Dr. Mark A. McGinley

Fulbright Visiting Scholar, University of Malaya

Associate Professor

Honors College and Department of Biological Sciences

Texas Tech University

Lubbock, Texas USA

mark.mcginley@ttu.edu

Ecology in ASEAN Nations:

Bridging Ideas, Building Talents

Outline

Introduce myself

Quick history of ecology

Opportunities and challenges facing ecologists in

SE Asia

Building Talents

Bridging Ideas

About Me

I have conducted research in behavioral,

evolutionary, and community ecology of birds,

mammals, and plants.

Been a faculty member at Texas Tech University

since 1991

Science Education MS2

Masters Degree to teach middle school teachers (grades 6 – 8) how to integrate math and science in the classroom. Funded by $3 million (US) grant http://www.ttumssquare.org/

Malaysian Bat Education Adventure Collaboration between colleagues in Department of

Biological Sciences, and Colleges of Education and Mass Communications

Use biology of Malaysian bats as the focus for developing and integrated science curriculum for grades 4 – 8.

http://www.ttu-mbea.org/

Informal Science Education

Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE)

http://www.eoearth.org/

Goal is to be the largest on-line source of

information about the environment in the world.

All articles written by scholars, all articles undergo

peer review.

Teaching Ecology in the Field

What Am I Doing Here?• Fulbright Visiting Scholar, UM

• Fulbright Program

– Funded by U.S. government

– Encourage understanding by facilitating

exchange of scholars between U.S. and

abroad

• Professors/professionals and students

• http://www.cies.org/about_fulb.htm

– I arrived in June and will remain until April

• Taught “Special Topics in Ecology and Biodiversity”

at UM

• Malaysia Collection for EoE, Ecology Textbook

History of Ecology

“Revolutions” in the 1960s

1. Use of controlled manipulative

experiments in the field

– Joseph Connell and Robert Paine

• Pioneered the use of manipulative controlled

ecological experiments.

History of Ecology

“Revolutions” in the 1960s

2. Use of mathematics to generate

ecological theory-Robert MacArthur and colleagues

Something to Think About!

• Looking back on my career, if I could do

one thing over to make myself a better

ecologist then I would have learned more

math!!!!

– Theory

– Modeling tools

– Statistical analyses

What did “Old School” ecology teach us?

Interactions are complex

– Abiotic and biotic factors important

– Combination of direct and indirect interactions

– Interactions can take a long time to express

themselves

– Can increase progress if we allow ecological

theory to guide our investigations

More Modern Approach

1980s – today

“CLS”

• Work in Collaborative teams

– Bring a variety of expertise together

• Conduct Long-term studies

• Synthesize what we have learned

• Search for generalities

Long Term Ecological Studies in Tropical Rainforests

• Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

– Field site located in Barro Colorado Island

(BCI) in Gatung Lake in the Panama Canal

BCI 50 Hectare Plot

• BCI intensively studied since 1923

• Flora well known

• 50 hectare Forest Dynamics Plot established in 1980.

• Census every tree and shrub > 1 cm in diameter at breast height

• 1982 census - 240,000 stems of 303 species of trees and shrubs

• Recensused every 5 years

• Robin Foster and Steven Hubbell

• http://www.ctfs.si.edu/data/pdf/CTFSbook_PDF/BCIchapt.pdf

BCI 50 Hectare Plot

• Many important papers have been based

on research conducted at this site.

– Often published in Science, Nature, and

Proceedings of the National Academy of

Sciences, Ecology & Ecological Monographs

Center For Tropical Forest

Science

CLS Approach Required Some Fundamental Changes

• Funding

– Although ecological research is much cheaper

than molecular biology, large-scale ecological

studies still require significant funding

– Need to fund collaborations

– If scientists are going to undertake long-

term studies then they need to be confident

that funding will be available

– Funding for synthesis

Funding For Ecological Research in

the U.S.

Most funding for basic research comes form the

National Science Foundation (NSF)

Federal Government

1. Long Term Ecological Research program

(LTER)

2. National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis

(NCEAS)

Long Term Ecological Research (LTER)

• US LTER Network

• Funds groups of scientists to work

together over long time periods.

– The Long Term Ecological Research (LTER)

Network established in 1980

– 26 LTER sites

– 1800 scientists/students

– http://www.lternet.edu/

International Long Term Ecological

Research Network- ILTER

40 members in the

ILTER network

Pacific and Asia

• Australia

• China

• Japan

• Korea

• Mongolia

• Taiwan

• Thailand

Synthesis

The NCEAS mission is to:

Advance the state of ecological knowledge through

the search for general patterns and principles in

existing data

Organize and synthesize ecological information in a

manner useful to researchers, resource managers,

and policy makers addressing important

environmental issues

http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/

NCEAS

Form “working groups”

10 visiting scientists

Groups of scientists spend one or two weeks in

Santa Barbara examining questions of interest.

Examples of topics of working groups-

Ecological response to climate change

Effectiveness of marine preserves

Temperate-tropical gradient in species richness

Effects of introduced species

NCEAS

Since its founding in 1995

400 projects involving over 4000 visiting scientists

Over 1800 publications

Many in journals with the highest impact factors

http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/products

Ranked as the 22nd /38,000 environmental institutes

worldwide in impact of its publications

Importance of Ecology in

South East Asia• Obviously, better understanding of ecology

and environmental issues is critically important to the future sustainable development of South East Asia.

• We know a lot more about ecological interactions and the importance of biodiversity than we did when the United States was in a similar stage of economic development– Please don’t make the same mistakes we have!!!

Llano Estacado Today

Opportunities and Challenges Facing South East Asian Ecologists

• Much greater biodiversity in the tropics

than in the temperate regions

– True for terrestrial, aquatic, and marine

ecosystems

Opportunities and Challenges Facing ASEAN Ecologists

– Opportunity

– Interesting systems, full of cool species

– poorly studied

– Understanding tropics key issue in ecology

– Challenge

– Lots of species to know

– difficult to be a “casual” worker in a system

Opportunities and Challenges Systematics Still new species to be discovered and classified

Natural History Still need to learn about the basic biology of most

species

Modern ecology can not exist without building on work of taxonomists, systematists, and natural historians. Who is training the next generation of taxonomists? National and regional need!

Opportunities

Urban Ecology

a subfield of ecology which deals with the

interaction between organisms in an urban or

urbanized community, and their interaction with that

community.

CLS Aproach in South East Asia

• Collaborative, long-term efforts will be

useful

• Established LTER sites could provide

background and logistical support

needed to foster research

• Synthesis could be valuable

• Basic questions

• Environmental issues

Where Will Funding Come From? Governments

Are governments really interested in supporting research that leads to a better understanding of the environment?

In the U.S. we have seen funding depend on politics! Governments often has short-term perspective

Corporations

NGOs/Foundations

Universities

Governments, foundations, and general public will only support funding for ecological and environmental research if we make compelling arguments for why this research is valuable! We need to deliver this message!!

CLS Approach

Requires Universities and other research groups to

support collaborative, long-term research efforts

Might require changes in organization, hiring, reward,

promotion systems

Governments may need to help facilitate interaction

among local and international scholars

Encourage travel and exchange

May require efforts beyond single governments and

require a regional approach

Consortiums of Universities and research units

CU, NUS, and UM could sponsor annual

synthesis meeting?

ASEAN?

Building Talents of South East

Asian Ecologists

• Characteristics

– Generalist

• Systematics, natural history, and

ecology (including ecological theory

and statistics)

• Comfortable using tools from

related fields

– Specialist

• Might need to specialize on a

limited taxonomic group or specific

region

Building Talents

• You will need to be “better” than scientists in the previous generation and your peers in the West!

• Work harder, work smarter!

• Find your niche

• Typically are best at what you enjoy the most

• Always present your work in context of relevant theory

• READ!!!• Have to be familiar with the best scientific literature to

conduct the best scientific research

• PRESENT and PUBLISH!!!

• “publish and prosper”• Aim for the broadest audience that you can

Building TalentsPossible Career Path

Gain “expertise” in your system

Publish species lists

Publish systematics

Publish results that

Inform ecological

theory

Attract collaborators

Publish results in

new areas

Become “mature expert”

Publish major

“synthetic”papers

Tim

e

Secure funding

Search for opportunities

Secure funding

Search for opportunities

HI*

HI*

HI*

HI - High Impact

/Expe

rtis

e

Publish natural history

Bridging Ideas

• Collaboration with other scientists is

critical

– Local and international scientists

– Probably great potential future

collaborators sitting in this room!

• Must be able to bridge basic and applied

research

• Embrace new technology, but use it

appropriately

Bridging Ideas

• Form bridges with policy makers and the general public.

• Advocates for the environment

– Be a reliable and trustworthy source of accurate information about the environment for citizens and perhaps more importantly, for policy makers.

– Ecologists in the US are often marginalized as “tree huggers”

• We have not done a good job of educating the US public – Science

– Environment

Bridging Ideas

Knowledge of

your system

Knowledge of

your

ecological

system

Knowledge of

general

ecological

theory

Knowledge of

environmental

issues

General public

and

policy makers

You

Knowledge from other fields of sciencKnowledge from other fields

Bridging Ideas, Building Talents

Gain “expertise” in your system

Publish species lists

Publish systematics

Publish results that

Inform ecological

theory

Attract collaborators

Publish results in

new areas

Become “mature expert”

Publish major

“synthetic”papers

Tim

e

Secure funding

Search for opportunities

Secure funding

Search for opportunities

HI*

HI*

HI*

HI - High Impact

/Expe

rtis

e

Publish natural history

Info

rm G

ene

ral P

ublic

?

Bridging Ideas

Knowledge of

your system

Knowledge of

your

ecological

system

Knowledge of

general

ecological

theory

Knowledge of

environmental

issues

General public

and

policy makers

You

Good

decisions

support

Charles Darwin

“I trust and believe that the time spent in this

voyage … will produce its full worth in Natural

History; and it appears to me the doing what little

one can to increase the general stock of

knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as

one can in any likelihood pursue.”

Thanks

Texas Tech University

U.S. Department of State

Institute of Biological Sciences at University of

Malaya

Conference organizing committee