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Comment by kazinator | Hacker News Reader

> studying charismatic megafauna gets you lots of money

May I ask how so? Is it from producing popular documentaries or something? Or is there the research grant money from conservationist institutions or societies? (I can see how that wouldn't be there for parasites).

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Donors. They want something that makes them feel good. Something to talk about at a cocktail party. LCM: large charismatic mammal; I'm saving pandas is better than the parasitic anderson wasp* that lives out its lifecycle in some gross fungus thing

*imaginary bug

Your point is well taken that pandas are probably a quick pitch for the right crowd, but “lots of money” seems optimistic for wildlife/conservation biology funding. That said, raising money for diseases of __human__ inhabitants of the developing world is typically quite a challenge. Counter to the focus of this thread, obesity is where it’s at right now for abundant funding.

It comes down to a lot of factors, but a big one is the diversity of funding sources. If you study a species that doesn't have broad appeal, you're probably looking at NSF funding, maybe USDA. If you study a game animal you can tap into all sorts of funding sources, like Ducks Unlimited, etc. You might be able to get state or federal wildlife agency funding. You might get a weird, wealthy donor who like sharks.

NSF grants are still the most important and impressive for most subfields within ecology, but the competition is fierce.

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