Have you ever read a paper and, after digesting it for a bit, thought: “I wish I could play with the data”?
Perhaps you thought that another statistical test was more appropriate for the data and would provide a different interpretation than the one given by the authors. Maybe you had completed a similar experiment and you wanted to conduct a deeper comparison of the results than would be possible by simply assessing a set of bar graphs or a table of statistical values. Maybe you were working on a meta-analysis and the entire data set would have been extremely useful in your work. Perhaps you thought that you had detected a flaw in the study, and you would have liked to test the data to see if your hunch was correct.
Whatever your reason for wishing to access to the data, and this list probably just skims the surface of the sea of possibilities, you often only have one option for getting your hands on the spread sheets or other data outputs from the study – contacting the corresponding author.
Sometimes that works. Often times it does not.
The corresponding author may no longer be affiliated with the listed contact information. Tracking her down might not be easy, particularly if she has moved on from academic or government research.
The corresponding author may no longer be alive, the fate of us all.
You may be able to track down the author, but the data may no longer be available. Perhaps the student or postdoc that produced it is now out of contact with the principal investigator. But even if efforts have been made to retain lab notebooks and similar items, is the data easily sharable?
And, even if it is potentially sharable (for instance, in an Excel file), are the principal investigator’s records organized enough to find it?*
The author may be unwilling to share the data for one reason or another.
Molly (2011) covers many of the above points and also goes into much greater depth on the topic of open data than we are able to do here.
In many fields of study, the issues that we mention above are the rule rather than the exception. Some readers may note that a few fields have had policies to avoid issues like this for some time. For instance, genomics researchers have long used repositories such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) to deposit data at the time of a study being published. And taxonomists have deposited labeled voucher specimens in curated collections for longer than any of us have been alive. Even in those cases, however, there are usually data outputs from studies associated with the deposited material that never again see the light of day. So even those exceptions that prove the rule are part of the rule of a lack of access to data.
But, what if things were different? What might a coherent open data policy look like? The Amsterdam Manifesto, which is still a work in progress, may be a good start. Its points are simple, but potentially paradigm-shifting. It states that:
Data should be considered citable products of research.
Such data should be held in persistent public repositories.
If a publication is based on data not included in the text, those data should be cited in the publication.
A data citation in a publication should resemble a bibliographic citation.
A data citation should include a unique persistent identifier (a DataCiteDOI recommended, unless other persistent identifiers are in use within the community).
The identifier should resolve to provide either direct access to the data or information on accessibility.
If data citation supports versioning of the data set, it should provide a method to access all the versions.
Data citation should support attribution of credit to all contributors.
This line of reasoning is no longer just left to back-of-napkin scrawls. Open access to long term, citable data is slowly becoming the norm rather than the exception. Several journals have begun require, or at least strongly suggest, deposition of all data associated with a study at the time of submission. These include PeerJ and various PLoS journals. It is more than likely that other journals will do the same, now that this ball is rolling.
The benefits of open data are numerous (Molloy, 2011). They include the fact that full disclosure of data allows for verification of your results by others. Openness also allows others to use your data in ways that you may not have anticipated. It ensures that the data reside alongside the papers that stemmed from them. It reduces the likelihood that your data may be lost due to various common circumstances. Above all it takes the most common of scientific outputs – the peer-reviewed paper – and adds lasting value for ongoing use by others. We believe that these benefits outweigh the two main costs: the time taken to organize the data and the effort involved in posting in an online data repository.
If this interests you, and we hope that it does, the next question on your mind is probably “where can I deposit the data for my next paper?” There are a number of options available that allow citable (DOI) archiving of all sorts of data types (text, spreadsheets, photographs, videos, even that poster or presentation file from your last conference presentation). These include figshare, Dryad, various institutional repositories, and others. You can search for specific repositories at OpenDOAR using a number of criteria. When choosing a data repository, it is important that you ensure that it is backed up by a system such as CLOCKSS.
Along with the ongoing expansion of open access publishing options, open data archiving is beginning to come into its own. Perhaps you can think of novel ways to prepare and share the data from your next manuscript, talk, or poster presentation for use by a wide and diverse audience.
—– * To illustrate this point, one of us (DH) still has access to the data for the papers that stemmed from his Ph.D. thesis research. Or at least he thinks that he does. They currently reside on the hard drive of the Bondi blue iMac that he used to write his thesis, and that is now stored in a crawlspace under the stairs at his house. Maybe it still works and maybe the data could be retrieved. But it would entail a fair bit of work to do that (not to mention trying to remember the file structure more than a decade later). And digital media have a shelf life, so data retrieval may be out of the question at this point anyhow.
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By Chris Buddle, editor of The Canadian Entomologist
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The Canadian Entomologists’ latest issue is devoted to Arctic Entomology, with guest editors Derek Sikes and Toke T. Høye putting together an excellent suite of papers on this topic. This is a very timely issue – there is an incredible amount of Arctic entomology happening around the world, and the Arctic is an area that is undergoing rapid environmental change. It’s good that scientists are paying attention, and that entomologists are doing high quality research in the north.
Deciding on an “editor’s pick” for this issue was difficult as there were many excellent papers to choose from. However, I ended up selecting Gergely Várkonyi and Tomas Roslin’s paper titled “Freezing cold yet diverse: dissecting a high-Arctic parasitoid community associated with Lepidoptera hosts”. These authors, from Finland, have presented a very nice study about some food-web dynamics occurring in Zackenberg, Greenland – a truly high Arctic field site, and one that has a remarkable history of long-term ecological monitoring. Their work is focused on unraveling some of the amazing interactions between Lepidoptera and their parasitoids, and this paper provides a “systematic effort to characterise the high-Arctic Hymenoptera and Diptera parasitoid community associated with Lepidoptera hosts”. This is a great paper, and hopefully continues to inspire continued efforts to study entomology at high latitudes.
I asked the authors some questions about their work and they kindly provided in-depth answers:
Q1: What inspired this work?
TOMAS: What got me interested in Arctic predator-prey dynamics was the work of my friend Olivier Gilg. His exploration of the predator-prey dynamics among collared lemmings and their few and selected enemies of Northeast Greenland made me realize that in a species-poor environment, the impact of individual species on each other will be oh-so-much easier to disentangle than among the zillions of interactions typical of tropical and even temperate communities. Here if anywhere you can actually work out both the structure and inner workings of full food webs – which is the very the idea that we have now realized in our study. (And well, from a less scientific point of view, after visiting Northeast Greenland I also realized that this is the most beautiful area of the globe, and that there is nowhere else that I would rather work.)
GERGELY: I have been interested in northern insects, especially hymenopteran parasitoids, since a very long time. I did my PhD in a subarctic environment in Finnish Lapland, with the main focus on host-parasitoid population dynamics between periodic moths and their enemies. I first encountered Greenlandic ichneumonids when my former teacher in ichneumonid taxonomy – and current friend – Reijo Jussila worked on the descriptions of some new species from the Scoresbysund area in Northeast Greenland. More than a decade later, Tomas asked me to identify some samples from Traill Island (NE Greenland), where he had initiated a pilot project on Lepidoptera-Hymenoptera food webs. The next step was when he invited me to join his project about to be launched at Zackenberg. The rest is history…
Q2: What do you hope will be the lasting impact of this paper?
TOMAS: What I hope that we have achieved are three things: to expose the importance of versatile biotic interactions even in a harsh arctic environment, to reveal the massive effort needed to convincingly dissect even a simple food web, and to establish the baseline structure of a food web facing imminent climate change.
GERGELY: Could not say it any better. I can only add that I hope our thorough overview of the taxonomy and natural history of individual parasitoid species will contribute to getting a better understanding of who is who and what roles each species play in this arctic scene.
Q3: Where will your next line of research on this topic take you?
TOMAS: While we have now figured out the structure of the Lepidoptera-parasitoid web, we should remember that this is but a small module of the overall food web of the region. Our current work aims at expanding/zooming out from this core web towards the full food web of the region, which should actually be more realistically doable here than anywhere else on the globe (see above). In this work, we try to make maximal use of modern molecular tools, offering new resolution to documenting trophic interactions.
GERGELY: Apart from the community ecology goals of this project, we will further continue to update what is known about the parasitic wasp fauna of Greenland. I am focusing on the Ichneumonidae, the single most species-rich family of Hymenoptera in both Greenland and the entire World. By combining morphology and molecular methods, I attempt to clarify species boundaries and detect potential cryptic species. The ultimate goal of this research is to compile a modern taxonomic overview of the Ichneumonidae of Greenland.
Q4: Any amusing anecdotes about this research?
TOMAS: Gergely used to wear a handy hiking suit of light coloration. One day he was almost shot as a polar bear after sneaking up on an unsuspecting colleague in the field.
GERGELY: Well, first of all I was not sneaking, just looking for adult wasps in a safe distance from this colleague of ours. She thought my net was a giant paw of a polar bear (!) and she was really scared for a short moment. But she was definitely not about to shoot me!
I’m new to blogging, so when asked by our Blog Administrators to provide a first installment as President, I was at a bit of a loss on how to proceed with this. Do I simply distill what I have already shared more formally in the Up-front article from the December 2012, ESC Bulletin? After some thought, I have decided to try something a bit different, but still related to my article.
One of my personal goals as President is to increase not only membership in the ESC, but the level of “active membership”. To my understanding, an active member is in action and contributing to our Society in any of a myriad of manners; e.g. serving on one of our many committees as either member or Chair, letting their name stand for executive office as Second Vice President or the next Director-at-large, applying to be a Society Trustee (e.g., Secretary, Treasurer, Bulletin Editor, Webmaster) as positions become vacant, collaborating to nominate a deserving fellow member for one of our achievement awards, helping organize a symposium or workshop for the next JAM, giving requested expert advice on issues that crop up within the society, etc. Without the mostly volunteer service of our active members, we cease to exist.
In thinking about what must be a perennial issue for every volunteer group out there…how to get new blood pumped into an organization to sustain it and also allow it to grow, and then how to encourage new involvement in the running of the organization, it occurred to me that one way to do so is to pull back the veil on what active service means, thereby allowing people to envision themselves in a particular active role. Do most of our members really know what projects our 17 regular committees are up to? Do they have a grasp of what is entailed in serving within any of the positions of the society. Although any one of us can get onto the membership pages of our website and read our By-laws, Standing Rules and Committee Guidelines to find out the nuts and bolts of how our society runs, how many actually do so unless they are serving on a committee? Honestly, that has been the case for me. However, by sharing what we do and why, it gives a more human face to the intermeshed components of our organization, and may even inspire someone to step forth to serve.
So to get the ball rolling, let’s start with my experience so far and what is currently keeping me preoccupied on behalf of the society. I have been in my role as President now for nearly 21 weeks and quickly am getting my legs in the job. Initially the position presented a somewhat daunting view of what lay ahead for me in terms of work load and challenges, and my legs were shaky. I was wondering how in heck I was going to juggle this major responsibility along with my research program and other activities. However, the experience has recently morphed into one of enjoyment that has actually given me energy overall and an eagerness to meet the challenges head-on with the help of others. A large part of the enjoyment is coming from working with some excellent active members from across the country that are very dedicated and brimming with their own visions of us and how to move our society in new directions. There is such vibrancy to the ESC!
As President, I am ex officio on each of the regular committees, plus two newly-struck ad hoc committees, which means I get a bird’s eye view of what is happening within each as Committee Chairs cc me on their activity and discussions. Not all of them are active at the same time, but it is kind of like watching fireworks go off in different sectors of the sky, and then gauging how it all fits into the progression and synchronization of the whole show. Sometimes I may participate in the activity (either by invitation or when I clearly see where I need to get into action), but more often I find myself just watching, learning, or deciding where to nudge if needed. I also am encouraging new projects by either planting ideas with others, or enabling someone else’s idea by getting the appropriate people together. I must say that it is very gratifying watching projects take hold and grow to potential Board presentation stage, even without any involvement from me at all. Some of the projects that are in the early stages of discussion involve our student membership; for instance, we are sussing out new opportunities for career and leadership development. Overall, the role is a great way to develop improved management/people and leadership skills…..and even some French language skills because of the patience and encouragement of our francophone members.
But to present the full picture, it isn’t rosy all the time, as there are some serious matters to deal with which could have an impact on the future of our society. That’s where I have to screw up some courage and jump into the thick of things. A current example is making sure the ESC makes a successful legal transition according to the new Canadian Not-for-profit Corporations Act, which will mean the re-writing of our by-laws this year among other paperwork. Right now, I’m just so thankful to have the help and experience of our active membership as we navigate these new waters.
Regardless of how serious the challenge though, I have faith that we will survive as a society. We have existed for 150 years, so no time to give up now! So for anyone interested, we will be looking for new people to fill the Chairs of the Annual Meeting, Finance and Publications Committees beginning at our next JAM in Guelph, October 2013, and of course, welcome anyone who wishes to serve as members on any of our 17 committees. Think of it as an opportunity for personal and/or career growth and adventure.
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Last autumn there was quite an interesting discussion on twitter among some entomologists in Canada about the ‘job search’ – more specifically focused on the process of seeking tenure-track academic appointments. Many of us shared our sob stories, and although the time, place and characters varied, the common element was REJECTION. Those of us who currently are lucky enough to hold faculty appointments remember the rejection to success ratio, and some of us still have stacks of rejection letters. While most of us really enjoyed the academic freedom that came with working as a postdoc, the job-search process was more often than not discouraging and deflating, and a really difficult time in our lives.
Towards the end of the PhD program, most of us are riding high – our papers are getting published, we are truly ‘experts’ in our fields of study, we are being congratulated, buoyed by our peers and mentors, and we are ready to take on the world. We found ways to get a post-doc and perhaps traveled to a different country for additional experience, with a sense of hope, optimism, and enthusiasm for the next stage of our careers.
Then, like the world supply of helium, our hopes were quickly diminished.
“I will easily get a job interview at THAT University”.
Nope. Not even an interview.
“Perfect – that job advertisement was MADE for me – they will hire me. It’s a perfect fit”.
Nope. A mass e-mail rejection letter instead.
“I’m the GREATEST in my field of study. Universities will be asking me to apply”
Nope. That never happens.
”I’m sure that I’ll be seriously considered for this position”
Nope. The rejection letter came back saying that there were more than 400 applicants for the position.
“Even if I don’t get the job, I’ll be able to get feedback from someone on the committee.”
Nope. It’s highly unlikely that, among the 400 applicants, anyone on the committee even remembers you.
There are really two ways to look at this. It is possible to get discouraged and frustrated, and give up hope OR it’s possible to see that persistence can pay off and eventually the right job will come along, and you will be competitive. Sure, the opportunities have to be there, but that kind of timing and ‘luck’ isn’t something you can control.
Here are a few pointers that will hopefully help you think about that tenure-track job search, and give you a sense of optimism:
It will take a huge dose of patience and persistence, but there ARE tenure-track jobs out there for people with Entomological interests, even in Canada. Recently, Manitoba hired an entomologist, and University of Ottawa just hired an assistant professor on the evolution of plant-pollinator interactions.
University professors do eventually retire! (…Although it needs to be noted that the reality in the current economy is that their positions are not always replaced)
You don’t have to restrict your options to only University positions. We know of faculty members who worked in private companies, or in government, and made a lateral transfer, eventually, to academia. Your holy grail may be a tenure-track job, but other opportunities are equally rewarding and could eventually get you a tenure-track job. Or you may find that life “beyond the ivory tower” is much to your liking anyhow. In fact, you may be interested in the advice column at Chronicle.com by that very name.
Be creative with your CV. There are relatively few jobs for entomologists, sensu stricto, but there are jobs for evolutionary biologists, ecologists, or other more ‘general’ disciplines (Look: Concordia recently held a competition for a community and ecosystem ecologist!) Re-work your cover letters and CV to reflect your potential in these jobs, and that you use insects as ‘model organisms’. And always tailor your cover letter and CV to any job for which you apply. Don’t just send in the same material to every search committee. Search committees are looking for that elusive thing that we call “fit.”
Keep your eye on the ball: to get that coveted university position, the peer-reviewed publication remains the MOST IMPORTANT item on your CV. Publish, publish, publish. During this stage of your career, keep the focus on that part of the research process. In particular, enjoy the fact that, as a postdoc, you are relatively free to conduct research and publish without many of the other responsibilities (e.g., teaching, administration) that will come with a tenure-track post.
Be realistic. If a job ad states that the committee is looking for an acarologist specializing in the mites of toucans, and you are an acarologist who studies toucan mites, then you have a good chance of landing an interview. If the job ad asks for a “terrestrial ecologist working at any scale from microbial to landscape” and you fit somewhere in there, chances are so do a few hundred other recent graduates.
When you see something that looks potentially appropriate for you, apply. Rejection is painful but costs nothing; not applying to something that might have worked out is doubly painful. People who have agreed to write you letters of recommendation will be patient with you (if they are not, perhaps they are not the right people to give you a letter…?)
Have another postdoc or your mentor read through your application material. Chances are your mentor has been on a few search committees and can give you useful tips.
Every time you apply for a job, consider it a chance to improve your application material.
When you do land an interview, prepare for it like there’s no tomorrow. You are a researcher, do your best to figure out everything that you possibly can about the department to which you are applying and, even more, the personalities that make up that department. Once you get an interview, this means your CV is strong enough, and the job interview is about the ‘fit’.
Landing an academic position is not always going to be in the cards for everyone. It is best to have alternate plans so that you don’t get stuck in the so-called postdoctoral holding pattern for years and years. At least one of us (DH) committed to himself to start to explore alternate options at the five year mark after walking the convocation stage. Have a plan B. Your Plan B might actually turn out better than your Plan A in the end.
Rejection in terms of tenure-track jobs is really just a warm-up to the continual sense of rejection you will feel if you do end up working as a Professor. You might as well get used to it. This is not a statement to bring on doom and gloom: it’s the reality. You must develop broad shoulders.
Rejection is a fundamental and core part of the academic life: The publication process is becoming so difficult that you can pretty much assume that your paper will get rejected the first few times around (check out this paper about rejection rates…). Funding agencies are cash-strapped, and it’s getting harder and harder to find ways to fund research projects. High caliber graduate students will ‘shop around’ for the best graduate program, and will often reject your laboratory. Be a practitioner of academic kung fu – use the weight of rejection against rejection itself by learning from it and applying it to your next attempt.
Depressed yet?
Don’t be. A tenure track has so many advantages, and these far outweigh the annoying stream of rejections. And the other options available to a bright, young researcher are often as appealing (and usually pay more) than being on the tenure track anyhow. ..but that’s a topic for another post.
http://esc-sec.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ESC_logo-300x352.png00Bloghttp://esc-sec.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ESC_logo-300x352.pngBlog2013-02-25 06:00:122019-11-14 21:28:17Landing an entomological tenure track job: perfecting the practice of academic kung fu
As the Editor-in-Chief of The Canadian Entomologist, I have the pleasure of seeing all papers move through the publication process, from first submission to approval of the final proof. This places me in a position to fully appreciate the incredible entomological research occurring around the world. As one way to promote some of the great papers within TCE, I have decided to start a series of blog posts titled “Editor’s Pick” – these are papers that stand out as being high quality research, and research that has broad interest to the entomological community. I will pick one paper from each issue, and write a short piece to profile the paper.
For the first issue of the current volume (145), I’ve picked the paper by Kathleen Ryan and colleagues, titled “Seasonal occurrence and spatial distribution of resinosis, a symptom of Sirex noctilio (Hymenoptera: Siricidae) injury, on boles of Pinus sylvestris (Pinaceae)“. Sirex noctilio is a recently introduced species in Canada, and is a woodwasp that we need to pay attention to. As Kathleen writes, “unlike our native species of woodwasps, it attacks and kills living pines” and because of this, we must strive to find effective ways to monitor the species. One potential approach is to look for signs of resinosis, or ‘excessive’ outflow of tree sap and resins from conifers. The goal of this work was to specifically assess “the spatial and temporal distribution of resin symptoms of attack to optimise sampling“. The work involved Kathleen spending a LOT of time in the field, observing evidence of damage to trees, and assessing timing of resinosis relative to other damage to pine trees as related to woodwasps. In the end, Kathleen was able to confirm that in most infested trees, the appearance of resin was a meaningful detection method. This is a very practical paper, and very useful towards finding the best methods to detect this exotic species.
Sirex noctilio female – Photo by K. Ryan
I asked Kathleen a few questions about this paper and the context of the work.
Q: Kathleen, what first got you interested in this area of research?
A: I became interested in studying Sirex’s interaction with other subcortical insects. Sirex was recently detected in North America at the time and we didn’t know much about it here including how, where and when to find it – all of which were essential in planning research about insect interactions. So this study was my starting point – my “getting to know Sirex” study.
Q: What do you hope will be the lasting impact of this paper?
A: This paper is the result of the many hours of field observations that helped me to become more familiar with Sirex. Since its really basic research, I hope that this paper might be a useful starting point for other people beginning to work with Sirex.
Q: Where will your next line of research on this topic take you?
A: Currently, I’m studying another invasive wood-borer, but I’d like to work with Sirex again – it’s a really interesting and unique insect biologically and ecologically. I’m especially interested in studying Sirex community ecology in its native, European, range to see how it compares to North America.
This is truly an important area of study, and I do look forward to seeing more of Kathleen’s papers in TCE.
Finally, I asked Kathleen about any amusing anecdotes about the research, and she shared this wonderful story with me:
The first day we worked together, my PhD advisor Peter de Groot, dropped me off at a forest site with instructions to only observe and collect absolutely no data. I had been in the forest for only a few moments, when a female Sirex landed right in front of me. So being an entomologist, naturally I caught her. A couple of hours later, still holding her, I met back up with Peter and sheepishly admitted that I had caught some “data”. Thinking it fantastic, from that point forward he told everyone that Sirex had picked me as her project.
Looking for woodwasps – Photo by K. Ryan
I believe that these kinds of stories behind the research make Entomology more accessible and real, and help us appreciate the human element of scientific research.
As a final note, the entomological community was very saddened by Peter de Groot’s death in 2010. His legacy to Canadian Entomology is still very strong.
A special thanks to Kathleen for answering a few questions, and sharing insights into the first ‘Editor’s pick’ for The Canadian Entomologist
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Reference: Ryan, K, P. de Groot, S.M. Smith and J. J. Turgeon. Seasonal occurrence and spatial distribution of resinosis, a symptom of Sirex noctilio (Hymenoptera: Siricidae) injury on boles of Pinus sylvestris (Pinaceae). The Canadian Entomologist 145: 117-122. Link.
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Open Data
by Dezene Huber & Paul Fields
_____________________
Have you ever read a paper and, after digesting it for a bit, thought: “I wish I could play with the data”?
Perhaps you thought that another statistical test was more appropriate for the data and would provide a different interpretation than the one given by the authors. Maybe you had completed a similar experiment and you wanted to conduct a deeper comparison of the results than would be possible by simply assessing a set of bar graphs or a table of statistical values. Maybe you were working on a meta-analysis and the entire data set would have been extremely useful in your work. Perhaps you thought that you had detected a flaw in the study, and you would have liked to test the data to see if your hunch was correct.
Whatever your reason for wishing to access to the data, and this list probably just skims the surface of the sea of possibilities, you often only have one option for getting your hands on the spread sheets or other data outputs from the study – contacting the corresponding author.
Sometimes that works. Often times it does not.
Molly (2011) covers many of the above points and also goes into much greater depth on the topic of open data than we are able to do here.
In many fields of study, the issues that we mention above are the rule rather than the exception. Some readers may note that a few fields have had policies to avoid issues like this for some time. For instance, genomics researchers have long used repositories such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) to deposit data at the time of a study being published. And taxonomists have deposited labeled voucher specimens in curated collections for longer than any of us have been alive. Even in those cases, however, there are usually data outputs from studies associated with the deposited material that never again see the light of day. So even those exceptions that prove the rule are part of the rule of a lack of access to data.
But, what if things were different? What might a coherent open data policy look like? The Amsterdam Manifesto, which is still a work in progress, may be a good start. Its points are simple, but potentially paradigm-shifting. It states that:
This line of reasoning is no longer just left to back-of-napkin scrawls. Open access to long term, citable data is slowly becoming the norm rather than the exception. Several journals have begun require, or at least strongly suggest, deposition of all data associated with a study at the time of submission. These include PeerJ and various PLoS journals. It is more than likely that other journals will do the same, now that this ball is rolling.
The benefits of open data are numerous (Molloy, 2011). They include the fact that full disclosure of data allows for verification of your results by others. Openness also allows others to use your data in ways that you may not have anticipated. It ensures that the data reside alongside the papers that stemmed from them. It reduces the likelihood that your data may be lost due to various common circumstances. Above all it takes the most common of scientific outputs – the peer-reviewed paper – and adds lasting value for ongoing use by others. We believe that these benefits outweigh the two main costs: the time taken to organize the data and the effort involved in posting in an online data repository.
If this interests you, and we hope that it does, the next question on your mind is probably “where can I deposit the data for my next paper?” There are a number of options available that allow citable (DOI) archiving of all sorts of data types (text, spreadsheets, photographs, videos, even that poster or presentation file from your last conference presentation). These include figshare, Dryad, various institutional repositories, and others. You can search for specific repositories at OpenDOAR using a number of criteria. When choosing a data repository, it is important that you ensure that it is backed up by a system such as CLOCKSS.
Along with the ongoing expansion of open access publishing options, open data archiving is beginning to come into its own. Perhaps you can think of novel ways to prepare and share the data from your next manuscript, talk, or poster presentation for use by a wide and diverse audience.
—–
* To illustrate this point, one of us (DH) still has access to the data for the papers that stemmed from his Ph.D. thesis research. Or at least he thinks that he does. They currently reside on the hard drive of the Bondi blue iMac that he used to write his thesis, and that is now stored in a crawlspace under the stairs at his house. Maybe it still works and maybe the data could be retrieved. But it would entail a fair bit of work to do that (not to mention trying to remember the file structure more than a decade later). And digital media have a shelf life, so data retrieval may be out of the question at this point anyhow.
Canadian Entomologist Editor’s Pick – March 2013
By Chris Buddle, editor of The Canadian Entomologist
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The Canadian Entomologists’ latest issue is devoted to Arctic Entomology, with guest editors Derek Sikes and Toke T. Høye putting together an excellent suite of papers on this topic. This is a very timely issue – there is an incredible amount of Arctic entomology happening around the world, and the Arctic is an area that is undergoing rapid environmental change. It’s good that scientists are paying attention, and that entomologists are doing high quality research in the north.
Deciding on an “editor’s pick” for this issue was difficult as there were many excellent papers to choose from. However, I ended up selecting Gergely Várkonyi and Tomas Roslin’s paper titled “Freezing cold yet diverse: dissecting a high-Arctic parasitoid community associated with Lepidoptera hosts”. These authors, from Finland, have presented a very nice study about some food-web dynamics occurring in Zackenberg, Greenland – a truly high Arctic field site, and one that has a remarkable history of long-term ecological monitoring. Their work is focused on unraveling some of the amazing interactions between Lepidoptera and their parasitoids, and this paper provides a “systematic effort to characterise the high-Arctic Hymenoptera and Diptera parasitoid community associated with Lepidoptera hosts”. This is a great paper, and hopefully continues to inspire continued efforts to study entomology at high latitudes.
I asked the authors some questions about their work and they kindly provided in-depth answers:
Q1: What inspired this work?
TOMAS: What got me interested in Arctic predator-prey dynamics was the work of my friend Olivier Gilg. His exploration of the predator-prey dynamics among collared lemmings and their few and selected enemies of Northeast Greenland made me realize that in a species-poor environment, the impact of individual species on each other will be oh-so-much easier to disentangle than among the zillions of interactions typical of tropical and even temperate communities. Here if anywhere you can actually work out both the structure and inner workings of full food webs – which is the very the idea that we have now realized in our study. (And well, from a less scientific point of view, after visiting Northeast Greenland I also realized that this is the most beautiful area of the globe, and that there is nowhere else that I would rather work.)
GERGELY: I have been interested in northern insects, especially hymenopteran parasitoids, since a very long time. I did my PhD in a subarctic environment in Finnish Lapland, with the main focus on host-parasitoid population dynamics between periodic moths and their enemies. I first encountered Greenlandic ichneumonids when my former teacher in ichneumonid taxonomy – and current friend – Reijo Jussila worked on the descriptions of some new species from the Scoresbysund area in Northeast Greenland. More than a decade later, Tomas asked me to identify some samples from Traill Island (NE Greenland), where he had initiated a pilot project on Lepidoptera-Hymenoptera food webs. The next step was when he invited me to join his project about to be launched at Zackenberg. The rest is history…
Q2: What do you hope will be the lasting impact of this paper?
TOMAS: What I hope that we have achieved are three things: to expose the importance of versatile biotic interactions even in a harsh arctic environment, to reveal the massive effort needed to convincingly dissect even a simple food web, and to establish the baseline structure of a food web facing imminent climate change.
GERGELY: Could not say it any better. I can only add that I hope our thorough overview of the taxonomy and natural history of individual parasitoid species will contribute to getting a better understanding of who is who and what roles each species play in this arctic scene.
Q3: Where will your next line of research on this topic take you?
TOMAS: While we have now figured out the structure of the Lepidoptera-parasitoid web, we should remember that this is but a small module of the overall food web of the region. Our current work aims at expanding/zooming out from this core web towards the full food web of the region, which should actually be more realistically doable here than anywhere else on the globe (see above). In this work, we try to make maximal use of modern molecular tools, offering new resolution to documenting trophic interactions.
GERGELY: Apart from the community ecology goals of this project, we will further continue to update what is known about the parasitic wasp fauna of Greenland. I am focusing on the Ichneumonidae, the single most species-rich family of Hymenoptera in both Greenland and the entire World. By combining morphology and molecular methods, I attempt to clarify species boundaries and detect potential cryptic species. The ultimate goal of this research is to compile a modern taxonomic overview of the Ichneumonidae of Greenland.
Q4: Any amusing anecdotes about this research?
TOMAS: Gergely used to wear a handy hiking suit of light coloration. One day he was almost shot as a polar bear after sneaking up on an unsuspecting colleague in the field.
GERGELY: Well, first of all I was not sneaking, just looking for adult wasps in a safe distance from this colleague of ours. She thought my net was a giant paw of a polar bear (!) and she was really scared for a short moment. But she was definitely not about to shoot me!
Self-discovery and where to next?
By ESC President Rosemarie DeClerck-Floate
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I’m new to blogging, so when asked by our Blog Administrators to provide a first installment as President, I was at a bit of a loss on how to proceed with this. Do I simply distill what I have already shared more formally in the Up-front article from the December 2012, ESC Bulletin? After some thought, I have decided to try something a bit different, but still related to my article.
One of my personal goals as President is to increase not only membership in the ESC, but the level of “active membership”. To my understanding, an active member is in action and contributing to our Society in any of a myriad of manners; e.g. serving on one of our many committees as either member or Chair, letting their name stand for executive office as Second Vice President or the next Director-at-large, applying to be a Society Trustee (e.g., Secretary, Treasurer, Bulletin Editor, Webmaster) as positions become vacant, collaborating to nominate a deserving fellow member for one of our achievement awards, helping organize a symposium or workshop for the next JAM, giving requested expert advice on issues that crop up within the society, etc. Without the mostly volunteer service of our active members, we cease to exist.
In thinking about what must be a perennial issue for every volunteer group out there…how to get new blood pumped into an organization to sustain it and also allow it to grow, and then how to encourage new involvement in the running of the organization, it occurred to me that one way to do so is to pull back the veil on what active service means, thereby allowing people to envision themselves in a particular active role. Do most of our members really know what projects our 17 regular committees are up to? Do they have a grasp of what is entailed in serving within any of the positions of the society. Although any one of us can get onto the membership pages of our website and read our By-laws, Standing Rules and Committee Guidelines to find out the nuts and bolts of how our society runs, how many actually do so unless they are serving on a committee? Honestly, that has been the case for me. However, by sharing what we do and why, it gives a more human face to the intermeshed components of our organization, and may even inspire someone to step forth to serve.
So to get the ball rolling, let’s start with my experience so far and what is currently keeping me preoccupied on behalf of the society. I have been in my role as President now for nearly 21 weeks and quickly am getting my legs in the job. Initially the position presented a somewhat daunting view of what lay ahead for me in terms of work load and challenges, and my legs were shaky. I was wondering how in heck I was going to juggle this major responsibility along with my research program and other activities. However, the experience has recently morphed into one of enjoyment that has actually given me energy overall and an eagerness to meet the challenges head-on with the help of others. A large part of the enjoyment is coming from working with some excellent active members from across the country that are very dedicated and brimming with their own visions of us and how to move our society in new directions. There is such vibrancy to the ESC!
As President, I am ex officio on each of the regular committees, plus two newly-struck ad hoc committees, which means I get a bird’s eye view of what is happening within each as Committee Chairs cc me on their activity and discussions. Not all of them are active at the same time, but it is kind of like watching fireworks go off in different sectors of the sky, and then gauging how it all fits into the progression and synchronization of the whole show. Sometimes I may participate in the activity (either by invitation or when I clearly see where I need to get into action), but more often I find myself just watching, learning, or deciding where to nudge if needed. I also am encouraging new projects by either planting ideas with others, or enabling someone else’s idea by getting the appropriate people together. I must say that it is very gratifying watching projects take hold and grow to potential Board presentation stage, even without any involvement from me at all. Some of the projects that are in the early stages of discussion involve our student membership; for instance, we are sussing out new opportunities for career and leadership development. Overall, the role is a great way to develop improved management/people and leadership skills…..and even some French language skills because of the patience and encouragement of our francophone members.
But to present the full picture, it isn’t rosy all the time, as there are some serious matters to deal with which could have an impact on the future of our society. That’s where I have to screw up some courage and jump into the thick of things. A current example is making sure the ESC makes a successful legal transition according to the new Canadian Not-for-profit Corporations Act, which will mean the re-writing of our by-laws this year among other paperwork. Right now, I’m just so thankful to have the help and experience of our active membership as we navigate these new waters.
Regardless of how serious the challenge though, I have faith that we will survive as a society. We have existed for 150 years, so no time to give up now! So for anyone interested, we will be looking for new people to fill the Chairs of the Annual Meeting, Finance and Publications Committees beginning at our next JAM in Guelph, October 2013, and of course, welcome anyone who wishes to serve as members on any of our 17 committees. Think of it as an opportunity for personal and/or career growth and adventure.
Landing an entomological tenure track job: perfecting the practice of academic kung fu
By Chris Buddle (McGill University) & Dezene Huber (University of Northern BC)
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Last autumn there was quite an interesting discussion on twitter among some entomologists in Canada about the ‘job search’ – more specifically focused on the process of seeking tenure-track academic appointments. Many of us shared our sob stories, and although the time, place and characters varied, the common element was REJECTION. Those of us who currently are lucky enough to hold faculty appointments remember the rejection to success ratio, and some of us still have stacks of rejection letters. While most of us really enjoyed the academic freedom that came with working as a postdoc, the job-search process was more often than not discouraging and deflating, and a really difficult time in our lives.
Towards the end of the PhD program, most of us are riding high – our papers are getting published, we are truly ‘experts’ in our fields of study, we are being congratulated, buoyed by our peers and mentors, and we are ready to take on the world. We found ways to get a post-doc and perhaps traveled to a different country for additional experience, with a sense of hope, optimism, and enthusiasm for the next stage of our careers.
Then, like the world supply of helium, our hopes were quickly diminished.
“I will easily get a job interview at THAT University”.
Nope. Not even an interview.
“Perfect – that job advertisement was MADE for me – they will hire me. It’s a perfect fit”.
Nope. A mass e-mail rejection letter instead.
“I’m the GREATEST in my field of study. Universities will be asking me to apply”
Nope. That never happens.
”I’m sure that I’ll be seriously considered for this position”
Nope. The rejection letter came back saying that there were more than 400 applicants for the position.
“Even if I don’t get the job, I’ll be able to get feedback from someone on the committee.”
Nope. It’s highly unlikely that, among the 400 applicants, anyone on the committee even remembers you.
There are really two ways to look at this. It is possible to get discouraged and frustrated, and give up hope OR it’s possible to see that persistence can pay off and eventually the right job will come along, and you will be competitive. Sure, the opportunities have to be there, but that kind of timing and ‘luck’ isn’t something you can control.
Here are a few pointers that will hopefully help you think about that tenure-track job search, and give you a sense of optimism:
Rejection is a fundamental and core part of the academic life: The publication process is becoming so difficult that you can pretty much assume that your paper will get rejected the first few times around (check out this paper about rejection rates…). Funding agencies are cash-strapped, and it’s getting harder and harder to find ways to fund research projects. High caliber graduate students will ‘shop around’ for the best graduate program, and will often reject your laboratory. Be a practitioner of academic kung fu – use the weight of rejection against rejection itself by learning from it and applying it to your next attempt.
Depressed yet?
Don’t be. A tenure track has so many advantages, and these far outweigh the annoying stream of rejections. And the other options available to a bright, young researcher are often as appealing (and usually pay more) than being on the tenure track anyhow. ..but that’s a topic for another post.
Editor’s Pick: Resins, exotic woodwasps and how a study species picks a researcher.
by Christopher Buddle, McGill University
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As the Editor-in-Chief of The Canadian Entomologist, I have the pleasure of seeing all papers move through the publication process, from first submission to approval of the final proof. This places me in a position to fully appreciate the incredible entomological research occurring around the world. As one way to promote some of the great papers within TCE, I have decided to start a series of blog posts titled “Editor’s Pick” – these are papers that stand out as being high quality research, and research that has broad interest to the entomological community. I will pick one paper from each issue, and write a short piece to profile the paper.
For the first issue of the current volume (145), I’ve picked the paper by Kathleen Ryan and colleagues, titled “Seasonal occurrence and spatial distribution of resinosis, a symptom of Sirex noctilio (Hymenoptera: Siricidae) injury, on boles of Pinus sylvestris (Pinaceae)“. Sirex noctilio is a recently introduced species in Canada, and is a woodwasp that we need to pay attention to. As Kathleen writes, “unlike our native species of woodwasps, it attacks and kills living pines” and because of this, we must strive to find effective ways to monitor the species. One potential approach is to look for signs of resinosis, or ‘excessive’ outflow of tree sap and resins from conifers. The goal of this work was to specifically assess “the spatial and temporal distribution of resin symptoms of attack to optimise sampling“. The work involved Kathleen spending a LOT of time in the field, observing evidence of damage to trees, and assessing timing of resinosis relative to other damage to pine trees as related to woodwasps. In the end, Kathleen was able to confirm that in most infested trees, the appearance of resin was a meaningful detection method. This is a very practical paper, and very useful towards finding the best methods to detect this exotic species.
Sirex noctilio female – Photo by K. Ryan
I asked Kathleen a few questions about this paper and the context of the work.
Q: Kathleen, what first got you interested in this area of research?
A: I became interested in studying Sirex’s interaction with other subcortical insects. Sirex was recently detected in North America at the time and we didn’t know much about it here including how, where and when to find it – all of which were essential in planning research about insect interactions. So this study was my starting point – my “getting to know Sirex” study.
Q: What do you hope will be the lasting impact of this paper?
A: This paper is the result of the many hours of field observations that helped me to become more familiar with Sirex. Since its really basic research, I hope that this paper might be a useful starting point for other people beginning to work with Sirex.
Q: Where will your next line of research on this topic take you?
A: Currently, I’m studying another invasive wood-borer, but I’d like to work with Sirex again – it’s a really interesting and unique insect biologically and ecologically. I’m especially interested in studying Sirex community ecology in its native, European, range to see how it compares to North America.
This is truly an important area of study, and I do look forward to seeing more of Kathleen’s papers in TCE.
Finally, I asked Kathleen about any amusing anecdotes about the research, and she shared this wonderful story with me:
The first day we worked together, my PhD advisor Peter de Groot, dropped me off at a forest site with instructions to only observe and collect absolutely no data. I had been in the forest for only a few moments, when a female Sirex landed right in front of me. So being an entomologist, naturally I caught her. A couple of hours later, still holding her, I met back up with Peter and sheepishly admitted that I had caught some “data”. Thinking it fantastic, from that point forward he told everyone that Sirex had picked me as her project.
Looking for woodwasps – Photo by K. Ryan
I believe that these kinds of stories behind the research make Entomology more accessible and real, and help us appreciate the human element of scientific research.
As a final note, the entomological community was very saddened by Peter de Groot’s death in 2010. His legacy to Canadian Entomology is still very strong.
A special thanks to Kathleen for answering a few questions, and sharing insights into the first ‘Editor’s pick’ for The Canadian Entomologist
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Reference: Ryan, K, P. de Groot, S.M. Smith and J. J. Turgeon. Seasonal occurrence and spatial distribution of resinosis, a symptom of Sirex noctilio (Hymenoptera: Siricidae) injury on boles of Pinus sylvestris (Pinaceae). The Canadian Entomologist 145: 117-122. Link.