To which, I don’t think you should be. This post is a joke, I don’t think it actually holds up as a critique of ecological research. Because you can make any scientific work sound stupid if you simplify it enough. Imagine summarizing the Origin of Species as “Things change.”
I find it interesting (and perhaps revealing) that many of these are sort of a modern “biodiversity” flavor of ecology. Many of the more traditional branches of community ecology and population ecology and behavioral ecology are not represented, so …
The population that I monitor is (pick one) increasing|decreasing
Competition is important in my system
Predation is important in my system
Anything will eat anything if you observe long enough
My critters behaved in a semi-optimal fashion but had some surprises
I’ve been waiting for someone to do one for ecology. We should really get one going for theoretical ecology too, though now I’m afraid that any joke I come up with might feel too personal for someone whose paper I’ve handled.
After I posted this, I realized there were no jokes specific to theoretical ecology. Some opening bids:
I added stochasticity to a deterministic model
I turned a parameter into a state variable
I added a nonlinearity
Okay I don’t know about you all but Ive written 9/12 of these in my career, several of them many times. and isn’t “The way this thing depends on another thing depends on a third thing” the same as “it depends”. My favorite “it depends paper” McNaughton, S. J. (1983). Serengeti grassland ecology: the role of composite environmental factors and contingency in community organization. Ecological monographs, 53(3), 291-320. Then we wrote one modeled on that “Hobbs NT, Schimel DS, Owensby CE, Ojima DS. Fire and grazing in the tallgrass prairie: contingent effects on nitrogen budgets. Ecology. 1991 Aug;72(4):1374-82.” It just all depends.
What I have learned from the "types of paper" meme is that academia is a rich and diverse tapestry that features a very wide wide range of types of papers.
Would have to combine it with bingo squares appropriate to a remote meeting. Like “pet or child appears in video of talk”. “Zoom background related to the talk”. “Zoom background, but unrelated to the talk”.
Dynamic Ecology 
This is absolutely brilliant.
So funny and so true
Another candidate:
This measure of diversity doesn’t behave in the same way as this other measure of diversity
To which, I don’t think you should be. This post is a joke, I don’t think it actually holds up as a critique of ecological research. Because you can make any scientific work sound stupid if you simplify it enough. Imagine summarizing the Origin of Species as “Things change.”
This is brilliant.
I find it interesting (and perhaps revealing) that many of these are sort of a modern “biodiversity” flavor of ecology. Many of the more traditional branches of community ecology and population ecology and behavioral ecology are not represented, so …
The population that I monitor is (pick one) increasing|decreasing
Competition is important in my system
Predation is important in my system
Anything will eat anything if you observe long enough
My critters behaved in a semi-optimal fashion but had some surprises
“I find it interesting (and perhaps revealing) that many of these are sort of a modern “biodiversity” flavor of ecology. ”
The only thing that “reveals” is what jokes happened to pop into my head late last Saturday night. 🙂
+1 for “Anything will eat anything if you observe long enough”.
For animal behavior, I’d suggest “Inter-individual variation in this behavior is correlated with inter-individual variation in this other behavior”.
Also: “Anything will pollinate anything if you observe long enough”
There’s a lack of ecosystem ecology jokes too. Hmm. Perhaps “Fire bad”. Or “Fire bad, but also good”.
I’ve been waiting for someone to do one for ecology. We should really get one going for theoretical ecology too, though now I’m afraid that any joke I come up with might feel too personal for someone whose paper I’ve handled.
After I posted this, I realized there were no jokes specific to theoretical ecology. Some opening bids:
I added stochasticity to a deterministic model
I turned a parameter into a state variable
I added a nonlinearity
I would add
“I explored a really complicated bifurcation diagram”
Let me make fun of myself and add “We invented a new way to partition stuff.”
I feel seen.
This way of modelling Thing is different from this other way of modelling Thing
“This thing that is true for 27 species is also true for a 28th species” 🙂
Dammit, can’t believe I forgot “It depends”.
I know I can’t infer process from pattern, but I’m going to pretend that I don’t know (and other people do it too)
Good one!
Things have changed. That’s bad. Blame people.
Okay I don’t know about you all but Ive written 9/12 of these in my career, several of them many times. and isn’t “The way this thing depends on another thing depends on a third thing” the same as “it depends”. My favorite “it depends paper” McNaughton, S. J. (1983). Serengeti grassland ecology: the role of composite environmental factors and contingency in community organization. Ecological monographs, 53(3), 291-320. Then we wrote one modeled on that “Hobbs NT, Schimel DS, Owensby CE, Ojima DS. Fire and grazing in the tallgrass prairie: contingent effects on nitrogen budgets. Ecology. 1991 Aug;72(4):1374-82.” It just all depends.
Heh. I should’ve done a poll asking readers how many of these they’ve written.
Excellent!
Might add “A meta-analysis of something shows that it’s complicated.”
I tried to think of a good meta-analysis one but couldn’t come up with anything I was happy with. Considered just going with “Another meta-analysis”.
Pingback: Science Matters | marymontague
Can this be used as a Bingo card at the upcoming ESA meeting? Asking for a friend.
Heh, I just had the same idea!
Would have to combine it with bingo squares appropriate to a remote meeting. Like “pet or child appears in video of talk”. “Zoom background related to the talk”. “Zoom background, but unrelated to the talk”.
And, it has gone meta.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/05/xkcd-science-paper-meme-nails-academic-publishing/618810/