Howdy, y’all! I graduated from Texas A&M back in December, and I have gradually realized over the last few months of job-searching how heavily this field(conservation and ecology) relies of networking and professional connections. While I have a basic understanding of how to build connections, I’m unaware of what events or groups I can join to do so, and I’ve never been taught how to maintain them. Does anyone in the field have any advice? For further context: my ideal job would be either as a park ranger or in wildlife conservation. I have extensive experience through internships in care of exotics and grounds maintenance.

Hi all, as a project I am modelling predator prey dynamics using a variety of already established models. But I'm quite uncertain on how to decide on the initial conditions of the model, such as growth rate or predation rate. İs there a database anywhere with s collection of these values? Or already published papers containing this?

Hi, i noticed that i've time to listen to podcasts, hence i would like to find good ecology and evolution (but also biology) podcasts, do you have any advice? I already listen to big biology and i think it's super interesti!

Hi friends,

I've started my first year of Biology, in the hopes to study ecology and evolution in the next year or so. I've always loved wildlife and been passionate about it, I've always felt such a deep, heartbreaking love for the natural world...

And yet, I've never really learned how to be with it and appreciate it. I mean, I wanna love it all. I want to be excited about different species of trees, feel at peace in the grass, go to every wild space in my city and the place that surrounds it, I want to take it all in. I would love to have journals of observations and sketches of things, I'd love to write about it all. I want that so bad, but I can't even tell you the last time I picked up a leaf. Or found time to go to the forest, or anything.

How do you start? Am I a fake ecology lover because I don't do these things now? Will jobs think I don't love the environment and nature enough because I don't have experience with it and, sometimes, won't be able to volunteer because I need to pay my rent?

I love learning and educating, I love writing and creating (even though I haven't done so in years), but I feel so disconnected. Like I'm learning about something in a book or from behind glass that sounds so beautiful but I have never seen it in person, if that makes sense. Even if I have! I never got to do this stuff when I was a kid, not a lot anyway; but I want to.

Please be kind.

Has there been any measurable change to the ecology of soil beneath the panels of those expansive solar farms in arid areas? Curious as to whether reduction in exposure to sunlight has affected the ground and what can live there.

https://youtu.be/38VSpqCxziI?si=cGS45qhLOKD17wNC

I have been working in the software industry for the last two years and I am convinced that this is not something I want to do long term. I am really interested in ecology and conservation related areas, so I am thinking of trying to get into a Computational Ecology PhD program in Europe. I have a Masters in CS and Bachelors in Physics and Mathematics. Any suggestions and advises would be really helpful! Thanks!

https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/groundwater-lessens-wildfires

Hello r/ecology
I am almost a year out of finishing my masters in Biological Science specialising in seabird physiology. I have been living in Australia in that time consistently trying to find a job. I have tried avenues such as research assistant, graduate consulting roles, I have been volunteering with Vic Parks in between. I have applied in NSW, VIC and WA to no avail. I barely ever receive a non-automated response. I'm certain I want to work in this field but It's incredibly demoralising trying to get into something for over a year without a response. Any advice, avenues, thoughts or anything would be greatly appreciated.

The climate of these areas seems perfectly ideal for rainforest, yet temperate rainforests in the Americas only exist on the West coast and a small part of the Appalachian mountains. Why?

I'm finally throwing in the towel with my 6 year old macbook air. I'm hoping to upgrade to a macbook pro, since I will be doing some computing for my project (mostly R, will prob incorporate GIS at some point). Does anyone have any recommendations?

Thought I'd share this paper i found

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.4470

Hello! I'm an ecology undergrad in my third year, and I'm planning to apply to PhD programs in 2026. My current research project is in Salmonidae vitamin deficiencies and I'm starting to feel at home in this broad field after sifting through several other majors.

While I'm still not sure about which specialty I want to pursue (and thus have yet to start exploring program options and potential PhD advisors), I'm confident that I want to end up in field research. That being said, does anyone have advice on courses I should take? Organic chemistry, biochemistry, and microbiology are not required for my degree, but I'm thinking that they will be quite useful when it comes to grad school applications.

Thanks!

I've been on the grind emailing teachers about potential research assistantships next fall. Most I get responses from but there's some that I haven't and it's been about two weeks. I was just wondering if it was customary to resend the email in case they missed it the first time. I've seen some people mention this before but I just wanted to check if it was normal to do.

TLDR: Do I resend R.A. interest emails after two weeks no response.

Hiya!

I'm looking for studies, articles, or literally anything that describes the relationship - if any - that tongue-eating isopods have with mouth brooding fish. Given that the species and strategy is quite widespread, I figured there must be some kind of interaction.

Could anyone point me the right way? I've combed through countless journals in three languages and thusfar I've found nothing beyond that there's fish that do brood parasitism, which is interesting, but not what I'm looking for exactly.

As above