Category: Conservation and management

Conservation and management, Ecology

Practical tools to advance Image-Based bio-logging in marine ecosystems

Post provided by Marianna Chimienti My name is Dr Marianna Chimienti, and I am a lecturer in Marine Top Predator Ecology at the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University (UK). I’m fascinated by animal movements. My main research focuses on understanding how, where, when, and why animals move, using bio-logging technology (devices attached to animals that can record location, depth, acceleration, orientation, environmental conditions, … Continue reading Practical tools to advance Image-Based bio-logging in marine ecosystems

Unknown's avatarplydtanthera1 Comment
Conservation and management, Ecology, Field Methods

The Ground Beneath Their Feet: Listening in on Africa’s wildlife using seismic sensors

Post provided by René Steinmann Hi, I’m a geophysicist by training, but I’ve recently shifted my focus from studying the solid Earth to some of its living inhabitants. I now work at the intersection of geophysics, wildlife biology, and machine learning. My recent research brings together these seemingly distant worlds in a project that’s all about listening—not to singing birds, but to the subtle vibrations … Continue reading The Ground Beneath Their Feet: Listening in on Africa’s wildlife using seismic sensors

Unknown's avatarplydtantheraLeave a comment
Conservation and management

Using citizen science data to track migratory shorebird populations

Post provided by Sam Nicol (He/Him)

Are you an eBirder who loves waders? Do you ever wonder where the birds that you see go after you’ve studiously uploaded your counts to the database? It’s a good question, and in the past, it has been surprisingly hard to answer. In this post, Sam Nicol discusses how citizen science is being used to investigate bird migration.

Continue reading “Using citizen science data to track migratory shorebird populations”
Unknown's avatarBen Whittaker1 Comment
Conservation and management, Field Methods

Understanding climate change through animal song

Post provided by Diego Llusia (he/him), Camille Desjonquères (she/her) and Sara Víllen-Peréz (she/her)

Many species produce sound as a means of communication, emitting calls or songs to broadcast information to others in the surrounding area. In this blog post, Diego Llusia, Camille Desjonquères, and Sara Víllen-Peréz discuss their research on recording animal calls and how these soundtracks can be used to help monitor the impacts of climate change. 

Continue reading “Understanding climate change through animal song“
Unknown's avatarBen Whittaker1 Comment
Conservation and management, Field Methods, Methods papers

Tracking harbour porpoises around gill nets

Post provided by Jamie Macaulay Entanglement in net fisheries (static and drift) is the largest known cause of direct anthropogenic mortality to many small cetacean species, including harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), in UK waters. Despite this, little is known about the behaviour of small cetaceans in proximity to nets. In this blog post, Jamie Macaulay discusses the findings of his Methods in Ecology & Evolution … Continue reading Tracking harbour porpoises around gill nets

Unknown's avatarChloe V. RobinsonLeave a comment
Conservation and management

Assessing impacts of ocean warming on marine fishes

Post provided by Chi-Yun Kuo

Predicting the effects of ocean warming is vital for understanding the likely impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems. In this post, Chi-Yun Kuo shares insights from his recent publication in Methods in Ecology and Evolution which develops a framework for estimating the effects of warming water on communities of marine fishes, and discusses the implications for conservation, food security, and other ecosystem services. 

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Unknown's avatarBen WhittakerLeave a comment
Conservation and management, Ecology, Field Methods, Methods papers

Insect tracking using retroreflective tags

Post provided by Michael Smith Tracking bee movement is anything but an easy task. Electronic tags are often too cumbersome and extensive electronic systems such as radars are costly to deploy. There is a need for a low-cost, low-impact tool, with high spatial resolution for tracking bees, to investigate how far they forage. In this blog post, Michael Smith discusses the development of retroreflective tags … Continue reading Insect tracking using retroreflective tags

Unknown's avatarChloe V. RobinsonLeave a comment
Conservation and management, Field Methods, Methods papers, Practical Tools

Non-invasive playback experiments allow for rigorous studies of wildlife interactions

Post provided by Meredith Palmer, Chris “Akiba” Wang, Jacinta Plucinski & Robert M. Pringle

The BoomBox ABR deployed with a Bushnell TrophyCam camera trap in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique

Camera traps are a valuable tool in ecological research, especially for capturing large quantities of information on the behaviour of an array of wildlife within an ecological community. Camera traps are seldom used to experimentally testing key animal behaviour hypotheses, despite the potential offered by the non-invasive technology. In this blog post, Dr. Meredith Palmer and co-authors discuss the application of the ‘BoomBox’ camera trap module that allows researchers to conduct a unique suite of manipulative experiments on free-living species in complex environments, as published in their Methods in Ecology and Evolution article ‘BoomBox: An Automated Behavioral Response (ABR) Camera Trap Module for Wildlife Playback Experiments’.

Continue reading “Non-invasive playback experiments allow for rigorous studies of wildlife interactions”
Unknown's avatarChloe V. Robinson1 Comment
Conservation and management, Statistical methods

Let’s get real: translating species distribution models into conservation practice

Post provided by Veronica F. Frans

Species distribution models (SDMs) are popular methods for identifying important habitats for species, but what does it take to translate SDMs into conservation practice? In this post, Veronica Frans discusses the applications of iSDMdb as featured in the paper, “Integrated SDM database: enhancing the relevance and utility of species distribution models in conservation management”, recently published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Continue reading “Let’s get real: translating species distribution models into conservation practice”
Unknown's avatarBen WhittakerLeave a comment
Conservation and management, Ecology

On foot snares and felids

By Methods in Ecology and Evolution Executive Editor Aaron M. Ellison A recent Practical Tools article published in Methods in Ecology & Evolution described a foot snare used to capture jaguars and cougars in Brazil (Ribeiro de Araujo et al. 2021a). Within hours of the posting of the proofed version of the article on the Early View section of the journal’s website, comments on Twitter … Continue reading On foot snares and felids

Unknown's avatarIndia StephensonLeave a comment