A common thought among graduate students is: “how do established scientists get where they are today?” In Serendipity: An Ecologist’s Quest to Understand Nature, James Estes offers a personal reflection on research experiences spanning his 50-year career, beginning as a Ph.D. student in 1970 and concluding with recognition as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2014. Estes chronologically outlines the foundational trophic cascade ecology research that he and colleagues conducted in the Aleutian Islands, examining key relationships among kelp forests, sea otters, sea urchins, and killer whales through anecdotal stories of achievement and challenge. Estes’ 3 main goals in writing this book are to: (1) recount what he had learned from 50 years of research; (2) provide a larger story of how predators and prey interact with one another; and (3) explain how science “really happens.
