Academic musing by Hendry, Bolnick, Gotanda, and awesome guests. Opinions and statements expressed on this blog are the views of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent endorsement by the blog administrators.
Analogies can be useful ways of explaining complicated ideas - but they can also be problematic. Reviewers of a recent paper were having trouble understanding a rather intricate idea we were presenting. Thus, on revision, I attempted an analogy. I liked the analogy and found it helpful but - whether unfortunately or not - it didn't make it into the final paper. It was left on the cutting room floor, so to speak. Still, I kind of like it and so provide it here - with context.
Led by Sarah Sanderson, we recently conducted several studies that tested the hypothesis that populations living in areas with low levels of a limiting nutrient would show compromised performance for traits depending on that nutrient. Specifically, we first tested whether fish populations living in water with very low calcium levels would show reduced levels of calcium in their scales. This work was possible because several native species can be found across an environmental gradient in calcium levels, from