New rapid manuscript transferral system to Ecology and Evolution

Methods in Ecology and Evolution (MEE) and the 4 other BES journals recently announced a partnership with Wiley‘s open access journal, Ecology and Evolution. We now offer the authors of good quality research that we are unable to publish, the option to transfer their article to Ecology and Evolution. If the authors of a rejected article are offered this option, and if they choose to … Continue reading New rapid manuscript transferral system to Ecology and Evolution

Diversitree video – starring Mr Blueberry and Fairly-Small-Yellow-Bird

Method’s latest video, “Diversitree”, is now available to view on our YouTube channel. In this quirky demonstration, Mr Blueberry and Fairly-Small-Yellow-Bird disagree on how colour affects the diversification of birds. Rich FitzJohn shows them how to test their hypotheses using the comparative phylogenetic methods implemented in the R package “diversitree”, recently described in the Methods paper “Diversitree: comparative phylogenetic analyses of diversification in R“. This … Continue reading Diversitree video – starring Mr Blueberry and Fairly-Small-Yellow-Bird

New video online – Understanding the causes and consequences of animal movement

We’ve added a new video to our YouTube channel today, entitled “Understanding the causes and consequences of animal movement” by John Fieberg and Mark Ditmer. In this video, John discusses some of the challenges associated with inferring causal relationships among animal movement characteristics and indicators of an animal’s physiological condition.  Specifically, John and Mark explore models that relate estimates of daily movement rates to average … Continue reading New video online – Understanding the causes and consequences of animal movement

Issue 3.5 is now online

Method’s newest issue has just been published online – Issue 3.5 covers a broad range of areas, including abundance estimation, pathology, plant physiology, statistical methods, and much more. The Editor’s highlights include a research article on the advances in multiplex PCR by Daniela Sint and colleagues, and a research article on structured elicitation of expert judgments for threatened species assessment by Marissa F. McBride and … Continue reading Issue 3.5 is now online

New videos – FlexParamCurve

Have a look at our newly updated YouTube channel – we’ve added 2 new videos today, an introduction to FlexParamCurve and a subsequent tutorial. In the introductory video, Steve Oswald (Penn State) and Andre Chiaradia (Phillip Island) discuss how ‘FlexParamCurve’ makes nonlinear curve fitting accessible for non-monotonic parametric curves, through automated curve selection and parametrisation in a mixed effects model framework. They visit Phillip Island’s … Continue reading New videos – FlexParamCurve

Why Simpler Models are Better

(this is the first in a possibly irregular series of posts about papers that catch my eye. I don’t intend to only cover MEE papers, but I had to start somewhere)

ResearchBlogging.orgA perennial worry for anyone building models for the real world is whether they actually represent the real world. If the whole process of finding and fitting a model has been done well, the model will represent the data. But the data is only part of the real world. How can we be sure our model will extrapolated beyond the data?
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Top 10 speciation and evolution papers

Methods will be attending the next ITN Speciation conference 2012 in Jyväskylä, Finland and to mark the occasion, the editorial team has put together a list of some our most relevant work in speciation and evolution. Applications – concise papers describing new software, equipment, or other practical tools: PASSaGE: Pattern Analysis, Spatial Statistics and Geographic Exegesis. Version 2 by Micheal Rosenberg and Corey Anderson RBrownie: … Continue reading Top 10 speciation and evolution papers

Volume 3 Issue 1: Now online

It seems that from the number of submissions we receive at the journal, Methods in Ecology and Evolution has filled an important niche. As our editor-in-chief, Rob Freckleton, wrote to introduce our second volume: “those doing science need to be kept up to date on new approaches, and those developing new methods need a place to publish, as well as be supported in getting their … Continue reading Volume 3 Issue 1: Now online

Detecting effects of predators on prey: the method matters

In a paper published online today in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Malcolm Nicoll and Ken Norris look at a controversial issue, that of detecting effects of predators on bird populations. This is controversial because some predators, especially raptors, were formerly rather scarce, but have become more abundant in recent years – in the case of raptors because organochloride chemicals are not used any more. … Continue reading Detecting effects of predators on prey: the method matters

New papers – problems with matrix models & measuring species richness

We have two new papers online this week: In the first, David Watson looks at the problem of measuring diversity in highly diverse vertebrate communities. He shows that methods usually used for arthropod communities can be applied to monitoring bird populations. The analyses he performed answered important questions, such as: what effort is required to completely inventory a site? And, what is the least effort … Continue reading New papers – problems with matrix models & measuring species richness