Becoming an ecologist : career pathways in science /

"This book examines how the pathways an ecologist follows in charting a career can be directed by various factors: one's interests, opportunities that arise, the culture of a science, the influence of key people, life's practicalities, and serendipity. It illustrates why ecologists as...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wiens, John A. (Author)
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: New York : Columbia University Press, [2025]
Subjects:
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction: Charting pathways
  • In the beginning : emerging of interests
  • Molding of interests
  • Starting on the pathway to becoming a scientist
  • Defining a pathway
  • Beginning an academic career
  • Expanding my view of grassland birds
  • Extending the pathway : the international biological program
  • Scrambing for an explanation : climatic instability and ecological crunches
  • Detouring to another pathway : modeling bird bioenergetics
  • Moving from grasslands to the arid shrubsteppe
  • Challenging the paradigm
  • Changing places : pathways and practicalities
  • Testing the paradigm : are Australian bird communities different?
  • Shifting directions in the shrubsteppe
  • Finding things out : field experiments in the shrubsteppe
  • Becoming a landscape ecologist
  • Dealing with scale
  • Following the landscape ecology pathway
  • The academic traveling along pathways with students
  • Pulled onto a seabird pathway
  • Dealing with advocacy : the Exxon Valdez oil spill
  • Shifting pathways to conservation
  • Bolstering conservation science in the nature conservancy
  • Doing conservation science
  • Writing into retirement
  • Conclusions: What are the lessons for today's aspiring ecologists?