John Wiens on Becoming an Ecologist
Initially, Becoming an Ecologist: Career Pathways in Science was meant to be a memoir that mapped my career journey, tracking the changes in study topics, locations, and even disciplines through the years. I thought a record of my path—what I did, where and when—might be of general interest. As I began to write, however, I realized that it would be more useful to explore why my career shifted among different pathways. What set me on the way to become a scientist and ecologist? Why did I ask the questions I did, and what did I do when the answers were not what I expected? What caused me to change directions or to stick to a line of investigation when it seemed to be leading nowhere? In Becoming an Ecologist I use my experiences to illustrate how events and forces can shape the career of an ecologist. The shifts in my career also show how science (ecology at least) really works and offer some lessons for someone contemplating a career in ecology.
What Factors Influenced My Choices?
My journey to become an ecologist began with a childhood interest in birds. This interest was reinforced and focused at critical times by several influential people. I thought I would become an ornithologist. Although my interest in birds persisted as a driving force throughout my career, by the time I completed my formal training in graduate school my focus had shifted to ecology.
Ecology in the 1960s and 1970s was dominated by the view that competition over scarce resources such as food or habitat among ecologically similar species would determine which species could coexist in a local area. I set out to test this idea by asking how birds breeding in structurally simple habitats such as grasslands or shrub deserts partitioned resources to avoid competition. But my answers consistently failed to match expectations, leaving me to scramble for explanations. My explanations did not align with the prevailing paradigm and were met with skepticism from my fellow ecologists. I was frustrated and thought of doing something else. But then a colleague offered me an unanticipated opportunity to join a large international program that would allow me to continue these studies. Key people and opportunity kept me going on this pathway.
Then, in the late 1970s, life’s practicalities led to a shift in my career trajectory. A growing family and a change in job and location changed the focus of my investigations. Interactions with new colleagues sparked new interests that led to new questions and investigations. One study considered how fractal geometry could be used to analyze the movements of beetles and ants through their habitats. Another dealt with interactions among birds, their insect prey, and the chemistry of plant tissues on which the insects fed.
I was still an ecologist and still worked with birds, but my questions were now determined by their societal relevance.
My career changed again in the early 1980s when another key person, a colleague from my graduate-school days, invited me to a conference. I had long been interested in how the spatial structure of a habitat—its “patchiness”—affected organisms. I now had an opportunity to shift to landscape ecology. I asked different questions. I became a player in a different scientific discipline with different journals, different sources of funding, different scientific peers, and a different scientific culture.
All of this was basic science, perhaps interesting to other ecologists but of little broader appeal. In the 1990s, people, opportunities, and new interests again diverted my pathway. I became involved in studies of the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on seabirds and had to deal with the intersection of science and advocacy. Another opportunity led me to leave academia to spend a decade directing science in conservation organizations. I was still an ecologist and still worked with birds, but my questions were now determined by their societal relevance.
People—mentors, colleagues, peers—are especially important early in a career when one is just getting started. Opportunities are likely to appear more often as one becomes established. The culture of a scientific discipline affects what one’s colleagues find interesting and important and therefore worthy of publication or research grants. And your interests may come and go, leading you to switch pathways when a current direction becomes unproductive.
These takeaways are not unique to ecology. I believe the lessons I learned—follow your interests, don’t ignore unexpected results, don’t be afraid to change pathways, and others—can be helpful to someone undertaking a career in any area of science.
