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
In this video David Warton interviews the organisers of the “Modern Statistical Methods for Ecology” Graybill/ENVR Conference (Sept 7-10 2014, Fort Collins) – Alix Gitelman, Geof Givens, and Janine Illian. They discuss highlights of the conference, current trends in statistical ecology, and where the Graybill conference series (organised at Colorado State every year) is going next. Continue reading Graybill/ENVR 2014 – highlights, current trends and what’s next
A new Methods paper comparing SCUBA diving to bubble-free diving suggests that fish are deterred by the sound of SCUBA bubbles, particularly in heavily fished areas, which can result in potentially biased fish counts and research conclusions. Steven Lindfield and colleagues from the University of Western Australia studied coral reef fish populations in Guam using two diving systems: the commonly used SCUBA equipment that produces … Continue reading Noisy SCUBA bubbles scare fish(shh!)
Issue 5.9 is now available online, including articles on telemetry and sensors, markers and sequences, modelling and model assessment, and extending current data. In addition there are 2 freely available applications: MeCa, a toolbox for the calculation of metabolism in heterogeneous streams and Rphylip: an R interface for PHYLIP About the cover: This month we have a Cape gannet (Morus capensis) at its nest on … Continue reading Issue 5.9
We’d like to welcome Jason Matthiopoulos (from the University of Glasgow), Oscar Gaggiotti (from the University of St Andrews), and Greg McInerny (from the University of Oxford) to our Editorial Board team! Jason is interested in modelling the patterns and mechanisms that characterise spatial and population ecology. Much of his work has focused on building theory by translating biological hypotheses to mathematical models, using modern … Continue reading New Associate Editors
We would like to welcome 4 new Applications Editors to our editorial board: Rich Fitzjohn from Macquarie University, Australia, Ruth King from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, Brian O’Meara from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Timothée Poisot from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Rich, Ruth, Brian and Tim are the first of a new group of Associate Editors who will deal solely with … Continue reading New Applications Editors
Issue 5.8 includes articles on lidar & radar in ecology, occurrence data analysis, ecological networks, measuring habitats, life history variation, dispersal, biodiversity–productivity and monitoring populations, along with the freely available application article: ‘a simple numerical tool to infer whether a species is extinct‘. There’s an associated video this month in which Phillip Stepanian and colleagues talk about the background and motivation behind their paper: ‘an introduction … Continue reading Issue 5.8
In this video David Warton interviews Ben Bolker, Professor in Theoretical and Statistical Ecology at McMaster University and maintainer of the lmer package, and Mark Brewer, Principal Consultant for Ecology and Environmental Science at BioSS, Scotland. They discuss the tendency to develop and use big fancy analyses that are in some applications unnecessarily complex, why it happens, and what can be done about it. Look … Continue reading Are your analyses too fancy?
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
Here is a video and press release about the recent Methods paper, ‘Investigating three-dimensional meso-scale habitat complexity and its ecological implications using low-cost RGB-D sensor technology‘, taken from Griffith University:
The Kinect line of devices developed by Microsoft for Xbox consoles and Windows PCs is marrying gaming technology with ecological research to deliver precise three-dimensional data in greater efficiency and at a fraction of the cost of current imaging techniques.
At Griffith University’s Australian Rivers Institute (ARI) on the Gold Coast, Professor Joe Lee, Dr Jan Warnken and Higher Degree Research student Ms Shafagh Kamal have been Continue reading “Kinect connects for mangroves research”
Methods Blog 