The need for sound ecological science has escalated alongside the rise of the information age and “big data” across all sectors of society. Big data generally refer to massive volumes of data not readily handled by the usual data tools and practices and present unprecedented opportunities for advancing science and informing resource management through data‐intensive approaches. The era of big data need not be propelled only by “big science” – the term used to describe large‐scale efforts that have had mixed success in the individual‐driven culture of ecology. Collectively, ecologists already have big data to bolster the scientific effort – a large volume of distributed, high‐value information – but many simply fail to contribute. We encourage ecologists to join the larger scientific community in global initiatives to address major scientific and societal problems by bringing their distributed data to the table and harnessing its collective power. The scientists who contribute such information will be at the forefront of socially relevant science – but will they be ecologists?
Abstract. Invasion by exotic species is a major threat to global diversity. The invasion of native perennial grasslands in California by annual species from the southern Mediterranean region is one of the most dramatic invasions worldwide. As a result of this invasion, native species are often restricted to low-fertility, marginal habitat. An understanding of the mechanisms that prevent the recolonization of the more fertile sites by native species is critical to determining the prospects for conservation and restoration of the native flora. We present the results of a five-year experiment in which we used seeding, burning, and mowing treatments to investigate the mechanisms that constrain native annuals to the marginal habitat of a Californian serpentine grassland. The abundance and richness of native species declined with increasing soil fertility, and there was no effect of burning or mowing on native abundance or richness in the absence of seeding. We found that native annual forbs were strongly seed limited; a single seeding increased abundance of native forbs even in the presence of high densities of exotic species, and this effect was generally discernable after four years. These results suggest that current levels of dominance by exotic species are not simply the result of direct competitive interactions, and that seeding of native species is necessary and may be sufficient to create viable populations of native annual species in areas that are currently dominated by exotic species.
Museum visitors are an ideal population for assessing the persistence of the conceptual barriers that make it difficult to grasp Darwinian evolutionary theory. In comparison with other members of the public, they are more likely to be interested in natural history, have higher education levels, and be exposed to the relevant content. If museum visitors do not grasp evolutionary principles, it seems unlikely that other members of the general public would do so. In the current study, 32 systematically selected visitors to three Midwest museums of natural history provided detailed openended explanations of biological change in seven diverse organisms. They were not told that these were evolutionary problems. Responses were coded as: informed naturalistic reasoning, featuring some understanding of key evolutionary concepts, novice naturalistic reasoning, featuring intuitive explanations that are also present in childhood, and creationist reasoning, featuring supernatural explanations. All visitors were mixed reasoners, using one or more of these patterns in different permutations across the seven organisms: 72% used a combination of informed naturalistic reasoning and novice naturalistic reasoning, while a further 28% added creationist reasoning to this mix. Correlational analyses indicated that for many visitors these reasoning patterns were coherent rather than fragmented. The theoretical model presented in this article contributes to an analysis of the developmental and cultural factors associated with these patterns. This could help educators working in diverse educational settings understand how to move visitors and students toward more informed reasoning patterns. ß
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