Yesterday the ISI released their new impact factors: the second year we have been given one. And this year ours is 5.924 (that 4 at the end is vitally important. Vitally) This means we’re now 12th in the Ecology impact factor league tables (yes, Diversity and Distributions, we’re gunning for you next), and are still the highest BES journal. We have been asking those nice … Continue reading Our shiny new Impact Factor
Timed for Evolution 2013, we have just put up a Virtual Issue highlighting some of the papers with an evolutionary theme published in the last year. The link between ecology and evolution is important to MEE: the research papers we have highlighted include excellent examples of these such as modelling dispersal and testing for niche conservatism. Barcoding methods are included, which increasingly are used in … Continue reading Virtual Issue: Evolution 2013
Issue 4.6 is now available online! This month Methods covers statistics, movement, community ecology, ecophysiology and demography. There are also 2 freely available applications articles: SimAdapt: an individual-based genetic model for simulating landscape management impacts on populations, by François Rebaudo et al., and nupoint: An R package for density estimation from point transects in the presence of nonuniform animal density, by Martin Cox et al. … Continue reading Issue 4.6
Demographic models have been used for decades in biology to assess population status or extinction risk, to guide management, and to explore evolutionary responses. Interestingly, these models are now more popular than ever. For instance, Crone et al. (2011) showed in their review that the use of matrix population models are currently expanding in plant ecology, and surely these are not the only types of … Continue reading Out of the jungle of demographic analyses
Methods has just started a 6 month trial with Altmetric. Altmetric is a powerful tool that tracks when an article has been mentioned online on websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, blog sites, news sites, Mendeley, CiteULike, and many more. When calculating an article’s score, Altmetric takes into account factors such as the number of people who have mentioned it online, the type of people … Continue reading Altmetric trial – Quantifying our online presence
Issue 4.5 is online today. This issue includes articles on species distribution models, connectivity, ecometabolomics, demography, image analysis and metabolites. There is also a freely available application paper entitled “RobOff: software for analysis of alternative land-use options and conservation actions“. About the cover: This image shows a female chacma baboon (Papio ursinus) in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. During floods, animals often have to cross inundated … Continue reading Issue 4.5
The newest Associate Editor to join the Methods team is Carolyn Kurle from UC San Diego. Carolyn is interested in several aspects of marine and terrestrial vertebrate ecology. She uses stable isotope biogeochemistry to answer questions about trophic interactions, foraging ecology, niche partitioning, and animal movement patterns. She also studies the impacts of human perturbations, such as pollution and invasion, on ecological communities. Continue reading New Associate Editor
Welcome to Liam Revell from the University of Massachusetts Boston. Liam brings Methods expertise in computer-based phylogeny methods, and the evolutionary ecology of reptiles. He has previously published with us, and his articles are currently in Methods top papers list, containing our most highly cited and downloaded articles. Click on his photo to read more about his work. Continue reading New Associate Editor
In Animal Ecology (1927), Charles Elton wrote that “while ecological work is fascinating to do, it is unbearably dull to read about.” It is reassuring that things were just as bad 86 years ago. Here, I want to think about why not all ecological work is unbearably dull to read about, and what this means for ecological methods. To my mind, the two things that … Continue reading Strangeness and simplicity in ecology
To accommodate Methods ever-increasing number of submissions, we’ve recruited another Associate Editor! Welcome to Barb Anderson. Barb is currently at James Cook University, Australia, but will be moving to the University of Otago in New Zealand this July, and she is also still affiliated with the University of York, UK. Click on her photo to read more about her field of research. Continue reading New Associate Editor
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