Category: Virtual Issues

Journal updates, Virtual Issues

Advances in Phylogenetic Methods – The Applications Papers

Original Image ©PLOS One Phylogeny
Original Image ©PLOS One Phylogeny

Timed to coincide with Evolution 2015, we have released a new Virtual Issue on Phylogenetic Methods. All of the articles in this Virtual Issue will be freely available for a limited period.

On Friday, we gave some more information about the research articles in this Virtual Issue. In this post, we will be focusing on the Applications papers.

Applications papers introduce new tools for research, which provide practitioners with an important source of information and background on the tools they use. In this Virtual Issue we have highlighted the newest Applications papers that describe how phylogenetic methods are contributing to the fields of ecology and evolution. These include tools with aims as diverse as phylogenetic tree reconstruction and analysing phylogenetic diversity in communities. All Applications papers, not just those in the Virtual Issue, are free to access.

You can see a little more information on each of the Applications Papers below.

Continue reading “Advances in Phylogenetic Methods – The Applications Papers”

Unknown's avatarIndia Stephenson1 Comment
Journal updates, Virtual Issues

Virtual Issue: Advances in Phylogenetic Methods

Original Image ©PLOS One Phylogeny
Original Image ©PLOS One Phylogeny

Timed to coincide with Evolution 2015, we have released a new Virtual Issue on Phylogenetic Methods. All of the articles in this Virtual Issue will be freely available for a limited period.

An understanding of the tree of life contributes to many facets of biology. This Virtual Issue has assembled studies that showcase the breadth of the utility of phylogenetic trees, including phylogenetic beta diversity, trait evolution, diversification, biodiversity studies, phylogenetic signal, biogeography, ecosystem functioning, and host-pathogen dynamics.

The Research papers included are excellent examples of new ways that phylogenies can be applied to central questions in ecology, evolution and biodiversity, such as measuring niche conservatism, trait evolution and diversification rates. The issue also has articles on barcoding methods, which increasingly are used to understand phylogenetic and functional diversity.

You can see a little more information on each of the articles below.

Continue reading “Virtual Issue: Advances in Phylogenetic Methods”

Unknown's avatarIndia Stephenson1 Comment
General, Journal updates, Methods papers, Robert May Prize, Society, Virtual Issues

2014 Robert May Prize Winner: Laure Gallien

The Robert May Prize is awarded annually for the best paper published in Methods by a young author at the start of their research career. We’re delighted to announce that the 2014 winner is Laure Gallien, for her article ‘Identifying the signal of environmental filtering and competition in invasion patterns – a contest of approaches from community ecology‘.

Today, biological invasions are of major concern for maintaining biodiversity. However, understanding what drives the success of invasive species at the scale of the community remains a challenge. Two processes have been described as main drivers of the coexistence between invasive and native species: environmental filtering and competitive interactions. However, recent reviews have shown that competitive interactions are rarely detected, and thus their importance as drivers of invasion success placed under question. But can this be due to pure methodological issues? Using a simulation model of community assembly, Laure and co-authors (Marta Carboni and Tamara Münkemüller) show that the infrequent detection of competition can arise from three important methodological shortcomings, and provide guidelines for future studies of invasion drivers at the scale of the community.

Continue reading “2014 Robert May Prize Winner: Laure Gallien”

Unknown's avatarIndia Stephenson3 Comments
General, Journal updates, Methods papers, Virtual Issues

Modelling Demographic Processes in Marked Populations: Proceedings of the EURING 2013 analytical meeting

By Charles M. Francis, Richard J. Barker, Evan G. Cooch This joint Special Feature (published in MEE and the open access journal Ecology and Evolution) brings together a series of papers presented at the EURING 2013 technical conference that, collectively, cover many of the latest developments in the analysis of data from marked individuals to estimate demographic parameters, such as survival, recruitment, nest success, density, population size … Continue reading Modelling Demographic Processes in Marked Populations: Proceedings of the EURING 2013 analytical meeting

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General, Journal updates, Methods papers, Online extras, Society, Virtual Issues

Open Access Week 2014

Once more Open Access Week has rolled around. At MEE we operate a hybrid model: although we are a subscription journal, authors can choose to make their papers open access (for a price – sorry). Over the past year, 21 papers have been published as open access (listed here). They span the range of topics we cover, including citizen science, using cell phones, and asking … Continue reading Open Access Week 2014

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General, Journal updates, Methods papers, Online extras, Virtual Issues

Ecology in China

At MEE we are looking to publish the best methodological papers. It is no surprise, then, that we are able to contribute several papers to this ‘Ecology in China’ Virtual Issue. The topics covered range from an elegant new way of using very old technology (Zhao et al.) to methods based on next generation sequencing to investigate biodiversity (for example Liu et al.). It is … Continue reading Ecology in China

Unknown's avatarSamantha Ponton1 Comment
General, Journal updates, Methods papers, Online extras, Statistical methods, Virtual Issues

Ecological statistics are methods too!

Methods in Ecology and Evolution has been publishing papers on statistical ecology since its inception in 2010. Since the last ISEC meeting, we have published many more papers, of an increasing quality and influence. We have put together a Virtual Issue to showcase some of those papers (but it also misses out many more that will be just as interesting)!. The papers chosen show the … Continue reading Ecological statistics are methods too!

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General, Journal updates, Methods papers, Virtual Issues

Top methods in ecology and evolution

What links tea bags, glove puppets, vandalism, and cheddar? Or catching birds, bug soup, criminal profiling, snow leopards and jaguars? Methods in Ecology and Evolution, obviously! We have now been publishing new methods for over 4 years, and the sheer variety of papers we have received is quite amazing: field, lab, statistics, simulations and computing. All areas of methodology have been covered, as have all … Continue reading Top methods in ecology and evolution

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General, Journal updates, Methods papers, Robert May Prize, Society, Virtual Issues

2013 Robert May Prize Winner

The Robert May Prize is awarded annually for the best paper published in Methods by a young author at the start of their research career. We’re delighted to announce that the 2013 winner is Will Pearse, for his Application article “phyloGenerator: an automated phylogeny generation tool for ecologists”. Although ecologists frequently want to make use of phylogenies, they often lack the skills to create detailed … Continue reading 2013 Robert May Prize Winner

Unknown's avatarSamantha PontonLeave a comment
General, Journal updates, Methods papers, Virtual Issues

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

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