New species distribution modelling survey

Researchers from the Computational Ecology and Environmental Sciences division of Microsoft Research Cambridge are carrying out a survey to help improve the way in which we develop software for species distribution modelling, and as part of wider research into how the software available to researchers affects the advancement of knowledge. It should take about 15 minutes of your time, and you don’t have to use … Continue reading New species distribution modelling survey

Harriet RhodesJune 17, 20111 Comment

Journal updates, Online extras

Biodiversity estimates from DNA sequences

The complexity of new methodologies can present a challenging barrier towards their uptake. Recognising this, Jeff Powell, author of Accounting for uncertainty in species delineation during the analysis of environmental DNA sequence data, has put together an excellent tutorial to guide people through the implementation of his objective, theory-based method for predicting species boundaries, which explicitly incorporates uncertainty in the classification system into biodiversity estimation. … Continue reading Biodiversity estimates from DNA sequences

Harriet RhodesJune 16, 20112 Comments

Journal updates

Recently accepted articles

Four more new methodological papers will be making an appearance on Early View over the coming weeks: Bias in estimation of adult survival and asymptotic population growth rate caused by undetected capture heterogeneity by David Fletcher, Jean-Dominique Lebreton, Lucile Marescot, Michael Schaub, Olivier Gimenez, Steve Dawson and Liz Slooten Tracking migratory songbirds: accuracy of light-level loggers (geolocators) in forest habitats by Adam Fudickar, Martin Wikelski … Continue reading Recently accepted articles

Harriet RhodesJune 15, 2011September 23, 2011Leave a comment

Journal updates

Top papers for April

Although regular readers may find April’s most frequently accessed papers quite familiar, there are several interesting changes. The one to watch for April was Factors and mechanisms explaining spatial heterogeneity: a review of methods for insect populations, by Vinatier et al., which nearly quadrupled in popularity to become the month’s second most accessed paper. It’s currently available to download for free, so do take advantage! … Continue reading Top papers for April

Harriet RhodesJune 9, 2011June 13, 2011Leave a comment

Journal updates

Explaining the cover image

Our newest issue’s striking cover image is an example of the graphical output of PASSaGE 2, an application providing a broad array of spatial statistical analyses not commonly found in other software packages or GIS software, documented in this edition of Methods in Ecology and Evolution. In this case, the image represents a colour-graded surface map of elevation data. The citable reference for PASSaGE: Pattern … Continue reading Explaining the cover image

Harriet RhodesJune 3, 2011June 9, 2011Leave a comment

Journal updates

Issue 2.3 out today

Issue 2.3 of Methods in Ecology and Evolution is officially out today, and we couldn’t be more excited about the breadth of new methodological advancements contained within! Application papers head the bill, with PASSaGE: Pattern Analysis, Spatial Statistics and Geographic Exegesis. Version 2 (Rosenberg & Anderson) and FDiversity: a software package for the integrated analysis of functional diversity (Casanoves et al.) – both available for … Continue reading Issue 2.3 out today

Harriet RhodesJune 2, 2011June 9, 2011Leave a comment

Journal updates, Online extras

Some things are not the average

Issue 2.3 of Methods in Ecology and Evolution will be officially published online later this week, but in the meantime we’ve got a great new podcast accompanying one of the papers. Greg McInerny, of Microsoft Research, discusses the content of his recently co-authored paper addressing the issue of adequately accounting for inter-cell environmental variation when constructing species distribution models. The paper, Fine-scale environmental variation in … Continue reading Some things are not the average

Harriet RhodesMay 31, 2011June 9, 2011Leave a comment

Journal updates

Recently accepted articles

We’re due to publish five more new methods papers over the coming weeks: On thinning of chains in MCMC William Link and Mitchell Eaton MOTMOT: models of trait macroevolution on trees Gavin Thomas and Robert Freckleton TempNet: a method to display statistical parsimony networks for heterochronous DNA sequence data Stefan Prost and Christian Anderson Distance weighting avoids erroneous scale effects in species-habitat models Birgit Aue, … Continue reading Recently accepted articles

Harriet RhodesMay 25, 2011September 23, 2011Leave a comment

General

Methods blogging

Old news, I know – but back in June Jarrett Byrnes, of i’m a chordata! urochordata!, did a great piece of research blogging on one of our earliest papers, Do not log-transform count data. It’s well worth reading, if you haven’t already! Edit: Fixed the link! Continue reading Methods blogging

Harriet RhodesMay 20, 2011June 9, 20111 Comment

Journal updates

Accessing Methods in Ecology and Evolution

Methods in Ecology and Evolution stopped being available to everyone at the start of this year, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still access it for free! For starters, you can encourage your institutional librarian to sign up for free access to volumes 1 and 2, in perpetuity, by directing them to this opt-in form. You can also get free access to Methods as a … Continue reading Accessing Methods in Ecology and Evolution

Harriet RhodesMay 18, 2011June 9, 2011Leave a comment