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Evolutionary ecologists have a practical skillset? |
So you can quote the authors and years of foundational papers on ecology's unerstanding of the maintenance, generation, and distribution of diversity in nature? Who cares? What have you done for the world, or what could you do? Let no one forget, neither the ecologists nor the people who need their skills, that an industrial world, in both economic and social terms, is managed by metrics familiar to ecological theory. Many of the keywords are the same: productivity, diversity, competition, diversification, adaptation, extinction, mutualism, top-down, bottom-up, disturbance, stability, portfolio effects. People out there need your skills. They need experimental design. They need basic statistics. People need writers accustomed to complex, technical issues. People need programmers. People need math. People need attention to detail. People need data. People need imagination. People need an education. Beyond basic research but just shy of application, there is something of a void in what we do with our scientific careers. Funding agencies place increasing emphasis on "outreach," communication between scientists and their greater community. But don't forget that you can step outside your university and become part of that greater community.
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