Our ocean’s vital signs

“It’s really amazing to watch a bunch of messy, highly diverse data get compiled, processed and analyzed to create the global ocean health index score. Each year is a new adventure with new insights that hopefully improve the way we manage and protect our oceans.”

NCEAS Director Ben Halpern and this year’s Ocean Health Index data fellows comment on this year’s oceanic score: 69/100.

DEIJ Resource of the Month

Co-creating Ethical Practices and Approaches for Fieldwork
Open Access Paper
This paper, inspired by an AGU conference town hall, offers recommendations for equally valuing Indigenous knowledge, building relationships, and sampling ethically.

SciComm Resource of the Month

Colors and Emotions in Data Visualization
Blog Post by Cedric Scherer
Ever wonder how color impacts how your data are perceived? This blog post explores how, intentional or not, colors in data visualization are impacting messages.

Data Science Resource of the Month

Why Don’t We Share Data and Code?
Open Access Paper
Despite the value of open science, researchers across fields rarely publicly share code. This paper examines common barriers (and benefits!) to better archiving.

Scientist Spotlight:
Thomas Hetmank, NCEAS Computational Support

“As someone who has always enjoyed working with people from very different background, like linguists and artists, I find it fulfilling to help ecologists and researchers from different disciplines with their computing needs so they can tackle the pressing environmental challenges of our time.”

Synthesis Spotlight:
Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) River Silicon (Si) Exports

From the poles to the tropics, rivers play a key role in transporting elements to ecosystems. Silicon is one of these crucial nutrients, but it remains understudied despite its known importance in global primary production. This Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) group seeks to better characterize riverine Si dynamics.

Opportunities at NCEAS

Job | Environmental Data Analyst
Apply by January 13, 2023
Calling all environmental data scientists! We are hiring an analyst to join NCEAS Director Ben Halpern’s research group. UCSB is an AA/EOE employer, including disability/veterans status.

Job | Assistant Teaching Professor in Environmental Data Science
Apply by January 16, 2023
Are you passionate about training the next generation of environmental data scientists? The MEDS program at UCSB and NCEAS are seeking a tenure track teaching faculty to join us!

Call for Proposals | Gulf Ecosystem Initiative
Apply by January 31, 2023
The NCEAS and NOAA Restore Gulf Ecosystem Initiative is funding 2-3 working groups at 75-125k to conduct synthesis science on important ecological issues in the Gulf of Mexico.

Job | NCEAS and NOAA Restore Postdocs
Apply by January 31, 2023
NCEAS and NOAA are hiring two postdocs to join our Gulf Ecosystem Initiative, with room for solo and group research around Gulf of Mexico fisheries, climate change, and management.

Course | coreR at NCEAS
Apply by March 3, 2022
This five day crash course at NCEAS with R as the main programming language covers best data science practices in reproducibility, data visualization, collaboration, and more.

Papers We’re Reading

The future of ecosystem management is automation, collaboration, and artificial intelligence
Environmental Research Letters
In this paper, led by NCEAS Data Scientist Carmen Galaz García, researchers explore four common failing points in data-driven ecosystem management.

Data synthesis for environmental management: A case study of Chesapeake Bay
Journal of Environmental Management
Through a series of interactive workshops, including an initial visit to NCEAS, this group of scientists converged on ten lessons for better group management decision making.

SPCIS: Standardized plant community with introduced status database
Ecological Society of America
With plants being introduced across ecosystems, researchers realized a need for a centralized US database to assess native and invasive plant communities.