by Bryan Bozeman, guest author I emailed at least 100 professors in my hunt for a grad position…and received less than 20 responses. Half of those were out-of-office emails, several others were ‘thanks-but-no-thanks’, and a few showed actual interest. I was fortunate to have three opportunities, and ended up selecting one that has been an…
Author: bkpeoples
How Collaborations Sustain Us
Life as a researcher can be isolating. We’re trained as individuals: my grades, my thesis, my job. Some of our best friends are also our fiercest competitors. It takes a toll. Years of new jobs, new towns, and new people. An uncertain and tight job market. Wondering which side of the country you’ll move to…
Q-n-A: Fly Fishing for Redeye Bass
Last summer, I picked up a new book: Fly Fishing for Redeye Bass: an Adventure across Southern Waters by Matthew R. Lewis. I grew up fly fishing for native Smallmouth Bass in the Ozarks, and have been interested in going after our local Bartram’s Bass in the upper Savannah. I enjoyed the book immensely, and was just sitting down…
Halloween’s greatest hits
It’s hard to believe we’ve been writing The Fisheries Blog for over six years. Over the years, we’ve been known to do a holiday-themed post or two. This week, we skip the traditional Monday post for a special wrap-up of Halloween-flavored posts over the year. Scary stuff! Way back in 2013, one of the first…
More Minnow Misconceptions
Today’s facts may be tomorrow’s fallacies. And last Thursday, I got a serious reminder that science is a progressive continuum of new discoveries, and not a static body of facts. I study minnows, and last year I wrote a post to clear up some misconceptions about minnows. Things like how many small fishes are called…
Book review: the Squidtoons comic
This is the coolest piece of #scicomm I’ve seen in a while: Squidtoons: Exploring Ocean Science with Comics by Garfield Kwan and Dana Song. Squidtoons has been ‘illustrating science with farts, burps, and giggles’ since 2013. Their website features entertaining comics packed with info on the amazing diversity of marine life, including a 2016 collaboration…
The ideal invasive fish
There are hundreds of non-native fishes in the US. Some become harmful invaders, while others have established, but aren’t causing appreciable negative effects. As human transport networks continue to facilitate new introductions, it makes sense to ask, ‘is there something special about certain fishes that make them invasive?’. This isn’t a new idea—plant ecologists have discussed…
Communicating science through digital media
If a scientist conducts research, and never tells anyone, did they really do it? Scientists communicate with one another in very specific ways: peer-reviewed journal articles and technical presentations. However, most journal articles largely go unread and conference audiences can be limited.. Public trust in science is decreasing, so it’s our job to help them understand the…
What’s Your Story?
I just read For the Love of Rivers by Kurt Fausch. It came out a couple years ago when I was a postdoc, but I just got around to reading it because, as it turns out, postdocs don’t have a whole lot of spare time for leisure reading. For the Love of Rivers describes the…
How do fish handle cold water?
Summertime’s come and gone, and winter has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. Inland waters across North America are cooling down, and many will soon be covered with ice. Winter can be hard on fishes, being poikilotherms that can’t regulate their own body temperature (with some exceptions). So just how do they make it through this…
Coming to ‘terms’ with species invasions
Believe it or not, fish don’t care what we call them. However, terminologies associated with certain species can affect how society perceives their importance and impact. Naturalists have been interested in the effects of species introductions just as long as we have been moving species around. In that time, species introductions have had a variety…
Hurricane effects on fish…Revisited
by Troy Farmer, guest writer Given the active Atlantic hurricane season of 2017, now seems like an appropriate time to revisit a topic previously covered by the Fisheries Blog: hurricane effects on fish. Hurricanes impact our society in numerous ways, as many along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts are currently experiencing. Given the destructive…
How (not to) fail grad school
Grad students can be successful for countless reasons, depending on their unique projects and experiences. But unsuccessful grad students have several things in common. Fall semester starts this week at many universities, and lots of grad students are taking the leap for the first time. Here are a few tips. I finished grad school in…
Minnow misconceptions
Just like they say, ‘more species, more problems’…well, we’ve got lots of problems. The minnow family—Cyprinidae (Sy-Prin-I-Dee)—is the largest freshwater fish family in the world, boasting over 3,000 species from ~370 genera. But because of that great diversity, minnows are one of the most misunderstood groups of fishes on the planet. As a scientist who…
Yellow Perch and the hypoxia Goldilocks zone
It may seem obvious that suffocation is not good, but determining a fish’s tolerance for low oxygen is increasingly important as hypoxia increases worldwide. Hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen concentrations) occurs naturally—it develops in the hot summers and cold winters beneath ice in small lakes and ponds. Hypoxia can also occur as a result of human…
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