Resources

Aquatic Ecology at the University of Michigan

The School for Environment and Sustainability and the University of Michigan have a number of properties that are great places to do field research. These also include: the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) and the E.S. George Reserve. 

We also have great opportunities for collaboration through the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR) and the Institute for Fisheries Research (IFR) and with colleagues at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (GLERL) and USGS Great Lakes Science Center.

Life in Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor is a great place to live and work. The city has many parks and natural areas. People enjoy the frequent live music, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival and Art Fair, fishing and kayaking in the Huron River, and biking in the summer and cross-country skiing in the winter. The Border-to-Border trail connects Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti to the east and is heading west to Dexter and the Pinckney Recreation Area.

To get an idea of the local food community check out Foodloose in Washtenaw: A foodie's guide to Washtenaw County  by Taylor Landeryou and Raymond De Young from SEAS. Michigan also has hundreds of Craft Breweries (many in the Ann Arbor area).

Ann Arbor is also a short 30 minutes to the Detroit International Airport and 40 minutes from the City of Detroit where you can visit the Detroit Institute of Arts, take in Jazz Fest, the Riverwalk in the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge,  or visit the Belle Isle Aquarium or watch a Tigers game.

Undergrad Resources

Tips for undergraduates who've just started working in a research lab

Putting together a poster for the research fair or a conference? How to design an award-winning conference poster

Tweets from Undergrad in the Lab

Graduate Student and Postdoc Resources

There are a few extensive compilations of resources on everything ranging from choosing graduate programs, to writing grant proposals, to teaching and applying for postdocs and jobs; I won't try to replicate their efforts: Spencer Hall's Resources for Graduate Students and Post Docs and Marissa Baskett's Links and Resources and Robert Sterner's Professional Skills for Graduate Students.  Also, I highly recommend this curated collection of resources from the Moore Inclusive Conservation Lab.

Thoughtful blog posts: Modest Advice for New Graduate Students

The PLOS Collection of Ten Simple Rules...for just about everything

Advice on what to bring to a meeting with your advisor

Paul Silva's book How to Write a Lot (Hint: Practice!)

The British Ecological Society's Guides to Peer Review, Reproducible Code, Getting Published, and Data Management

Advise for all sorts of pursuits (pursuing positions, writing reviews, teaching, etc)  from the Early Career Section of the Ecological Society of America

Resources on Getting a Job in Academia

A thought provoking essay by by Radhika Nagpal: The Awesomest 7-Year Postdoc or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-Track Faculty Life

Frank advice from The Professor is In

Create a Google Scholar Profile this is perhaps the easiest way to make your research accessible to academics

Resources for Getting a Job Outside Academia

PhDs finish with more than a degree; "So What Are You Going to Do with That?": Finding Careers Outside Academia by Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius explains how to package transferable skills for applications outside of academia.

Summaries of the skills employers value in conservation biology and fisheries related fields.

Women in Science and Gender Bias

Must read papers in ecology, why we have a biased view, and a more inclusive list

Resources from 500 Women Scientists

Software

R resources- 

I recommend using R Studio and R Markdown for writing, annotating and implementing code. R Studio also publishes a number of helpful R cheat sheets. 

There are unending tutorials and helpful websites for learning and debugging R Code. Goggling a topic or an error message will often lead you to something helpful in StackOverflow or Cross Validated for example- Free Resources for Learning R. A couple of resources that I've found helpful include Quick-R and Dolph Schluter's R Tips.

Reference Managers-

As your PDF collection grows, using a reference managing software will help you to stay organized. I recommend Mendeley which allows you to designate papers to project folders, take notes and easily format citations in manuscripts.

Using a Browser Bookmark to access papers-

When not on a campus computer or using an MWireless network connection, you can use the proxy server bookmarklet to check for a library subscription to specific content. 

Fishes

Division of Fishes at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology

Atlas of Michigan Fishes by Bailey, R.M., W.C. Latta, and G.R. Smith 

Fishes of Wisconsin by George Becker with online key

Freshwater/Great Lakes Coloring Sheets! by Taaja Tucker

Environmental Change

FOURTH NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States

Recent review of Emerging threats and persistent conservation challenges for freshwater biodiversity