Metapopulation Microcosm Plates (MMP) are devices which resemble 96-well microtiter plates in size and shape, but with corridors connecting the wells in any configuration desired. They can be used to culture microbial metapopulations or metacommunities with up to 96 habitat patches.
In these two video tutorials, Helen Kurkjian explains how you can assemble, fill and clean MMPs in your lab.
Issue 6.5 is now online!
The May issue of Methods is now online!
We have two freely available articles this month: one Application and one Open Access Article.
– rSPACE: An open-source R package for implementing a spatially based power analysis for designing monitoring programs. This method incorporates information on species biology and habitat to parameterize a spatially explicit population simulation.
Tim Lucas et al. provide this month’s Open Access article: A generalised random encounter model for estimating animal density with remote sensor data. The authors have developed a Generalised Random Encounter Model (gREM) to estimate absolute animal density from count data from both camera traps and acoustic detectors. They show that gREM produces accurate estimates of absolute animal density for all combinations of sensor detection widths and animal signal widths. This model is applicable for count data obtained in both marine and terrestrial environments, visually or acoustically. It could be used for big cats, sharks, birds, echolocating bats, cetaceans and much more. Continue reading
In the past week, MEE has been at the ITN Speciation conference in Jyväskylä. As a result, journal updates have been slower than usual. So here is a quick overview of the new papers available online during the past week:
Research papers:
Movement ecology of human resource users: using net squared displacement, biased random bridges and resource utilization functions to quantify hunter and gatherer behaviour
Sarah K. Papworth, Nils Bunnefeld, Katie Slocombe and E. J. Milner-Gulland
This paper is accompanied by a podcast. Follow this link if you use a Mac to access the podcast.
Modelling dispersal: an eco-evolutionary framework incorporating emigration, movement, settlement behaviour and the multiple costs involved
Justin M. J. Travis, Karen Mustin, Kamil A. Bartoń, Tim G. Benton, Jean Clobert, Maria M. Delgado, Calvin Dytham, Thomas Hovestadt, Stephen C. F. Palmer, Hans Van Dyck and Dries Bonte
Designing a benthic monitoring programme with multiple conflicting objectives
Allert I. Bijleveld, Jan A. van Gils, Jaap van der Meer, Anne Dekinga, Casper Kraan, Henk W. van der Veer and Theunis Piersma
Application – as you know, all our applications are free:
mvabund– an R package for model-based analysis of multivariate abundance data
Yi Wang, Ulrike Naumann, Stephen T. Wright and David I. Warton
Methods will be attending the next ITN Speciation conference 2012 in Jyväskylä, Finland and to mark the occasion, the editorial team has put together a list of some our most relevant work in speciation and evolution.
If you are going there, stop by to talk to me, Graziella Iossa, journal coordinator. See you on 26-28 February, 2012, at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland!
Long-term datasets yield a great deal of information and are increasingly used to inform conservation measures.
In the first video of the new year, Gary Powney and Tom Oliver show how long-term monitoring data on the Speckled Wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria) from the UK monitoring butterfly scheme can be used to assess functional connectivity of the landscape.
In a paper recently published in Methods, Gary Powney, Tom Oliver and colleagues use synchrony between population counts as a new empirical method to assess functional connectivity – the permeability of landscapes given species dispersal attributes. Functional connectivity is important because well-connected metapopulations are expected to be more resistant to stochastic events causing extinction. They use long-term monitoring data on the Speckled Wood butterfly and find that population synchrony is positively correlated with landscape suitability, suggesting that synchrony might be used to measure functional connectivity.
A key finding is that relatively close populations may exchange sufficient migrants for synchronisation, regardless of the matrix suitability. In contrast, more separate populations are synchronised only where the landscape permits functional connectivity, most likely through dispersal between intermediate stepping-stone populations.
This technique might be used to test and prioritise the effectiveness of land management for conservation of species and to mitigate the effects of climate change.
