[xaa]

18 papers now (bioinformatics & molecular biology) and I have never seen a single authorship dispute. If you are a middle author, complaining about position is biting the hand that feeds you. Most people know better than that. Also, it doesn't even matter as there are only 3 real positions on papers: first, last, and everything else.

Coauthorship IME has always been extremely amiable. Often, when I am a middle author, I almost feel that I'm being done a favor by being put as a coauthor when I didn't do that much work (but I did make a material contribution). Conversely, as a first or senior author, it costs you nothing to add coauthors and gains you goodwill. It's win-win. It's very easy to get coauthorships if you keep your eyes open.

In my experience, if you want to succeed as a Ph.D. in the sciences you have to find a niche that puts you in the position of being useful to other people rather than in competition with them. If you don't, you will fail. If you do, it is almost comically easy to be at least moderately successful.