Category Archives: Reading Group

Kickstarting the year with HGAMs

Posted on February 25, 2019 by

To start off Reading Group for 2019, we dove headfirst into 43 brilliant pages on hierarchical generalised additive models (HGAMs) by Pederson et al. 2018, a pre-print titled “Hierarchical generalised additive models: an introduction with mgcv“. Although at first intimidated … Continue reading →

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Philosophical discussions in the lab: Žižek criticises ideological ecology

Posted on June 5, 2018 by

In a recent reading group, QAECO discussed a criticism of ecology from the contemporary philosopher Slavoj Žižek, as represented in two online resources: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/opinion/global/02iht-GA12zizek.html https://io9.gizmodo.com/5627925/slavoj-iek-wake-up-and-smell-the-apocalypse?IR=T Slavoj Žižek [photo by By Amrei-Marie, from Wikimedia Commons] Žižek is a strongly left-leaning critic … Continue reading →

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Grappling with reproducibility in science?

Posted on March 20, 2018 by

As a lab, we’ve made it a priority to increase the standards of our code to align with best practices for reproducibility and repeatability of our science. In keeping with this goal, this week in reading group Saras Windecker and … Continue reading →

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Qaeco’s favourite papers of 2017

Posted on January 31, 2018 by

We asked our lab members to nominate a paper published in 2017 that they had enjoyed. Recommendations ranged from the skill-based (scientific writing, reproducible coding, camera-trapping) to global reviews (plant traits, climate change, size-based models) and some great case studies … Continue reading →

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Sense of place: the ecosystem service to align social and conservation values?

Posted on November 1, 2017 by

Many conservation issues are influenced by a complex mix of environmental, social, economic and cultural processes. At times, conservation decision-making can be complicated by opposing social and ecological values. In this week’s reading group, Anja Skroblin led a discussion on … Continue reading →

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Culling animals “ethically”

Posted on August 21, 2017 by

In reading group earlier this month Linda Riquelme led a discussion on the issue of wildlife culling. This is something that relates to projects a few of us in the lab work on. For example, the management of endangered Buloke Woodlands in … Continue reading →

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Life in corrupt science: when metrics become targets

Posted on April 5, 2017 by

‘Publish or perish’. The overused phrase describing career aspects in today’s academia. Whereas day-to-day work is rarely quite as grim, we all learn early on that our performance as scientists is very much measured by the number of publications, citations, … Continue reading →

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