Shifting career pathways of Ph.D. ecologists: Is it time to redefine the "alternative" career?"

Graduate programs in ecology tend to emphasize academic careers for Ph.D. candidates, while viewing non academic careers (e.g., those in government, non-governmental organizations, and industry) as “alternatives.” Here, we demonstrate that although the number of Ph.D.’s granted in ecology has increased nearly 3-fold since 1966, less than 20% of those graduates obtain jobs in academia within 5 years of graduation. Furthermore, while it takes a median of 3 years following receipt of a Ph.D. to obtain a tenure-track job in ecology, high variability in recent decades means that Ph.D. graduates have an approximately equal chance of spending anywhere from one to more than five years in soft-money, post-doctoral positions. In sum, the majority of Ph.D. graduates in ecology do not end up in academic careers, and those that eventually do will spend a significant yet variable amount of time in soft-money and temporary positions. We therefore argue that academia is the new alternative career, and that ecology as a discipline would benefit from tailoring graduate training to include skills relevant to non-academic careers while also increasing transparency about the career paths of Ph.D. recipients