems of plants and animals tend to follow a length ratio of about 1.618:1. Here we present a model that uses this empirical evidence as a branching ratio in theoretical vascular systems. We then use a defined mass of the model system as a predictor of log-log scaling of terminal units. In this model, log terminal units and log mass scale similarly with that of other models as well as empirical evidence, but with more parsimony and a perspective not yet offered among all available models of allometric scaling. This model invites novel and broad hypotheses on the influence of the Golden Ratio on power scaling in organisms.
{"title":"Power scaling, vascular branching, and the Golden Ratio","authors":"Paul N. Frater, A. Duthie","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2016.9.4.N","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2016.9.4.N","url":null,"abstract":"The Golden Ratio (a ratio of ~1.618:1) appears repeatedly in nature including structural and functional traits of organisms (e.g. Fibonacci spirals of snail shells and certain seed heads), the spiraled shape of galaxies and hurricanes, and even in much cultural architecture and art. In the mid-19th century, branching structures in plant and animal vascular systems were found to follow the Golden Ratio; that is, successive branches in the vascular systems of plants and animals tend to follow a length ratio of about 1.618:1. Here we present a model that uses this empirical evidence as a branching ratio in theoretical vascular systems. We then use a defined mass of the model system as a predictor of log-log scaling of terminal units. In this model, log terminal units and log mass scale similarly with that of other models as well as empirical evidence, but with more parsimony and a perspective not yet offered among all available models of allometric scaling. This model invites novel and broad hypotheses on the influence of the Golden Ratio on power scaling in organisms.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"9 1","pages":"15-18"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2016-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70235792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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