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1. Characterizing the landscape of plant science careers in the United States I: Government and private sector perspectives

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10375  

   Sidoti, Brian J. ; Walsh, Lisa L. ; Parsley, Kathryn M. ; Callis‐Duehl, Kristine ; Hove, Alisa A. ; Liu, Hong ; Uzcategui, Mia ; Ospina, David ; Bruce‐Opris, Hannah ; Gonzalez, Roxana ; et al ( May 2023 , PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET)

   Humans are dependent upon plants for oxygen, food, textiles, and medicines. Climate change and deforestation represent serious threats to our planet, causing significant disruptions to our ability to access and utilize these plant resources; this makes a botanically literate workforce and plant science careers more important than ever. Unfortunately, the current state of botanical career opportunities and training programs in the United States remains unclear. This study focuses on the current employment trends of government and private sector botanists and what skills future plant scientists will need to be successful in these careers.

   Plant science plays a crucial role in our society and in ongoing efforts to address many global challenges, including food insecurity and climate change. Yet, despite a predicted increase in plant science career opportunities in the United States, the botanical career landscape outside of academia is not well understood.

   To further our understanding of the training required for non‐academic botanical careers, the botanical sub‐disciplines used on the job, and career challenges faced by plant scientists, we surveyed 61 scientists working in government and 59 scientists working in the private sector in the United States.

   In both career sectors, > 80% of survey participants reported recent hires at the bachelor's degree level. New personnel with master's degrees were more commonly reported in the government sector (95%) than in the private sector (69%). Most plant scientists working in government reported a focus on plant ecology and resource management. By contrast, most industry/non‐profit work involved horticulture and biotechnology, with some specific skills spanning both sectors. Notably, one prediction made nearly a decade ago appears to be manifesting: plant scientists seem to be retiring more quickly than they are being replaced. Survey respondents reported that attempts to hire full‐time staff are met with obstacles, including insufficient funding. Plant science professionals in both career sectors emphasized their routine use of botanical skills developed as students, highlighting the need for effective training at the undergraduate level.

   We discuss the implications of these findings and present several recommendations for preparing future generations of plant scientists and increasing the scientific community's botanical capacity.

    

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2. Beyond Deforestation: Carbon Emissions From Land Grabbing and Forest Degradation in the Brazilian Amazon

   https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2021.645282  

   Kruid, Sanne ; Macedo, Marcia N. ; Gorelik, Seth R. ; Walker, Wayne ; Moutinho, Paulo ; Brando, Paulo M. ; Castanho, Andrea ; Alencar, Ane ; Baccini, Alessandro ; Coe, Michael T. ( July 2021 , Frontiers in Forests and Global Change)

   null (Ed.)

   Carbon losses from forest degradation and disturbances are significant and growing sources of emissions in the Brazilian Amazon. Between 2003 and 2019, degradation and disturbance accounted for 44% of forest carbon losses in the region, compared with 56% from deforestation (forest clearing). We found that land tenure played a decisive role in explaining these carbon losses, with Undesignated Public Forests and Other Lands (e.g., private properties) accounting for the majority (82%) of losses during the study period. Illegal deforestation and land grabbing in Undesignated Public Forests widespread and increasingly are important drivers of forest carbon emissions from the region. In contrast, indigenous Territories and Protected Natural Areas had the lowest emissions, demonstrating their effectiveness in preventing deforestation and maintaining carbon stocks. These trends underscore the urgent need to develop reliable systems for monitoring and reporting on carbon losses from forest degradation and disturbance. Together with improved governance, such actions will be crucial for Brazil to reduce pressure on standing forests; strengthen Indigenous land rights; and design effective climate mitigation strategies needed to achieve its national and international climate commitments. 

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3. Characterizing the landscape of plant science careers in the United States II: Academic perspectives

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10374  

   Walsh, Lisa L. ; Parsley, Kathryn M. ; Sidoti, Brian J. ; Callis‐Duehl, Kristine ; Hove, Alisa A. ; Liu, Hong ; Bruce‐Opris, Hannah ; Gonzalez, Roxana ; Ospina, David ; Uzcategui, Mia ; et al ( May 2023 , PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET)

   Botanical careers are more important than ever, given that environmental challenges such as climate change and deforestation threaten plants daily and because plants contribute to solutions to these problems. Plants act as our sources of food, medicine, textiles, and oxygen, which means finding ways to mitigate these environmental challenges is crucial. Despite this, little is known about what career opportunities exist for botanists outside of academia and how well academia is training graduate students for these careers. This study centers on the current state of academic botanical careers and how well students completing post‐baccalaureate degrees (herein referred to as graduate students) are being prepared to fill careers within the botanical workforce.

   Plant science plays a crucial role in our society and in ongoing efforts to address many global challenges, including food insecurity and climate change. Despite a predicted increase in botanical career opportunities, little is known about how well academia is training graduate students for careers outside of academia.

   To further our understanding of the current state of academic training for botanical careers, we surveyed 85 faculty and 40 graduate students working in academia in the plant sciences in the United States.

   We found that the top challenges to university professors in academia are lack of support staff and funding, whereas students completing their post‐baccalaureate degrees cited finances and lack of supportive mentoring as their top challenges. Despite the fact that most graduate students surveyed wanted a career at a research‐intensive university, many botanists in academia are retiring without being replaced by more botanists. Faculty expertise is also misaligned with needs from industry and government employers, causing challenges to training graduate students for these careers outside of academia. Although our data point to a lack of career opportunities within academia, we also note that current graduate student education still emphasizes such careers and is not properly preparing graduate students for the careers they are more likely to obtain within the private and government sectors.

   We discuss the implications of these findings and present several recommendations for preparing future generations of plant scientists for more realistic career trajectories.

    

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4. Double Your Variance, Dirtify Your Bayes, Devour Your Pufferfish, and Draw your Kidstrogram

   https://doi.org/10.51387/22-NEJSDS6  

   Meng, Xiao-Li ( October 2022 , The New England Journal of Statistics in Data Science)

   This article expands upon my presentation to the panel on “The Radical Prescription for Change” at the 2017 ASA (American Statistical Association) symposium on A World Beyond $p<0.05$. It emphasizes that, to greatly enhance the reliability of—and hence public trust in—statistical and data scientific findings, we need to take a holistic approach. We need to lead by example, incentivize study quality, and inoculate future generations with profound appreciations for the world of uncertainty and the uncertainty world. The four “radical” proposals in the title—with all their inherent defects and trade-offs—are designed to provoke reactions and actions. First, research methodologies are trustworthy only if they deliver what they promise, even if this means that they have to be overly protective, a necessary trade-off for practicing quality-guaranteed statistics. This guiding principle may compel us to doubling variance in some situations, a strategy that also coincides with the call to raise the bar from $p<0.05$ to $p<0.005$ [3]. Second, teaching principled practicality or corner-cutting is a promising strategy to enhance the scientific community’s as well as the general public’s ability to spot—and hence to deter—flawed arguments or findings. A remarkable quick-and-dirty Bayes formula for rare events, which simply divides the prevalence by the sum of the prevalence and the false positive rate (or the total error rate), as featured by the popular radio show Car Talk, illustrates the effectiveness of this strategy. Third, it should be a routine mental exercise to put ourselves in the shoes of those who would be affected by our research finding, in order to combat the tendency of rushing to conclusions or overstating confidence in our findings. A pufferfish/selfish test can serve as an effective reminder, and can help to institute the mantra “Thou shalt not sell what thou refuseth to buy” as the most basic professional decency. Considering personal stakes in our statistical endeavors also points to the concept of behavioral statistics, in the spirit of behavioral economics. Fourth, the current mathematical education paradigm that puts “deterministic first, stochastic second” is likely responsible for the general difficulties with reasoning under uncertainty, a situation that can be improved by introducing the concept of histogram, or rather kidstogram, as early as the concept of counting. 

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5. Understanding Multiple Dimensions of Perceived Greenspace Accessibility and Their Effect on Subjective Well-Being During a Global Pandemic

   https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2021.709997  

   Maurer, Megan ; Cook, Elizabeth M. ; Yoon, Liv ; Visnic, Olivia ; Orlove, Ben ; Culligan, Patricia J. ; Mailloux, Brian J. ( December 2021 , Frontiers in Sustainable Cities)

   The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how the accessibility of greenspace can shift in response to social-ecological disturbance, and generated questions as to how changing dimensions of accessibility affect the ecosystem services of greenspace, such as improved subjective well-being. Amidst the growing consensus of the important role of greenspace in improving and maintaining well-being through times of duress, we examine how access to greenspace is affecting subjective well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both the relationship of greenspace to subjective well-being and the barriers to greenspace access are well-established for normal conditions. Much remains to be known, however, about how barriers to access and the effect of greenspace on subjective well-being shift in response to periods of social duress, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from surveys and interviews conducted with 1,200 university students in the United States during the spring of 2020, we assess the effect of going outdoors on subjective well-being, commonly experienced barriers to going outside, and how these barriers in turn affected subjective well-being. We find that time spent outside, particularly in greenspace, correlates with higher levels of subjective well-being, and that concern over COVID-19 risk and transmission negatively affects this relationship both in reducing time spent outdoors and the subjective well-being benefits. We also find that type of greenspace (public vs. private) does not have a significant effect on subjective well-being, that while those in areas with lower population density have significantly higher subjective well-being when outdoors, all participants experience a statistically equal benefit to subjective well-being by going outside. Our findings suggest how understanding the ways dimensions of accessibility shift in response to times of social duress can aid public health messaging, the design and management of greenspace, and environmental justice efforts to support the use of greenspace in improving and maintaining subjective well-being during future crisis events. 

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