Gaia loves you.
The safe question gets funded, but the best question gets cited.
Failure is fertilizer.
Critics give you gifts.
Wherever you go, there you are.
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Friday, January 16, 2009
Friday, November 14, 2008
Stochasticity... in all her glory
Change. One thing we can depend on. Especially in nature. It seems that sometimes the best way to mimic nature in an experiment is to leave it to nature. As opposed to field plots where you control diversity, in natural systems, you have to embrace diversity, change, and yes, stochasticity.
These can and should be seen as factors inherent to natural processes. In fact, if nature were dependable, fair and balanced (that's actually fair and balanced... no homage to Fox News here), the world would look very different. For instance, one ecological hypothesis holds that a mild-to-moderate level of disturbance is a factor that maintains diversity in communities. That is, if several plants are competing in a benign, nutrient-rich, favorable environment, the superior competitor for resources will win, hence, excluding the others. Events like, say, a big rainstorm, a flood, high winds, animal foot traffic can serve to keep all of the species on their toes, and ensure continued opportunities for all of the plants to have a fighting chance.
For instance, my dog goes for a lovely jaunt, chasing a balloon through a field with only one species of flower.
The other plants have been out-competed, but their seeds are waiting in the soil to germinate.
This is a common route for my dog, however, and I find the following year that another species is making an inroads in the community, taking advantage of the trampling effects of increase
in soil compaction, and increased light, for instance. He continues to love to run here and eventually, this area is now converted to the white flowers. We move away, leaving the field to itself, and years later, we return, only to find yellow flowers abound once more.
Currently I'm dealing with a problem of variability of resources in nature. Not a disturbance process, but a stochastic process. This process may be the key to the establishment of a species. If all years had average rainfall, it is even doubtful that this species could gain a foothold in certain places. It seems that a higher-than-average year every now and then allows the species to establish, and then just survive the low years. Therefore, models including only year after year of average weather may miss something important.
Take, for instance, these three years of rainfall in southern California:
If I tried to simulate an average year, how exactly do I do that? It seems, variability is part of the system. Constancy is not. Not only does this make it very difficult to do a field experiment and get it done in 1 year, but the variation itself may be important.
As a foreign professor told me yesterday, "if you want to see what happens in the nature then you have to leave it to the nature." Nature... much love.
.
These can and should be seen as factors inherent to natural processes. In fact, if nature were dependable, fair and balanced (that's actually fair and balanced... no homage to Fox News here), the world would look very different. For instance, one ecological hypothesis holds that a mild-to-moderate level of disturbance is a factor that maintains diversity in communities. That is, if several plants are competing in a benign, nutrient-rich, favorable environment, the superior competitor for resources will win, hence, excluding the others. Events like, say, a big rainstorm, a flood, high winds, animal foot traffic can serve to keep all of the species on their toes, and ensure continued opportunities for all of the plants to have a fighting chance.
For instance, my dog goes for a lovely jaunt, chasing a balloon through a field with only one species of flower.
The other plants have been out-competed, but their seeds are waiting in the soil to germinate.This is a common route for my dog, however, and I find the following year that another species is making an inroads in the community, taking advantage of the trampling effects of increase
in soil compaction, and increased light, for instance. He continues to love to run here and eventually, this area is now converted to the white flowers. We move away, leaving the field to itself, and years later, we return, only to find yellow flowers abound once more.Currently I'm dealing with a problem of variability of resources in nature. Not a disturbance process, but a stochastic process. This process may be the key to the establishment of a species. If all years had average rainfall, it is even doubtful that this species could gain a foothold in certain places. It seems that a higher-than-average year every now and then allows the species to establish, and then just survive the low years. Therefore, models including only year after year of average weather may miss something important.
Take, for instance, these three years of rainfall in southern California:
If I tried to simulate an average year, how exactly do I do that? It seems, variability is part of the system. Constancy is not. Not only does this make it very difficult to do a field experiment and get it done in 1 year, but the variation itself may be important.
As a foreign professor told me yesterday, "if you want to see what happens in the nature then you have to leave it to the nature." Nature... much love.
.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Towards More "Elegant" Science
So here I am trying to put the final touches on my dissertation proposal. It's been laid out conceptually, but I've been finding that everything tends to get very complicated very quickly. Control for soil moisture, radiation, or season, or probable date of occurrence or propagule pressure... I think I'm getting the spins.
I was heartened to hear about an experiment wherein a scientist literally looked at the direction cows were facing in pictures in Google Earth (and possibly aerial photos, I'm not sure) and discovered that they seemed to sense the earth's magnetism, because they faced magnetic north a statistically significant amount of time.
How wonderful that such a simple idea- observation, question, simple observational study and discovery of a phenomenon- can lead to a significant discovery in this day and age! And not to mention, a publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (can you see me turning green with envy?). The time of dropping things from the leaning tower of Pisa etc. is long gone, but elegant science seems still possible.
To be precise, elegance is not equivalent to simplicity, rather, it is is the accomplishment of documenting a phenomenon by using a method that captures the essence of what is going on. Often an out-of-the-box reasoning, or simple alternative to traditional methods might be used. Nature teases us ecologists with her elegance, in patterns and processes, and challenges us to find the signal among the chaos.
When I've been designing experiments now, the words (I'm not sure what the citation is here, any help is appreciated) "Simplify, simplify" ring in my head. Also, my 8th grade algebra teacher's favorite expression, KISS, or "Keep It Simple Stupid!"
With all deference to the power and value of complicated experiments, as a student, it is helpful to get back to the question you're asking, and ask, what is the simplest way that I can see if this phenomenon is occurring? It may not approach elegance, but I think it's a start.
.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
