Today’s post is a personal reflection on an information shared in X from an article published in Nature in which a scientist mention that he “rarely get outside” despite of been working in an ecological question. For me as a biologist who had worked in the field for several decades and who had also incorporated technological tools and software in my work, reading the article make me think about how disconnected the new generation of ecologist and biologist seems to be of the organisms and ecosystems that they are studying and how that could impact our future results.
In my work, especially in the last 10 years, I learned and implemented the use of GIS and remote sensing information and software on answering the questions about geographic distribution and effects of fragmentation and habitat loss on primate species at Zocay Project study area. However, for me personally, going to the field and corroborating what satellite images and maps show me are an important and mostly fun part of my work. There isnothing more relaxing and clarifying that a walk in the forest when the sun is raising up…
May be because for me, primate sighting is an important part of what I do or because I started my career by doing behavioral and ecological research, not going to the field is just not an option. Even when funding is difficult to get and sometimes when no funding is available, not going to the field is simply not an option and I always find a way to go and spend time observing the monkeys. May be is also because, for me, going to the field constitute part of my process to generate questions and to understand what my data is saying.
I understand the importance of including new technologies and data from different sources, however the connection between data and real-world process is something that, for me, requires direct observation in the field. Animals don’t behave in a simplistic way and there are always multiple factors affecting and influencing how an animal behaves when a threat or a new process is close to them. Also, technology can help to collect data and analyze it faster but not to do everything. So, I still believe that one of the main factors that make research based on field data so important and strong is because people who work on it, like me, take the time to go and verify in the field what is happening on the ground and carefully observe how animals respond.
Hopefully, this connection with nature in ecology and biology is something that future generations of biologists and ecologists will consider incorporating it in their studies as that is what makes our work so important and realistic.
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