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Why doesn't community ecology erase the signal of historical biogeography? (UPDATED)

drupaladmin
2 May 2011
Current species distributions have a strong historical signal. Darwin noted that the extinct fossilized species from a given locality were more closely related to contemporary species from the same locality rather than to, say, contemporary species living far away in a...

Diego Vázquez's quick biography

drupaladmin
29 April 2011
I am a CONICET researcher at the Argentine Institute of Dryland Research , in Mendoza, a city of almost one million people at the foot of the highest peaks of the Andes. I am also an adjunct professor at the Institute of Basic Science of the National University of Cuyo...

'Beauty' is not (necessarily) truth

drupaladmin
28 April 2011
As scientists we're often attracted to elegant, 'beautiful' ideas. For instance, I, like many biologists, think evolution by natural selection is profoundly elegant and beautiful (in ways I have difficulty fully articulating). We're attracted to elegant ideas in part...

Are there inherently complex ecological phenomena?

drupaladmin
28 April 2011
In a previous post I suggested that the apparent overwhelming complexity and non-generality of community ecology ('every community is unique') isn't real. Instead, it's a matter of the level of description chosen by the investigator. The forest is always there to see,...

Why expect trade-offs in ecology and evolution? (UPDATED)

drupaladmin
27 April 2011
Evolutionary biologists and ecologists believe that evolving organisms are subject to trade-offs. You can't have a 'supergenotype' or 'superspecies' that's optimized to do everything , whose fitness (both in absolute terms, and relative to competing genotypes or...

The art of hand waving

drupaladmin
26 April 2011
' Hand waving ' in science has a bad reputation; referring to an argument as 'hand waving' suggests a lack of rigor. But is hand waving always a bad thing? If by hand waving we simply mean omitting assumptions or steps in an argument for no good reason (or worse, for a...

Contrarian ecology and why we need it

drupaladmin
26 April 2011
' It is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so' - Josh Billings, American humorist The most serious errors in science don't arise from ignorance of what's true, they arise from believing what's false. The most important false beliefs are the ones that are...

An Oikos editor, and a former editor, are fixing the peer review system

drupaladmin
22 April 2011
Well, we're fixing one key bit of it: the bit that ensures that there are sufficient willing referees to match the increasing flood of submissions. Scientists have strong incentives to write papers, but relatively weak incentives to review. We have to 'publish or...

Two good reasons to publish in Oikos, which you might not be aware of

drupaladmin
22 April 2011
1. We're a scientific society journal, not a for-profit venture. 2. We have no page charges . If you're like me and your lab is only funded at a modest level, paying $1000 USD or more to publish a single article can take funds away from other important uses like paying...

'Synthesizing ecology': revisiting an Oikos classic

drupaladmin
21 April 2011
Oikos' motto is 'Synthesizing ecology'. This has always struck me as an intriguing slogan, because it can be read in multiple ways. It might be thought to highlight our desire for generality. As our instructions to authors note, Oikos strives to publish papers with...

Most referees are happy.

drupaladmin
12 April 2011
A recent set of results from a very large survey (4000 respondents) found that about 70% of referees are satisfied with the current peer-review system. Importantly, 90% perceive peer review as a means to participate in the academic community. Wow, I am surprised! So,...

Free access to Editor's Choice articles.

drupaladmin
12 April 2011
Surprise! The Editor's Choice article will be available online as open access for one month. Now, I just have to get around to reading them to get the posts up!

Body size and ecosystem dynamics issue.

drupaladmin
12 April 2011
A new special virtual issue is available on body size and ecosystem dynamics. Please here to access.

Stephen Carpenter has received the Stockholm Water Prize connected to the UN World Water day.

drupaladmin
22 March 2011
Per Brinck award winner in 1996, Stephen Carpenter receives Stockholm Water Prize. Please see here for the article describing the award: http://www.siwi.org/sa/node.asp?node=53

Fox quick biography (and some thoughts on the past and future of Oikos)

drupaladmin
20 March 2011
I'm Jeremy Fox, an Associate Professor at the University of Calgary. Previously, I did my PhD with the great Peter Morin at Rutgers University and spent four years as a postdoc at the NERC Centre for Population Biology at Silwood Park. I'm broadly interested in...

Welcome to the Oikos blog

drupaladmin
1 March 2011
Welcome to the Oikos blog. This is a space for authors, readers, and the ecological community at large to post and leave comments. We would love to see photos, discussions, and inquiries about papers published in the journal here. We want to further the dissemination...

Welcome from the Editorial Team

drupaladmin
28 February 2011
It will take Tim Benton (the Editor-in-Chief) some time to learn how to do a video, so here's a photo instead. Welcome to the Oikos blog site and feel free to leave comments and enter into discussions. Tim Benton playing in the snow Hello from Chris Lortie. [wpvideo...

Per Brinck Oikos Award

drupaladmin
28 February 2011
Professor Michel Loreu received the Per Brinck Oikos Award (a specially crafted diploma, a glass apple, and a prize sum) from the Editor in Chief of Oikos Professor Tim Benton. The event took place at the Swedish Oikos Society Meeting at Tjärnö Marine biological...

Insights into an Oikos paper

drupaladmin
28 February 2011
[gallery orderby="title"] I would love for authors to post comments, photos, inspirations, and challenges associated with their papers here. As a sample, I published this paper last year in Oikos 'The small-scale spatiotemporal pattern of the seedbank and vegetation of...

Linus Svensson Biography

drupaladmin
27 February 2011
In 1980 he pulled up his roots from the nourishing soils of Småland and moved down to Lund University to study biology. After completing basic training he moved on with studies in systematic botany which resulted in a Ph. D. thesis in 1990 "Stamen number regulation in...

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