If you could invent a method, what would it be?

At INTECOL 2013, Methods’ Associate Editor, Barb Anderson, interviewed a number of delegates and asked them: If you could invent a method, what would it be?

The answers in this podcast are given by the following people:

  1. Carsten Dormann, University of Freiburg, Germany (00.17)
  2. Helen Roy, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, UK (00.36)
  3. Georgina Mace, University College London, UK (01.01) Continue reading “If you could invent a method, what would it be?”

Data archiving mandate

Until now, Methods and the other BES Journals have recommended that authors should archive any data associated with their papers; from 6th January 2014, this will be required for publication. The thinking behind this is that all raw data should be preserved in a usable form for future generations of researchers; a third-party should be able to reproduce a study independently and perform their own … Continue reading Data archiving mandate

What are the newest methods being used?

At INTECOL 2013, Methods’ Associate Editor, Barb Anderson, interviewed a number of delegates and asked them: What is the newest method that you currently use?

The answers in this podcast are given by the following people:

  1. Bill Sutherland, University of Cambridge, UK (00.18)
  2. Georgina Mace, University College London, UK (01.04)
  3. Simon Leather, Harper Adams University, UK (01.12) Continue reading “What are the newest methods being used?”

Issue 4.12

mee-4-12-coverlargeThe final issue of the year is now available online!

One of this month’s articles, ‘Calculating the ecological impacts of animal-borne instruments on aquatic organisms’ by Todd Jones et al., was picked up by the press after the University of British Columbia published the press release ‘Tagging aquatic animals can disrupt natural behaviour‘. Todd also summarises his study in an accompanying video which can be viewed on the Methods YouTube channel.

There are 2 freely available application articles included in this issue: ‘Animal social Continue reading “Issue 4.12”

An interview with the Tea Bag Index team

The Tea Bag Index is an innovative, cost-effective, well-standardised method recently covered in MEE, used to gather data on decomposition rate and litter stabilisation using commercially available tea bags as standardised test kits. In this video, David Warton interviews 2 of the authors, Joost Keuskamp and Mariet Hefting from Utrecht University, who explain how it works and what they plan to do with it in … Continue reading An interview with the Tea Bag Index team

Issue 4.11

Issue 4.11 is now online! This issue includes articles on distance sampling, statistics, survey data, seed dispersal, decomposition, food webs and species diversity. This month we’d like to highlight 2 open access papers: Rapid Bayesian inference of heritability in animal models without convergence problems, by Jon Ahlinder and Mikko J. Sillanpää, and Spatial models for distance sampling data: recent developments and future directions, by David … Continue reading Issue 4.11

BES Virtual Issue: Ecología en América del Sur

Taking place this week is the joint meeting of the Argentinian Ecological Association and the Chilean Ecological Society. To mark this event, the BES journals would like to highlight some of our South American content to date. Read the Virtual Issue here: Ecología en América del Sur. Continue reading BES Virtual Issue: Ecología en América del Sur

Tagging aquatic animals can disrupt natural behavior

In this video Todd Jones gives a summary of his recent study, which aims to increase our understanding of the impact that carrying electronic tags can have on aquatic animals. Does the increased drag have power implications? Do the tags themselves affect the behavior of the animals? To answer these questions Todd and his colleagues made cast models of sea turtles and put them in … Continue reading Tagging aquatic animals can disrupt natural behavior