Code and Applications, Ecology, Methods papers, Statistical methods, Theoretical methods

A brief history about the R package ‘metan’

Post provided by Tiago Olivoto

Este post também pode ser lido em Português

In our recent paper in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Alessandro Lúcio and I describe a new R package, metan, for multi-environment trial analysis. Multi-environment trials are a kind of trial in plant breeding programs where several genotypes are evaluated in a set of environments. Analyzing such data requires the combination of several approaches including data manipulation, visualization and modelling. The latest stable version of metan (v1.5.1) is now on CRAN. So, I want to share the history about my first foray into using R, creating an R package, and submitting a paper to a journal that I’ve never had submitted before.

Daniel CaetanoMay 28, 2020May 26, 20201 Comment

Conservation and management, Ecology, Field Methods, Practical Tools, Statistical methods, Theoretical methods

An interview with the editors of “Population Ecology in Practice”: Part I

Post provided by Daniel Caetano

Today we bring the first part of an interview with Dennis Murray and Brett Sandercock about their brand new book in population ecology methods: “Population Ecology in Practice.” The editors were kind enough to share some interesting backstage information with us.

Population Ecology in Practice introduces a synthesis of analytical and modelling approaches currently used in demographic, genetic, and spatial analyses. Chapters provide examples based on real datasets together with a companion website with study cases and exercises implemented in the R statistical programming language.

Stay tuned for the second part of this interview, where we talk about some of the challenges of editing a large book and the editors share essential advice for anyone looking into leading such a project!

Daniel CaetanoMay 26, 2020May 21, 20201 Comment

Ecology, Evolution, International Days

The Ecology of Dance

Post provided by Chloe Robinson

Dance has been part of human culture for millennia. Some scholars refer to dance as a specific language, dependent on the space and time in which it exists and dependent on the power structures that rule in that time. April 29^th marks International Dance Day; a day initiated in 1982 by the International Dance Committee of the UNESCO International Theatre Institute to commemorate the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre, a distinguished French choreographer.

Male *Maratus volans* peacock spider. Picture credit: Jürgen Otto.

For humans, dance is considered a sacred ritual, sometimes a form of communication and sometimes an important social and courtship activity. A recent study has even linked the innate ability to dance with greater survival rates in prehistoric times. However, for certain species of wild animal, dance-like behaviours are crucial for communication and mating. In this blog, I am going to highlight the evolutionary foundations of dance in wild animals and explore some of the ways that dance is used in ecology.