The Molecular Ecologist Podcast

The Molecular Ecologist

A podcast about ecology, evolution, and everything in between. Contributors to the Molecular Ecologist blog discuss the science they've been reading and writing about.

Episodes

  1. 09/14/2020

    What do you look for in a journal?

    In this episode, we turn to a question that every academic scientist has to answer at some point: How do you choose a scientific journal to receive your paper? Kelle Freel, Shawn Abrahams, Katie Grogan and Jeremy Yoder chat about what they like in a journal, what they consider when picking a publication venue for a new paper, and the various meanings of an "impact factor." JANE, the Journal/Author Name Estimator, will select candidate journals based on a sample of text from your paper's abstract. The Wikipedia article on impact factors is a quick overview of the metric's history and criticisms. There have been multiple studies of the effect Twitter attention may have on a paper's eventual citation count — one for ecology specifically was published in PLOS ONE in 2018. The study establishing a "chaperone effect" in which papers are more likely to be published at a high-impact journal if one of the authors has published in the journal before is on the PNAS website. The recent study of unprofessional peer reviewer comments by Nyssa Silbiger and Amanda Stubler is on the PeerJ website. You can find the podcast hosted on Anchor.fm, or on Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and Spotify — or you can add the RSS feed directly to your podcast-management app of choice. Whatever service you use, consider taking a moment to rate or even review the podcast, which will help us build an audience. The music in this episode is Leroy Anderson's "The Syncopated Clock," performed on piano by Markus Staab and available under a Creative Commons license via Musopen.

    51 min
  2. 04/13/2020

    #StudentScicomm, diversity within an algae bloom, the origins of a vital mutualism, and population genetics in continuous space

    The Molecular Ecologist Podcast made it to a second episode! Thanks for listening to our first one, and for all the positive comments. In addition to our "home" hosting service, Anchor.fm, you can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and Spotify — or you can add the RSS feed URL directly to your podcast-management app of choice. Whatever service you use, consider taking a moment to rate or even review the podcast, which will help us build an audience. On this episode, Stacy Krueger-Hadfield and Sabrina Heiser talk about Stacy's #StudentScicomm initiative, using science blogging as an assignment in graduate-level professional development and science courses. Kelle Freel describes the results of a community genetics survey of diversity within an algae bloom that travels the North Atlantic every year, by Bolaños et al. (doi: 10.1038/s41396-020-0636-0) R. Shawn Abrams previews an upcoming post about new research supporting the hypothesis that symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria had a single origin in the common ancestor of the clade that includes legumes, roses, and oaks. Jeremy Yoder recaps a new simulation study that shows how populations distributed continuously across space (which is to say, most natural populations) confound and complicate population genetic analyses, by Battey et al. (doi: 10.1534/genetics.120.303143) The music in this episode is Leroy Anderson's "The Syncopated Clock," performed on piano by Markus Staab and available under a Creative Commons license via Musopen.

    45 min

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

A podcast about ecology, evolution, and everything in between. Contributors to the Molecular Ecologist blog discuss the science they've been reading and writing about.