Reflections on Papers Past is a collection of back-stories and recollections about famous scientific papers in Ecology, Evolution, Behaviour and Conservation based on interviews with their authors. To find out more about the project click here.
Full interviews with authors about the making of their papers and the papers’ fates after publication
Thematic collections of quotes showcasing human stories behind scientific papers
Scientific papers annotated with author back-stories and reflections
A library of photos and other visuals connected to the back-stories of scientific papers
Latest Posts
Revisiting Brown 1988
In a paper published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology in 1988, Joel Brown developed a method to use a forager’s giving up density on a resource patch to understand energetic, predation and missed opportunity costs of foraging and then demonstrated its...
Revisiting Gilbert 2001
In a paper published in Developmental Biology in 2001, Scott Gilbert laid out a vision for the reintegration of developmental biology and ecology. While in its early days, developmental biology paid great attention to the environmental context, in the twentieth...
Revisiting Müller 2007
Evolutionary Developmental Biology (evo-devo for short) was established as a formal discipline in the early 80s and from soon after started making its presence felt in diverse areas of biological research. In 2007, roughly 25 years after the field’s establishment,...
Revisiting Laland et al. 2015
In a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B in 2015, Kevin Lala, Tobias Uller, Marcus Feldman, Kim Sterelny, Gerd Müller, Armin Moczek, Eva Jablonka and John Odling-Smee laid out their vision for an "Extended Evolutionary Synthesis" (EES), a new...
Revisiting Taborsky 1984
In a paper published in Animal Behaviour in 1984, Michael Taborsky presented a cost-benefit analysis of helping behaviour in the cichlid fish Lamprologus brichardi. In this species, individuals of earlier broods stay on in their parents' territories and contribute...
Revisiting Johnsingh 1983
In a paper published in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society in 1983, AJT Johnsingh reported the findings of his study on large mammalian predators and prey in Bandipur Tiger Reserve, Karnataka. This study formed part of Johnsingh's PhD dissertation on...
Revisiting Daniels et al. 1992
In a paper published in PNAS in 1992, RJ Ranjit Daniels, NV Joshi and Madhav Gadgil reported that bird richness declined with increasing woody plant diversity and vertical stratification in natural evergreen forests in Uttara Kannada district of the Western Ghats,...
Revisiting Chapin 2004
In an article published in World Watch magazine in 2004, Mac Chapin critiqued the work and style of functioning of three big conservation NGOS -- World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Conservation International (CI), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) -- , especially in...