Measuring canopy fuel loads in boreal forests accurately and efficiently using a smartphone

Our Associate Editor Ryan Chisholm of the National University of Singapore tells us about the recent Practical Tools article he handled for MEE which presents a method for estimating canopy fuel load from hemispherical photographs. Fire is a natural process in many ecosystems, but large-scale intense fires can threaten biodiversity, as well as human life and property. Although the annual global area burnt has decreased … Continue reading Measuring canopy fuel loads in boreal forests accurately and efficiently using a smartphone

India StephensonDecember 15, 2021December 15, 2021Leave a comment

Meetings

Meet the Senior Editor: Natalie Cooper

After six years as an Associate Editor for MEE, we are very pleased to welcome Natalie Cooper to the Senior Editor team! Natalie is a Senior Researcher at the Natural History Museum, London, where her research sits at the interface between macroecology and macroevolution, aiming to understand broad-scale patterns of biodiversity. Here we visit Natalie behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum to get … Continue reading Meet the Senior Editor: Natalie Cooper

India StephensonDecember 14, 2021December 14, 2021Leave a comment

Colour Countdown

Why are some mammals black and white?

Natasha Howell of Bristol University unearths the mystery of striking colouration in mammals and what skunks and bees have in common. This blog is part of our colourful countdown to the holiday season where we’re celebrating the diversity and beauty of the natural world. Click here to read the rest of the colour countdown series. The vast majority of mammal species are not known for their striking colouration. Compared to other … Continue reading Why are some mammals black and white?

India StephensonDecember 9, 2021Leave a comment

Cover Image Stories

Cover Stories: Making strides towards weighing whole wildlife populations in 3D

Post provided by Michelle Shero

A grey seal pup next to the unoccupied aerial system (UAS) used in this study. Photo credit: Michelle Shero.

To survive and reproduce, all animals must be able to extract sufficient energy from their environment. It takes energy to forage, but animals can recover those calories if they can successfully capture enough prey – and the animal’s weight tells us about its net energetic costs versus gains. Animals that remain in positive energy-balance can then afford to devote more energy towards growth and reproduction. In this blog post, Michelle Shero of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution guides us through a new method outlined in her team’s recent Methods in Ecology and Evolution paper ‘Tracking wildlife energy dynamics with unoccupied aircraft systems and three-dimensional photogrammetry’. The team uses drone imagery to 3-D model and ‘weigh’ large groups of free-living animals.

Chloe V. RobinsonDecember 8, 2021January 27, 2022Leave a comment

Colour Countdown

How do birds see the world?

Almut Kelber, Professor at Lund University, takes us on a sweeping tour of the complex array of bird vision – from chickens to owls – to unravel how their ecology affects the way they see the world. This blog is part of our colourful countdown to the holiday season in which we’re celebrating the diversity and beauty of the natural world. Click here to read the rest of … Continue reading How do birds see the world?

India StephensonDecember 6, 2021December 10, 20211 Comment

Journal Issues

December Issue Out Now!

Our December issue is online now! Our final issue of the year contains 16 fantastic articles about the latest methods in ecology and evolution. This month we have methods for fine tuning biodiversity assessments, visual analysis of wood samples, analysing environmental audio recordings and much more! Read on to find out all about them. Featured Articles Dealing with software complexity in individual‐based models *open access* Individual-based models … Continue reading December Issue Out Now!

India StephensonDecember 2, 2021December 2, 2021Leave a comment

Conferences and Meetings

Countdown to the first ISEC in Africa!

Post provided by SEEC The Centre for Statistics in Ecology, Environment and Conservation (SEEC) invites you to ISEC2022 in Cape Town, South Africa, 27 June – 1 July 2022 – the first International Statistical Ecology Conference (ISEC) to be held in Africa! Registration is now open and we would like to welcome all of you to join this exciting event. Statistical ecology is an inherently … Continue reading Countdown to the first ISEC in Africa!

India StephensonDecember 1, 2021March 30, 2022Leave a comment

International Days, Methods papers, Statistical methods

Do-it-yourself fishing and climate scenario experiments with a marine ecosystem model

Post provided by Michael Heath, Tom Doherty, Jack Laverick & Douglas Speirs

Herring is a planktivorous fish species. Credit: Atle Grimsby.

World Fisheries Day, celebrated on November 21, is dedicated to highlighting the critical importance of healthy ocean ecosystems and to ensure sustainable stocks of fisheries in the world. Pressure to find ecologically sustainable strategies for harvesting food from the sea is getting ever stronger, especially in the face of changing climate. However, the question is complex because the harvestable species live in a complex food web where everything is directly or indirectly connected to everything else. Models for carrying out scenario analyses on the impact of fisheries management options on food webs are usually the preserve of trained experts.

In this blog post, Michael Heath of the University of Strathclyde guides us through how using a new marine modelling package and online app, published in their recent Methods in Ecology and Evolution paper ‘StrathE2E2: An R package for modelling the dynamics of marine food webs and fisheries.’, makes these analyses easily accessible to anyone with just basic website skills.

Chloe V. RobinsonNovember 22, 2021Leave a 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.

Ben WhittakerNovember 10, 2021Leave a comment

Cover Image Stories, Journal Issues, Methods papers

Cover Stories: Overlooked primary producers key to accurate trophic position estimation

Post provided by Matthew Ramirez, Alexi Besser, Seth Newsome, and Kelton McMahon

The cover of our October issue shows a katydid feeding on a leaf in the Tirimbina Rainforest National Wildlife Refuge of Costa Rica. Once digested, nitrogen from the leaf is incorporated into the katydid’s tissues in the form of amino acids, with slight modification to their stable nitrogen isotope values (δ¹⁵N). In this post the authors discuss the importance of understanding and accounting for variability in primary producer amino acid δ¹⁵N values when characterizing where consumers are positioned within food webs, detailed in their Methods in Ecology and Evolution article “Meta-analysis of primary producer amino acid δ¹⁵N values and their influence on trophic position estimation.”

Chloe V. RobinsonNovember 8, 2021Leave a comment