The sending of letters under the pen name ‘St. Valentine’ began back in the middle ages as a way of communicating affection during the practice of courting. Fast forward to 2020 and Valentine’s Day is a day for celebrating romance, but now it typically features the exchange of gifts and cards between lovers.
The February issue of Methods is now online!
The latest issue of Methods in Ecology and Evolution is now online!
Executive Editor Rob Freckleton has selected six Featured Articles this month. You can find out about all of them below. We’ve also got six Applications articles and five Open Access articles in the February issue – we’ll talk about all of those here too.
On top of all that, the February issue includes articles on population genetics, ecological assemblages, and reconstruction of protein sequences.
Continue reading “Issue 11.2: Stable Isotopes, in situ Monitoring, Image Analysis and more”
Bats. They’re amazing creatures. Long-lived (with relevance to their body size), echolocating (for microbats and some megabats), metabolically-resilient (apparently resilient to most virus infections) flying mammals (with heart beats up to 1200 bpm for hours during flight). There are 1,411 species of this incredible creature. But very little is known about their physiology and unique biological traits. And detailed evolutionary analysis has only just begun.
The problem is, they’re an ‘exotic’ animal (wildlife that most people do not come into contact with). Being a long-lived animal producing minimal offspring (most only have one baby per year), they’re not suited to the kind of experimental studies we do with other animals like mice. Unavoidably, some aspects of biology require the use of tissues and cells. These samples can be used for sequencing, genomics, molecular evolution studies, detailed transcriptomic analysis, functional experiments with specific cell types and much more. Some methodology is beginning to be published – such as capture techniques and wing punch/genomic isolation – but there’s been an absence of protocols for the processing of bats. This is essential for the field to maximise the potential application of each individual and for minimising non-essential specimen collection.
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the coldest months of the year are upon us. A combination of post-holiday ‘blues’ and the cold, dark mornings make the daily trudge to work all that less inspiring. Recent snow storms in locations such as Newfoundland (Canada), have made it nearly impossible for many people to leave their homes, let alone commute to work. Now cast your mind to a little over 2,000 km north of Newfoundland and imagine the challenges faced with carrying out a job during the coldest, darkest months of the year.
As with every other biome on the planet, polar biomes contain a variety of different species, from bugs to baleen whales. To better understand the different species at our poles, scientists need to collect ecological data, but this is far from a walk in the park.
With the year 2020 marking 200 years since the discovery of Antarctica and the Centenary of ‘vital’ Scott Polar Research Institute (Cambridge, UK), we wanted to highlight some of the polar research published in the journal, featuring challenges faced and current research being undertaken at the poles.
Continue reading “Methods behind the Madness: Ecology at the Poles”The January issue of Methods is now online!
It’s a new year and the new issue of Methods in Ecology and Evolution is now online!
We’re starting 2020 with a great issue – and ALL of the articles are completely free. And they’ll remain free for the whole year. No subscription required.
You can find out more about our Featured Articles (selected by the Senior Editor) below. We also discuss this month’s Open Access, Practical Tools and Applications articles. There are also articles on species distributions, biotic interactions, taxonomic units and much more.
Continue reading “Issue 11.1: Climate Change, Genomic Divergence, Bayesian Modelling and More”
Methods in Ecology and Evolution is turning 10 years old! Back in 2010, we launched the journal because of feedback from the community that there was a need for a journal that promoted the publication of new methods. Founding Editor Rob Freckleton and Graziella Iossa (now a member of the Editorial Board) summarised the aims and ambitions for the journal in the first issue. They … Continue reading Ten Years of Methods in Ecology and Evolution
Climate change is threatening biodiversity and ecosystems around the world. We urgently need to better understand how species and ecosystems respond to these changes. There are already thousands of climate change experiments and observational studies out there that could be used to synthesise findings across systems and regions. But it turns out that making meaningful syntheses isn‘t always so straightforward!
There are two major challenges (and some minor ones too) for synthesising data across different experiments. First, the data are not always available. This problem arises because key study information – such as metadata, covariates or methodological details – are often not adequately or consistently reported across studies.
The second problem is that scientists use different protocols. This leads to a diversity of ways of measuring and quantifying the same variables. Different protocols may measure or report the same variables in slightly different ways, so the data are not compatible. Consistency in measurements and protocols is one reason why working in large networks – such as ITEX, Herbivory, or NutNet – to name only a few, is so powerful. In these networks, experiments and observations are repeated across large regions or worldwide using strict protocols for experimental design and measurements. Continue reading “Standardising Methods in Climate Change Experiments: A Community Effort”
This post is also available in English
气候变化正在严重威胁全球生态系统服务功能和生物多样性。我们迫切需要更好的理解不同物种和生态系统对气候变化的响应。气候变化相关的生态实验和观测研究已有上千个。 这为跨系统和区域的综合分析提供了可能。但是实践表面有意义的综合分析并没有想象中那么简单容易。
跨实验的生态数据综合主要受到两方面的挑战 （以及一些小的挑战）。首先是数据的可获得性。 这个问题的产生是因为关键的研究信息，例如元数据，协同变量或者方法的细节，在不同研究中报告的详细程度不足且差别很大。
其次，科学家们通常使用各自不同的实验流程。这导致在观测和量化同一变量时会用到多种不同方法。 不同的实验流程会使得在测量和报告同一变量时产生细微差别，从而导致数据不具有可比性。测量和流程的一致性是一些大型合作性实验项目（例如ITEX, Herbivory和NutNet等）能够产生重大影响力的原因之一。在这些大型合作实验项目中，实验的设计和测量都遵循严格的流程，并在大范围的区域或者全球推广应用。但是如果我们的实验不在这些大型合作项目中，我们应该如何做呢？理论上，答案很简单：如果在整个研究领域，我们都使用标准化的方法和流程，那么我们的研究数据将能够被重复利用并和其他研究进行比较。但是实际情况与之有很大差距，主要的问题在于：我们究竟如何才能将标准化方法和流程推广到整个研究领域中？ Continue reading “通过研究者们的共同努力实现气候变化实验方法的标准化”
Coming to the BES Annual Meeting? Planning to submit a paper to a BES journal? Then you should sign up for the Speed Review Session on Thursday 12 December! (sign-up sheets will be on the BES Stand in the Exhibition Hall.) Find out more about this session below.
Essentially, Speed Review is a chance for you to get a Senior Editor’s opinion on your manuscript. All you need to do is sign-up and bring along a figure or a key finding from your research to centre the discussion on. Each session will be limited to five minutes, so try to have a succinct summary of your manuscript ready as well. The Editor you speak to will let you know what they think of your paper and try to give you some advice about any areas to highlight or any potential concerns that they might have about it. Continue reading “Speed Review at the BES Annual Meeting: Get a Senior Editor’s Opinion on YOUR Manuscript”
The December issue of Methods is now online!
The final 2019 issue of Methods in Ecology and Evolution is online now.
To close out another brilliant year, we’ve got papers on invasive species, convolutional neural networks, rapid spatial risk modelling, species distribution models and much more.
You can find out more about our Featured Articles (selected by the Senior Editor) below. We also discuss this month’s Open Access and freely available papers we’ve published in our latest issue (Practical Tools and Applications articles are always free to access, whether you have a subscription or not) .
Continue reading “Issue 10.12: Statistical Ecology, UAVs, Invasive Species and More”
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