This issue contains two Applications articles and three Open Access articles. These five papers are freely available to everyone, no subscription required.
–qfasar: A new R package for diet estimation using quantitative fatty acid signature analysis methods. It also provides functionality to evaluate and potentially improve the performance of a library of prey signature data, compute goodness-of-fit diagnostics, and support simulation-based research.
–biomass: An r package designed to compute both AGB/AGC estimate and its associated uncertainty from forest plot datasets, using a Bayesian inference procedure. The package builds upon previous work on pantropical and regional biomass allometric equations and published datasets by default, but it can also integrate unpublished or complementary datasets in many steps.
This issue contains two Applications articles and one Open Access article. These three papers are freely available to everyone, no subscription required.
–Solo: Solo audio recorders are inexpensive, easy to construct and record audible sound continuously for around 40 days. The paper also has a video tutorial explaining how to assemble the required hardware and comes with a companion website with more information.
–The third dimension: A novel design to obtain three-dimensional data on the movements of aquatic organisms at depths of up to 140m. The set-up consists of two synchronised high-speed cameras fixed to two articulated arms and can be used for any underwater applications that require synchronized video recordings of medium- to large-sized animals.
As you read this, thousands of volunteers of all ages and backgrounds are collecting information for over 1,100 citizen science projects worldwide. These projects cover a broad range of topics: from volunteers collecting samples of the microbes in their digestive tracts, to tourists providing images of endangered species (such as tigers) that are often costly to survey.
Biodiversity Indicators are some of the most important tools linking ecological data with government policy. Indicators need to summarise large amounts of information in a format that is accessible to politicians and the general public. The primary use of indicators is to monitor progress towards environmental targets. For the UK, a suite of indicators are produced annually which are used to monitor progress towards the Aichi targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity as well as for European Union based commitments. However, this is complicated by the fact that biodiversity policy within the UK is devolved to each of the four nations, so additional indicators have been developed to monitor the commitments of each country.
A range of biodiversity indicators exist within this suite covering the five strategic goals of the Convention; which include addressing the causes of biodiversity loss, reducing pressures on biodiversity and improving status of biodiversity within the UK. Within strategic goal C (improve status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity) there are currently 11 “State” indicators that use species data to monitor progress towards the targets underlying this goal. Most existing species based indicators use abundance data from large scale monitoring schemes with systematic protocols. However, there are other sources of data, such as occurrence records, that can offer an alternative if they are analysed using the appropriate methods. This post will discuss the development of species indicators for occurrence records to complement the current UK species based indicators, specifically relating to the C4b priority species indicator and the D1c pollinators indicator. Continue reading “Building a Better Indicator”
Isotopes are atoms that have the same number of protons and electrons but differ in their number of neutrons; they are lighter and heavier forms of the same element. Unlike radioactive isotopes, stable isotopes do not decay over time.
The September issue of Methods is now online!
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