Long-term ecological studies' practices and goals for trainees

We created a survey for the other authors in the 2024 Ecology Letters special issue on very long-term ecological studies about their practices and goals for trainees. We received 27 responses from researchers around the world studying a broad range of organisms across ecosystems. In more than half of the responding programs, undergraduate students collect, curate, and analyze data, as well as develop research questions, present at conferences, and contribute to writing scientific papers. Unlike our program, which primarily recruits from one university, other long-term studies often target a variety of institutions (79% of respondents). About half reported targeted recruitment of students from marginalized identities and a similar proportion paid students for their work. Students were slightly more likely to collaborate with a cohort of other students (3.8 in 1-5 Likert scale) and have peer cohort building activities (3.6 in 1-5 Likert scale). When asked to rank the helpful characteristi..., We sent a survey to other scientists that submitted a proposal to the Ecology Letters special issue on very long-term ecological studies. The survey questions covered the following topics:

Duration of study
Trainee recruitment
Trainee involvement in the scientific process
Trainee mentorship and support
Compensation for trainees
Perceived value of program for trainees.
, , # Long-term ecological studies' practices and goals for trainees

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7sqv9s51h](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7sqv9s51h)

We surveyed long-term ecological studies that submitted a proposal to an *Ecology Letters* special issue on very-long term studies to investigate opportunities and priorities for trainees. Our survey was open August-November 2023 and we received 27 complete responses. Questions on the survey covered:

* How long has the long-term study been running?
* How are trainees recruited?
* What tasks do trainees perform?
* What mentorship and support are available to trainees?
* Are trainees compensated?
* What is the perceived utility of the study to trainees' development as scientists?

## Description of the data and file structure

Our dataset contains one CSV file (long-term-studies-survey-responses.csv) with aggregated survey responses. Personal identifying information of survey respondents has been removed. The fields in the CSV file are:

* ...