{"id":10594,"date":"2014-09-08T12:29:24","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T16:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=10594"},"modified":"2014-09-08T12:29:24","modified_gmt":"2014-09-08T16:29:24","slug":"iamanaturalist-reclaim-the-name-campaign-celebrates-natural-history-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/2014\/09\/08\/iamanaturalist-reclaim-the-name-campaign-celebrates-natural-history-research\/","title":{"rendered":"#IAmANaturalist reclaim the name campaign celebrates natural history research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are you a naturalist? Join the grassroots effort to reclaim the name. ESA\u2019s Natural History section<\/a> is calling on you to assert your naturalist identity with pride by tweeting a photo to #IAmANaturalist<\/a> on Monday, September 8, 2014. Guest poster Kirsten Rowell<\/a><\/strong> explains why.<\/h3>\n

[update: see some of the fantastic #IamaNaturalist photos and tweets in our September 10<\/span>\u00a0collection<\/a> or scroll down this post for more blog excerpts.]<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"140908<\/a>I am a Naturalist\u00a0\u2014<\/strong>\u00a0I use careful observations of the natural world to inform my daily life and research. My practice of natural history feeds my research program with questions, and answers.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve\u00a0ever<\/i>\u00a0introduced myself as a naturalist. When was the last time you heard an ecologist introduce herself as a NATURALIST? Why do we reject that identity?\u00a0\u00a0Isn\u2019t natural history the seed of many ecological questions\u2014and in some cases the answer?<\/p>\n

This is why we (@esanathist<\/a> ) are starting a #IAmANaturalist<\/a> campaign to raise awareness about the prevalence of naturalists in ecology and the importance of natural history.<\/p>\n

Without natural history knowledge, I would be lost. \u00a0In my research I look for patterns in nature and I ask questions about what shapes those patterns.<\/p>\n

In the absence of natural history information, our progress toward an understanding of complex ecological questions grinds to a halt. Impacts of climate change?\u00a0 Depends on the natural history. Management of threatened populations?\u00a0 The devil is in the details of how and where they live and die. Disease prevention?\u00a0 Same story.\u00a0 All of our sophisticated models are only as good as the natural history that informs them.<\/p>\n

The field of Ecology is young, and it stands on the shoulders of natural history. Many of the icons in ecology, such as G.W. Carver, E. Leopold, E.O. Wilson, J. Goodall, J. Lubchenco, S. Earle, R. Kimmer, etc. were and are fundamentally naturalists, observing and recording the natural world in situ and in its entirety with a keen appreciation to connections and interactions.\u00a0 It is the first-hand experiences in nature that give us the \u201dRachel Carlson \/ Gene Likens\u201d insights that unlock mysteries and help solve major environmental solutions.\u00a0 It is also the naturalist instinct that is open to the abundance of complexity in ecosystems, which fuels our passion for better scholarship.<\/p>\n

Yet most ecologists don\u2019t teach natural history courses. Anecdotally, this seems especially true for junior faculty. Over the past decades we have seen a steady decline in the practice of natural history, perceived value of natural history, and natural history course work for biology majors (Tewksbury et al. 2014<\/a>). These statistics beg the question, what will the field of ecology look like in a future without a strong emphasis on the training and retention of young naturalists?<\/p>\n

We cannot afford to loose the skillset of natural history in ecology.\u00a0\u00a0We need to invest in and support more naturalists and more natural history institutions (museums, field stations, and botanical gardens)! The ecological issues that we will face in the future require more than ever the\u00a0diverse insights<\/i>\u00a0of folks who can read landscapes, make careful field observations, recognize anomalies, accurately record patterns in nature, and make hypotheses that come from an education that only experience in observing nature can give you.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Natural History Section<\/a>\u00a0of the Ecological Society of America invites you to join our #IamaNaturalist<\/a> campaign. If you practice natural history, then reclaim the name \u201cNaturalist\u201d by posting a picture of yourself (i.e. in the field or with a specimen) with the hashtag #IamaNaturalist. Please give a shout out for the celebration of natural history, the oldest human endeavor and the forerunner to the field of ecology.\u00a0\u00a0If you prefer facebook over twitter, you can join this campaign by posting your #IamaNaturalist picture on our facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our hope is to start a wildfire of support for the value of natural history and the people who spend their days (or nights) practicing natural history.\u00a0\u00a0We hope that this engagement starts some conversations around the importance of natural history in ecology and that it provokes a trend of closeted naturalists to proudly present their passion for natural history to the world!<\/p>\n

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Kirsten Rowell is\u00a0curator of malacology<\/a>\u00a0at the Burke Museum of Natural History in Seattle, Wash., and a biologist at the University of Washington, currently on sabbatical in Geneva, Switzerland. She\u00a0uses\u00a0sclerochronology, stable isotope ratios, and elements to tell her about the lives of fish and molluscs \u00a0living thousands of years ago, comparing where they live,\u00a0what they eat, and where they are in a trophic web to living animals \u2014 but it is her\u00a0observational knowledge about these ecosystems that informs her interpretations of these tools.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"\"\u201c#IAmANaturalist. It\u2019s only in the last year or so that I\u2019ve become comfortable with using that title. More officially, I am an ecologist. Certainly these titles are not, and should not, be mutually exclusive\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more:<\/strong> on his blog<\/a>, naturalist (and ecologist) Nash Turley<\/a> explains what natural history means to him, and why he strives to root more of his research in natural history observations.<\/p>\n

**update 3:45 pm EDT:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"140908<\/a>\u201cMany naturalists have no formal training in biology, and don\u2019t have advanced degrees. They may have binoculars, probably have paper and pen, and they have an ability to observe carefully and critically and feel joy and appreciation about what they are observing\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026as we face a biodiversity crisis we need people who watch, record, and appreciate nature. We need the passion and motivation of naturalists. We need their knowledge, we need their observations\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more<\/strong>: arachnologist Chris Buddle<\/a> posted thoughts on What [or who] is a naturalist?<\/a>\u00a0on his blog, earlier this year.<\/p>\n

**update 4:45 pm EDT:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"140908<\/a>\u201cLEGO Master Builders know every single individual building element that the company makes. When they are charged with designing a new model, they understand the natural history of LEGO so well that their model is the best model it can be. Likewise, ecologists that know the most about nature are the ones that can build models that best describe how nature works. An ecologist that doesn\u2019t know the pieces that make up nature will have a model that doesn\u2019t look like what it is supposed to represent\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more<\/strong>: Terry McGlynn<\/a> dug deep into natural history and modern training priorities on his blog Small Pond Science<\/em> last February: \u201cNatural history is important, but not perceived as an academic job skill<\/a>\u201d\u00a0[with Venn diagram!].<\/p>\n

\"Same<\/a>\u201cSometimes I believe I was born to be a 19th century naturalist. Compiling long term records of flowering phenology involves stitching together old data (for example, this herbarium specimen from 1895) with new data (a phenology observation collected on a smartphone app in 2013). As I trek across Mount Desert Island in the 21st century, I am keenly aware of the naturalists who came before me\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more<\/strong>: ecologist\u00a0Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie<\/a>,\u00a0feeling the connection to naturalists who had come before her, in her 2013 Science Cafe pitch, \u201csame data, different century<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\/update<\/span><\/p>\n

Natural History\u2019s Place in Science and Society<\/strong> (2014)\u00a0Joshua j. Tewksbury, John G. T. Anderson, Jonathan D. Bakker, Timothy J. Billo, Peter W. Dunwiddie, Martha J. Groom, Stephanie E. Hampton, Steven G. Herman, Douglas J. Levey, Noelle J. Machnicki, Carlos Mart\u00ednez del Rio, Mary E. Power, Kirsten Rowell, Anne K. Salomon, Liam Stacey, Stephen C. Trombulak and Terry A. Wheeler.\u00a0BioScience,<\/i>\u00a0 First published online:\u00a0March 26, 2014. doi:\u00a010.1093\/biosci\/biu032<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Are you a naturalist? Join the grassroots effort to reclaim the name. ESA\u2019s Natural History section is calling on you to assert your naturalist identity with pride by tweeting a photo to #IAmANaturalist on Monday, September 8, 2014. Guest poster Kirsten Rowell explains why. [update: see some of the fantastic #IamaNaturalist photos and tweets in our September 10\u00a0collection or scroll…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":10595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,48],"tags":[1494,594,1239,1240],"class_list":["post-10594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-posts","category-ecology-and-society","tag-guest-post","tag-natural-history","tag-social-media","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vzbmt5sl65q.c.updraftclone.com\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}