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External validation is negatively correlated with career stage

9/27/2025

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Early on in grad school, I remember trying to imagine what it would be like to get a paper in a great journal like the American Naturalist, or to get a faculty position, or to get tenure. In my mind, this was accompanied by increasing respect that would lead to greater confidence and self-esteem. However, my experience has been that external validation has decreased as I have progressed in my career. I think that this happens for a couple of reasons.

            The first reason that external validation decreases with career stage is that expectations also shift with career stage. As an undergraduate, you are pretty unusual if you are involved in research, or are really engaged with subject material, or get consistently good grades. Faculty often see part of their role in encouraging students (I certainly do!), so oftentimes there is positive feedback coming from people that you admire. As a grad student, publishing, securing funding, and winning awards is unusual, particularly early on, and that can lead to positive feedback from peers and mentors. However, once you become a postdoc, everybody is publishing, so positive feedback for publishing now probably depends on the venue. No longer are small grants impressive, and so on. Once you are faculty, nobody is excited when you publish (of course you publish! That is your job!) or even get grants (Of course you got a grant! They would fire you if you did not, pre-tenure at least). Even winning a research award will only result in some transient praise. Hence, increasing expectations later in your career tend to diminish external validation.

            Second, the impact of positive feedback starts to depend a lot on who is giving the feedback. Compliments tend to be most impactful when delivered by someone further along in their career than you, and that number shrinks the longer you are in your career. Additionally, if you think like me, you might be inclined to discount praise from junior colleagues because they might be currying favor, or feel obligated in some way to issue a compliment. Neither of these are probably true most of the time, but they still diminish the impact of positive feedback as you progress through your career.
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            My experience is that confidence, unlike external validation, has increased as I have progressed through my career. Hence, while external validation has decreased with length of time that I have been doing this job, I have found that I don’t need it and that I am at my best when I ignore external validation. It is nice when it happens, but I don’t want it to be my motivation when it comes to my career, as that leads to perverse incentives and unhealthy behavior. Rather, I do my best to try and let my better impulses like curiosity and wonder guide my actions. 
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People get weird about non-native species

9/21/2025

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There is no doubt that human activities have moved organisms from where they evolved into novel environments. Here in the US, we have many ecosystems that are greatly impacted by invasive species, from the Great Lakes to where I live in south Florida. It is since moving to south Florida that I have realized that people get weird about non-native species. In fact, you may have noticed that I am using the term “non-native” rather than invasive. I am choosing to do this because the term invasive should be applied to non-native species that are harmful, and we do not have evidence that many non-native species are harmful.

            What do I mean by saying that people are weird about non-native species? I mean that when I meet people and mention or discuss non-native species, I encounter several common attitudes. First, many seem to have an negative or even angry response to non-native species and treat individuals of non-native species as enemies. Second, some people assume negative impacts of non-natives in the absence of evidence. Finally, there seems to be a general reluctance to realistically evaluate whether non-native or even invasive species can be eradicated. 

            As an example of thinking of non-native species as enemies, I have a friend from Texas who would monitor non-native European starling nests, and kill any offspring just before fledging in order to cause the birds to waste their energy raising offspring that never fledge. This has always struck me as unhinged. As another example, I am aware of a case in Florida where the homeowner would kill all non-native lizards on their property (which is likely all lizards in south Florida). The ire towards non-native species seems quite silly to me, as the organisms themselves are not volitional- they simply ended up here. And in most cases, non-native species are often quite entrenched by the time we are aware of them, such that individual action is unlikely to influence their population sizes.  

            The second issue is that it is commonly assumed that non-native species are actually invasive, or harmful in some way. While we certainly know that invasive species can initiate ecological disasters (e.g., Burmese pythons in South Florida or brown tree snakes in Guam), in many cases, either there is no evidence or only mixed evidence of negative impacts. For example, here in south Florida, many non-native species are only found in heavily disturbed urban environments. In that case, the non-native species are likely not impacting any native species, and might even boost biodiversity in urban environments.

            Finally, even if non-native species are actually invasive or harmful in some way, both individual reactions and policy seem geared towards eradication, rather than understanding how to mitigate negative impacts of invasive species. It is worth noting that complete eradication of an invasive species has basically never happened, except on small and isolated islands. Think cane toads in Australia (still a problem), brown tree snakes in Guam (still a problem), feral hogs in the US (still a problem), and I could go on and on.  Probably the most abundant terrestrial vertebrate in Florida is the brown anole, which is native to the Bahamas and Cuba and has been in Florida for nearly a century. I don’t think brown anoles will ever be eradicated, so any policy around this species should focus on understanding any negative impacts and learning how to mitigate them.

            How we think of non-native species, and particularly binary thinking about eradication, has ramifications for policy. For example, Florida has some strict laws about capturing and releasing non-native species to avoid the spread of potentially harmful species. This is probably logical for unestablished non-native species, but can lead to farcical outcomes for established non-native species. For example, it might be hard to understand how abundant and widespread brown anoles are if you have not spent much time in south Florida (and don’t spend your time looking for lizards), but I can probably find a brown anole within a meter or two of me anywhere outside in Florida, and I have measured densities of more than one individual per square meter. Because these lizards are so common, many of my students grew up catching them in their backyards or parks, and play games like fashioning lizard earrings (this pugnacious lizard will open its mouth as a warning when captured, and will happily chomp down on an earlobe if presented the opportunity). Of course, the lizards are usually released after capture and a brief stint as earrings. According to current Florida statutes, all of those children are guilty of releasing an invasive species into the wild, which is against the law. This is farcical because there is no way that brown anoles will ever be eradicated, and the release of a lizard ten minutes after capture has zero impact on their population dynamics. So Florida has created a law, based upon the binary response to invasive species (bad=eradicate) that has created millions of unknowing wildlife law violators. It is not too hard to imagine how this could lead to future problems.
           
Of course, it is clear that some non-native species become invasive, and when they do so, I think we should work to eradicate invasive species and/or minimize the negative impact of invasive species. I think that the most ethical action, when possible, is to eradicate harmful invasive species. I also think it makes sense to avoid introductions of non-native species based upon the precautionary principle. So I am not advocating for a laissez-faire attitude towards invasive species. But I am suggesting that a paradigm shift away from binary thinking about non-native species and towards more nuanced thinking.
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            Beyond the academic and applied thoughts about non-native species, as a nature-lover, I don’t think it is a beneficial way to view ecosystems as having good species and bad species. I happen to live in a place with lots of non-native species, but I think biodiversity is increasingly homogenized across the globe, and this is only likely to accelerate with a growing human population, global-scale human travel, and global climate change. Where I live, most of the biodiversity of reptiles and amphibians is non-native, at least in urban and suburban environs. I think it is actually dangerous for conservation to teach the broader public that some of the nature around them is bad, or not really nature, somehow. And for many people in heavily urbanized environments, much of the nature that they get to experience may well be non-native species (e.g., house sparrows, rock doves, starlings). I think it is far better to interact with nature in a positive, non-adversarial nature, and to avoid conflating the potential negative impacts of invasive species with our response to individual non-native organisms.

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​On research in the tropics

9/13/2025

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There has been increasing attention paid to scientists from wealthier countries, often in North America or Europe, conducting research in often poorer countries in Africa, Asia, and South America. In fact, the term “helicopter research” describes this practice, in particular when the science is conducted without any inclusion of local communities, and is criticized as colonial way of conducting science. I tend to agree with this critique. But a good chunk of my research is through the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution, which is part of the US federal government. There is just no way to get around the fact that this scientific institution is a colonial institution. I mean, the US essentially fomented secession of the state of Panama (at the time part of the country of Colombia) from the rest of Colombia in order to facilitate the construction of the Panama Canal (you should read the excellent The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough).

            I have spent much of my career working in tropics of Mexico and Central America, including Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama. While I am sure that there have been aspects of helicopter research with that work, by and large the research in Mexico, Honduras, and Costa Rica generally included collaborators from those countries and a fair amount of community engagement. My work in Panama is a little different, because there is a US government institution that we interact with to facilitate permits and other permissions and handle logistics. So there is little required contact or interaction with local scientists that are not part of STRI.

            I should hit the pause button here to state that probably most STRI employees in Panama are Panamanian (although the majority of staff scientists are not from Panama), so we do interact with Panamanians while working with STRI. It is also worth noting that the leadership of STRI is aware of the challenge of being a US institution in another country, and has sought solutions to provide greater integration of STRI with the local scientists and communities. This is also an area where STRI is seeking ongoing improvement.
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            However, the fact remains that I am part of an explicitly colonial arm of the US in another country, and that fact makes me a little uneasy. So what can I, or should I, do about it? I don’t think there are any easy answers. The language, and much of the culture in Panama has been shaped by Spanish colonialism, especially in the canal zone. The fact that I grew up in the US is the result of  European colonialism and displacement of Native Americans. I think we are all trapped to some degree in systems of oppression and power that have shaped the world we live in. But I don’t think that is an excuse to ignore the cultural quandaries associated with US scientists working in the tropics. At least for now, my choice is to both acknowledge the reality of the situation and to try and be as fair and ethical as possible while working with STRI. That can entail involving local scientists, trying to learn about modern Panamanian culture, including the native Panamanian culture, and supporting improved equity for Panamanian employees. It also means that this process is ongoing, and I need to continue to educate myself about Panama, and continue to try and improve how our research is conducted in Panama. 
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Who am I?

9/6/2025

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I usually describe myself as an integrative evolutionary biologist. What does this mean? Well, in practice it means that all of my research interests revolve around evolutionary biology, and I use tools and research paradigms from lots of different fields ranging from ecology to physiology to transcriptomics. If I began my career fifty years ago, I would be considered a zoologist (I am one of the last cohorts to have a B.S. in Zoology from Iowa State University), which seems fair to me. In other words, my research is focused on understanding organisms, using evolutionary biology to understand and contextualize results. I have mostly studied reptiles and amphibians, but I also have worked on scorpions, centipedes, crayfish, and cockroaches.

            I am currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. FIU is a major research university (R1), which means I run a lab with PhD students and there are substantial expectations for funding and publications. I started at FIU in January 2020, basically weeks before the world shut down for the COVID epidemic. Before FIU, I was an assistant professor for four years at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia. GSU is a large, moderate research university that at the time had Master’s students and not PhD students. Hence, I ran a lab with M.S. students, taught a fair amount (three classes per semester) and had moderate expectations for teaching and research. I am also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, where much of my current research takes place.

            Like most university professors, research is a big part of what I do, and promotions are largely based upon research funding and productivity. Also like most professors, teaching is also a big part of what I do. I have taught a variety of courses over the years, including Physiology, Comparative Physiology, Evolutionary Ecology, Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy, Vertebrate Zoology, and Herpetology. Currently, I teach Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy and Herpetology in alternating semesters at FIU. I also teach a three-week course in Field Herpetology at Mountain Lake Biological Station, which is part of the University of Virginia. Teaching is a core aspect of what I do, and I think about teaching philosophy and practice quite a bit.
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            ​Outside of my job, I like most hobbies that have anything to do with nature- hiking, birding, herping (like birding but with reptiles and amphibians), fishing, and hunting. I also love to travel, both for my job and for fun, hence the name of this blog. 
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Why am I starting a blog now?

9/6/2025

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My primary motivations for blogging now is that I have ideas I want to convey outside of scientific manuscripts, and I am interested in doing more writing that is not for papers and grant proposals. I have also reached a point in my career where I have both opinions that I want to express and I feel empowered to express those opinions (i.e., I have tenure, or at least what passes for tenure in Florida).

            I was also working on a postdoc and looking for a permanent job during the heyday of academic blogs (2012-2015). Since then, I have always enjoyed reading blogs like Small Pond Science/Science for Everyone, Dynamic Ecology, and Scientist Sees Squirrel (and Eco Evo Eco and Sociobiology and many more). It seemed like Twitter had killed off blogs, but post-Twitter meltdown, blogs (or newsletters, which seem to be the same thing) are making a comeback.

            I will be posting at least once a week and I plan to post about research in our field (ecology, evolution, behavior, physiology), science and society, and my experience finding jobs and working as professors in public universities. While part of this is just the exercise of writing, I also hope that what we post is engaging and useful to those who read the blog. I can’t and won’t claim that anything we say will be completely novel, but I hope my perspective is at least interesting for a few people.
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            ​Finally, I call this blog the Itinerant Naturalist, because I love to travel and I have moved a lot for my career, and I aspire to be a good naturalist.
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    Author

    Christian L. Cox is faculty at Florida International University. 

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