The scientific peer review system needs improvement. The goals of the system – to ensure that scientific work is technically accurate and contextualized – are important in building public trust in the work we do do. They also help to improve the quality and presentation of our work. However, peer review is slow and inefficient.…

It takes some time to feel at home in a new country, and to understand the rhythm of its landscapes. When I moved to England and began to explore outside of its cities, something would usually feel abnormal to me, like I was not in the kind of place I expected. It has taken almost…

The Macrosystems Ecology Lab (PI Benjamin Blonder) will be moving from the University of Oxford to Arizona State University (http://www.asu.edu) in Tempe, Arizona beginning January 2018. The lab’s focus is on predictive community ecology and biogeography, paleoecological and anthropogenic effects on biodiversity dynamics, and global change plant ecophysiology. We use a combination of field, eco-informatics,…

Things fall apart on a mountainside, and low-cost choices begin to have their consequences. Three years ago I wanted to set up an alpine plant demography study, but had no external funding available – I had finished my PhD and was working on a part-time basis for Sky School, focusing on science education. I decided…