Author: Harriet Rhodes

Field Methods

A short guide for effective field data collection

Post provided by Faith Jones, Helen Spence-Jones, and Caroline Greiser Fieldwork is the foundation of ecological science. From observational and monitoring studies, to experiments done in complex real-world conditions, to ground-truthing models: we can’t hope to understand ecology if we don’t actually check what is happening in nature. The love of being outdoors has also attracted many of us to careers in ecology: fieldwork remains … Continue reading A short guide for effective field data collection

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Methods papers

From Trowels to TensorFlow: Bridging the Gap Between Ancient Past and Digital Future

Post provided by Margot Belot If you had asked me a few years ago what I would be doing today, I probably would have told you I’d be digging up ancient artefacts somewhere or cataloguing them in a museum. My background is in Archaeology and Art History; for a long time, my world revolved around the tactile nature of physical objects, carefully handling, describing, and … Continue reading From Trowels to TensorFlow: Bridging the Gap Between Ancient Past and Digital Future

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Ecology

Detecting and classifying animal calls from audio data using animal2vec

Post provided by Julian Schäfer-Zimmermann An introduction for people lacking a machine-learning background We provide a non-technical explanation of the animal2vec framework, including its capabilities and potential for usage in animal behavior, ecology, and conservation research. This summary is intended as a starting point for people lacking a technical background (e.g., field biologists) interested in understanding how the system works and what makes it unique … Continue reading Detecting and classifying animal calls from audio data using animal2vec

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Ecology

Seeing the Hearing: How 3D Photogrammetry Reveals Directional Hearing in Animals

Post provided by Karsten Vesterholm I’m a Postdoc in the Sound and Behaviour research group at the Department of Biology at the University of Southern Denmark, where I work in the Bat Echolocation Lab. We are particularly interested in understanding how bats use directional hearing as part of their echolocation. Direction of hearing is determined primarily by the shape and orientation of the outer ear … Continue reading Seeing the Hearing: How 3D Photogrammetry Reveals Directional Hearing in Animals

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Code and Applications, Uncategorized

Tracking animals in an underwater maze

Post provided by Edward Lavender Skating in the deep A decade ago, the Movement Ecology of Flapper Skate project was established to track flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) in Scotland. Flapper skate are large, flattened, benthic animals, with pale undersides and mottled, grey-brown colouration above. Growing in excess of two metres long, they roam over the seabed down to depths of 1200 m. It is thought … Continue reading Tracking animals in an underwater maze

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Code and Applications, Field Methods

Teaching Models to Listen to Bats: The Story Behind BSG-BATS

Post provided by Katarina Meramo Bats are extraordinary animals. They fly, echolocate, and navigate in absolute darkness, and produce some of the most complex acoustic signals in the mammalian world. They pollinate, disperse seeds, control insect populations, and quietly hold ecosystems together. Yet, despite their importance, monitoring bats – particularly across large spatial and temporal scales – remains remarkably challenging. Over the past decade, bioacoustic … Continue reading Teaching Models to Listen to Bats: The Story Behind BSG-BATS

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Journal Issues

Our December issue is out now!

This issue contains the latest methods in ecology and evolution. Read the last issue of the year to find out about this month’s featured articles and the article behind our cover! Featured Fast‐tracking ecological interpretation using bespoke quantitative large language models There is untapped potential to apply large language models (LLMs) to quantitative ecological and environmental datasets. Here, authors present a roadmap for designing and … Continue reading Our December issue is out now!

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Journal updates

Workflows: A New Paper Type for Methods

Beginning in 2026, Methods in Ecology and Evolution will accept submissions of a new paper type – Workflows – for consideration for review and eventual publication in the journal. Up until now, we have generally considered manuscripts that describe a way to organise existing methods into a useful sequence to analyse an interesting set of data, make one’s computational life easier, or creating a package … Continue reading Workflows: A New Paper Type for Methods

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Journal Issues

Our November issue is out now!

This issue contains the latest methods in ecology and evolution. Read to find out about this month’s featured articles and the article behind our cover! Featured Current frontiers in the passive acoustic monitoring of bats Passive acoustic monitoring of bats is used in a growing number of studies in applied and basic research. Despite the publication of good-practice recommendations, several unsettled debates persist about the … Continue reading Our November issue is out now!

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