Harbingers of a Replicability Crisis in Ecology

Dr. Kaitlin Kimmel-Hass

Environmental Data Scientist
Global Water Security Center
University of Alabama

Scientific evidence is supposed to be objective – it is not supposed to be influenced by outside biases or influences. However, in many scientific disciplines, common research practices have been shown to lead to unreliable and exaggerated evidence about scientific phenomena. Here, I will explore the pervasiveness of some of these practices from an empirical analysis of over 350 recent ecology publications from five popular journals. Our analyses show evidence of exaggeration bias (e.g., inflated effect sizes) and selective reporting of statistically significant results. An exaggerated evidence base hinders the ability of empirical ecology to reliably contribute to science, policy, and management. To conclude, I will talk about several actions that ecologists can take to increase the credibility of empirical ecological research to avoid a replicability crisis.