Chris’s Introduction

I’ve strategically let Meg and Brian introduce themselves first so I can be brief.  I’m a theoretical ecologist at Michigan State University’s Kellogg Biological Station.  How a theoretician ends up at a field station might be a good topic for a post later.  My wife Elena Litchman and I have been here for seven years now (does that ruin the surprise about how I ended up at KBS?), and are just getting back from sabbatical at the Danish Technical University.  Most of my work is on phytoplankton, from physiology to global ecology, centered on community ecology, but I’ve worked on terrestrial vegetation, plant-fungal mutualisms, and even Daphnia epidemiology (hi Meg).

Some topics I’ll try to hit this month: paper review process and publishing ethics, the practice of theory, trait-based approaches (hi Brian), and whatever else comes to mind.  Stimulating discussion would be great.

Aside from wanting to contribute to exploring this relatively new medium, I’ve got a selfish reason to try blogging.  I don’t enjoy writing.  It’s my least favorite part of the scientific process.  Formulating an idea in mathematical form?  Love it! Hacking out a better algorithm for analyzing a model?  Awesome!  Figuring out why a model behaves the way it does? Exciting!  But putting these things down on paper?  Painful.  Regular blogging should be a great way to force myself into the habit of producing text.  So, thanks to Jeremy for the opportunity and to you all for reading.