A Course for Collaborative Ecologists

Photo collage of people meeting at a long table, peple conducting fieldwork, some specimen jars, a snippet of code, some fish, and a small mammal

Abstract

In recent decades, ecology has become a more collaborative discipline motivated by the search for generality across ecosystems. At the same time, the availability, quantity, and quality of environmental data have grown rapidly, creating opportunities for re-use of these data in ecological synthesis research. Though synthesis research is complex and demanding, taking an inclusive and collaborative approach to both the scientific process and the data pays dividends throughout the lifetime of a project. This short course is a survey of methods for making ecological synthesis research a “team sport”.

Objectives for learners are twofold:

  1. Develop an end-to-end (conception to publication) plan for collaborative synthesis research
  2. Gain data synthesis skills that are immediately useful in a research team setting.

Instructors will cover assembling the team, study design, communication, collecting primary data sources, assembly/harmonization of data, analytical workflows, and publication of derived datasets. The course uses real-world examples, demonstrations, and interactive lessons. Ecologists with synthesis experience will be on hand with seasoned research advice and data tips. Many workshop activities will be oriented toward helping learners develop their own ideas and plans for ecological data synthesis.

Agenda for 2024-08-04

This agenda is subject to change!

Timing (PT) Content
1:00 - 1:15p Welcome & Introductions
1:15 - 2:15p Module 1: Starting with Team Science
2:15 - 3:00p Module 2: Operational Synthesis
3:00 - 3:15p Break
3:15 - 4:00p Module 3: Tying It All Together

Shared notes document

A communal notes document will be used during some of the discussions we’ll have, and are a good place to drop on-the-fly feedback about the course. Keep the link handy and we’ll ask for your input to these notes at key times.

Introductions & Icebreaker

Before we begin, we’d love to get a sense for who you all are and why you’re interested in synthesis work! To that end, we’ll take a few minutes and go around the room for introductions. Please include:

  • Your name and pronouns
  • A 1-sentence summary of your work
  • Briefly, why are you interested in synthesis?

Note on Course Materials

While we are excited to offer this short course for the first time at ESA 2024, we’ve chosen to assemble these materials as a living website so that we can revisit and improve the materials over time. So, we recommend that you save the link to this site so that you can have easy access to these materials now and as they are refined going forward.

If you are a GitHub aficionado, we have deployed this website via GitHub Pages so you could also “star” the website’s repository. Simply click the GitHub octocat logo on the right side of the navbar (at the top of the screen) to be redirected to the GitHub repository underpinning this website.

Finally, we have developed all of this website using Quarto.

Credits

The course and its content were developed by a large team. See the People page to learn more.

Supported by:

Collage photo credits: Jacob Bøtter via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 | Jeremy Yoder via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 | Marco Pfeiffer, CC BY-SA 4.0 | Gabriel De La Rosa, CC BY-SA 4.0 | Weecology lab CC BY 4.0 | NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network)