A belated happy new year! Here is this month’s round-up of methods papers published in the last month. Do let me know if there are any papers that I have missed that could be featured.

In Systematic Biology Brian O’Meara presents new heuristics for joint species delimitation and tree inference. A new comparative method for logistic regression controlling for phylogeny is outlined by Ives & Garland, and Wertheim et al. publish an analysis of the use of relaxed clocks in phylogenetic inference.

Marc Cadotte and colleagues outline in the latest issue of Ecology Letters new metrics for measuring phylogenetic diversity in ecological communities.

In the Journal of Applied Ecology Len Thomas and colleagues present a review of distance sampling and its use in estimating population size; Marc Kéry and co-workers illustrate a method for estimating trends from replicated count data when detection is imperfect; Deanna Dawson and Murray Efford demonstrate a new method for estimating bird densities from acoustic data. William Kendall and Gary White have a cautionary note on substituting spatial subnits for temporally replicated sampling in estimating site occupancy.

A ‘how to’ paper in Journal of Animal Ecology by Alastair Wilson et al. presents a review and guide to using the ‘animal model’ in quantitative genetics.

In Global Ecology and Biogeography Cabral & Schurr have a paper illustrating a method for linking range dynamics and demographic models in the Fynbos. Andrés Baselga has a paper in the same issue illustrating a method for disentangling the contributions of spatial turnover and nestedness to beta diversity.

Tommaso Zillion and Fangliang He publish in Oikos a new method for linking species abundance distributions across scales.

In Journal of Ecology Damgaard & Fayolle present a new method for estimating the influence of competition in plants.

A mini-review by Gavin Stewart and colleagues in Conservation Letters reviews the design of temperate marine reserves from a analytic perspective. In the same issue Kyle Van Houtan et al. look at the effectiveness of translocations in conserving endangered species.