In this chapter of Career Stories, we bring you the journey of Abhijeet Bayani who is a Science writer at JoVE but well recognised as a conservation biologist. He was also an instructor in Ecology at IISc, Bangalore. In this candid chat, he talks about the joy in ‘Nature-ality’ and the things that one should keep in mind while venturing into ‘Ecology as a career pathway’.
Did you face any challenges while evolving into an ecologist and if yes, how did you encounter them?
There were numerous challenges that I faced when I started out as an ecologist. For instance, I have been heavily interested in spiders and have studied them for more than 15 years now. I have also written a book on common spiders. But, when I started, there were almost no readily available resources on Indian spider species. Most of the available ones focused on spiders of other continents (Europe, North and South American regions). There were only a few, about a century old texts, that focused on Indian species. These texts needed a strong upgrade as the older information on species now has become obsolete. Another larger challenge I faced was inadequate training in the field methods. This included field identification of various taxa, locating the species and performing some basic quantitative field methods. Although the reading material was available, I did not have the privilege of working with the experts who could demonstrate these methods. To overcome this inadequacy, I experimented with some of the sampling methods. I also attempted to replicate some scientifically published methods on the same taxa (e.g. trees of specific region, wetland birds etc.) and observed if the data I collected were at least similar. I found all this quite challenging, but at the same time it was like learning from own experiences.
How did you motivate yourself to follow an unconventional career path in the field of your interest?
Studying spiders or the ecology of some other lesser known animals was a bit unconventional, indeed! I say that because the naturalists I knew 17-20 years back were experts in distinctly looking birds and butterflies, or only a few charismatic mammals. None knew about the spiders, birds such as pipits or warblers, or small mammals. So, I accepted this as a challenge and started recording the behaviors, life history traits, features for the field identification, natural history and so on. As my studies on spiders were purely driven by curiosity, I never gave up on my spider observations. I enjoyed every step of learning about them. Here, I must say that although my focal taxon was spiders for a long period of time, I learnt many small and basic techniques (observation skills, behavioural sampling, quantitative sampling, collection methods, preservations techniques, dissection etc.) that are still helpful for me.
I always treated my undergraduate years to be experimental years, where I explored various research fields such as neurobiology, biophysics, experimental evolution, X-ray crystallography, signal transduction, theoretical ecology etc. that I thought I was equally interested in. I ultimately decided to go for ecology; particularly conservation biology after my master’s degree. As a result, I studied urban ecology of Marsh crocodiles, reintroduction of Asiatic lions, human-wildlife conflict, and wildlife management starting from my undergrad to my doctoral studies. The sole driving factor towards choosing conservation biology, and working as an educator or a science writer-editor is curiosity.
Is there any interesting part of animal behaviour that very few people know about and that you feel should come into the limelight?
Animal behavior is a very-well studied branch in ecology. One aspect, although, I think that still lacks enough attention is the behavior (wildlife and human) in the human-wildlife conflict studies. The behavioral plasticity that the wild animals exhibit especially in the human-dominated landscapes is quite understudied. Other than that, there are several species about which we know almost nothing, not even the species distribution and the basic natural history (e.g. Wren-babblers). I think that the upcoming ecologists or even the amateur naturalists can take short-duration projects and progressively work towards understanding these unknown species. To many newer ecologists, animal natural history seems to be a ‘dead-end science’ or just a ‘hobby’, which is far from the truth! Natural history forms the basis of all natural sciences, and if done systematically, a person studying it would not only enjoy it but also be able to substantially contribute towards science.
I also strongly suggest that citizen science can help with this. I have been involved with Biodiversity Atlas-India, which is one such large, open-source and scientifically curated consortium of multiple Indian taxa dealing with their identification, natural history, distribution, behavior and so on, where every citizen can contribute their observations.
What are the different career opportunities to be explored, if one would like to stay connected with nature and wildlife?
Why would one need to explore a “career opportunity” to stay connected to nature and wildlife? One can still stay connected with nature and wildlife having any (unrelated) career or job; it need not be in ecology always! There are numerous ways to do that.
Every urban scape is loaded with interesting species to be observed. There are gardens, backyards, reserved forests, lakes, wetlands, abandoned lands and buildings within the highly urbanized cities. For instance, one of the best places to spot and study the most secretive primate Slender Loris is the Bengaluru city! The marsh crocodiles in the Vadodara city are equally interesting from the same perspective. Also, as I have said before, the citizen science opportunities are plenty now, where a citizen having a zero idea about ecology can still contribute substantially. I strongly suggest and insist that one must not force to take a career in ecology, just for the sake of ‘staying connected with nature’ or because it sounds fancy!
Nevertheless, a person who is trained in ecology and allied streams of science in general, can find a good career as a professor, environmental consultant, writer, science illustrator, EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) expert, naturalist (with tourism companies), photographer, traveller, media person, blogger, teacher, scientist, policy maker, consultant to ministry (e.g. for MoEF&CC) or an academician. If a person is highly determined and begins preparation fairly early- maybe by the first year of UG, they can also opt to be a forest officer (state-level) or even go for Indian Forest Services through UPSC.
Being an editor and reviewer of scientific journals, what strategies (out of the box suggestions) would you suggest to authors to improve their chances of getting the manuscript accepted?
I may not be the best person to talk about it. But acceptance of a manuscript in a journal depends on numerous things and that is beyond the scope of this question. However, I can share some major observations that I have made during my experience as an editor, and can suggest possible ways to fix those particular problems.
I have found that often the science in manuscript is great, but it lacks the writing flow and fails to convey the message. Many times there is an unnecessary extrapolation from the (original) results. The best way (in my opinion) to write an acceptable manuscript is as follows: every author must ask the following questions:
- ‘Have I asked a definite question in the introduction?’
- ‘Do my results give definite answer(s) (let that be positive or negative) to the question?’
- ‘Do I justify all the points, hypotheses, or knowledge gaps that I have mentioned in the introduction, discussion and conclusion?’
This can help improve the flow of the manuscript. When it comes to writing reviews, make sure that you choose appropriate literature and conduct your analysis of the data that you obtain from the literature. See if your analysis gives any new insights on the topic. I strongly recommend not to write a review with the sole intention of increasing the ‘number’ of your research papers. If not thought well, such reviews may very well turn into ‘scientific junk’.
If you can sum up your learnings in life so far in one sentence, then what would that be?
There is a substantial difference between an innate interest and a borrowed interest. For instance, while choosing a career in scientific research, people often cannot distinguish whether they really like the ‘research’ or just the ‘idea’ of research. In my case, I like the idea of studying the genetic basis of animal behavior, but my true innate interest lies in studying animal behavior on the field. Thus, field study or natural history is my innate interest, but the genetics of behavior is just a borrowed interest for me. I would like to emphasise that each person must identify his/her own innate interest and follow it. Do not run behind the fancy-sounding fields especially for the scientific research. In my opinion, along with reading meeting and talking to people in science helps the best.
What message would you like to give youngsters aspiring to pursue a career within nature and wildlife?
Every person aspiring to pursue a career in nature and wildlife related fields must first and foremost, be a good observer. Be a naturalist first, then move on to study anything you like. One doesn’t require any fancy expensive equipment or specific permissions to observe species around you. Do not go behind the charismatic species only because everyone talks about it. I have also seen many people begin with photography, and then claim to be taxonomists, conservation biologists or ecologists without any adequate knowledge. Photography is a great tool crucial for documentation or to enhance the experience of observing the species. Nonetheless, without any systematic observation, study or data, you still remain a photographer, and not a scientist. I do not say that a photographer cannot become a scientist or vice versa. But it is important to identify whether you really like to study the species or only like photographing it.
In the end I would say, study wildlife scientifically and ethically and if you are not aware of the ethics, then get in touch with experts.
