Methods behind the Madness: Ecology at the Poles

Post provided by Chloe Robinson, Crystal Sobel and Valerie Levesque-Beaudin

Aurora Borealis in the polar north. Photo: Noel Bauza, Pixabay

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the coldest months of the year are upon us. A combination of post-holiday ‘blues’ and the cold, dark mornings make the daily trudge to work all that less inspiring. Recent snow storms in locations such as Newfoundland (Canada), have made it nearly impossible for many people to leave their homes, let alone commute to work. Now cast your mind to a little over 2,000 km north of Newfoundland and imagine the challenges faced with carrying out a job during the coldest, darkest months of the year.

As with every other biome on the planet, polar biomes contain a variety of different species, from bugs to baleen whales. To better understand the different species at our poles, scientists need to collect ecological data, but this is far from a walk in the park.

Iceberg in the Gerlache Strait, Antarctica. Photo: Liam Quinn, flikr.

With the year 2020 marking 200 years since the discovery of Antarctica and the Centenary of ‘vital’ Scott Polar Research Institute (Cambridge, UK), we wanted to highlight some of the polar research published in the journal, featuring challenges faced and current research being undertaken at the poles.

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Assessment of Stream Health with DNA Metabarcoding

Following on from last week’s press release ‘How Clean are Finnish Rivers?’, Vasco Elbrecht et al. have produced a video to explain the methods in ‘Assessing strengths and weaknesses of DNA metabarcoding-based macroinvertebrate identification for routine stream monitoring‘. In this video, the authors explore the potential of DNA metabarcoding to access stream health using macroinvertebrates. They compared DNA and morphology-based identification of bulk monitoring samples from … Continue reading Assessment of Stream Health with DNA Metabarcoding

Issue 8.5

Issue 8.5 is now online!

The May issue of Methods is now online!

This issue contains three Applications articles and two Open Access articles. These five papers are freely available to everyone, no subscription required.

MatlabHTK: A software interface to a popular speech recognition system making it possible for non-experts to implement hidden Markov models for bioacoustic signal processing.

 PrimerMiner: The R package PrimerMiner batch downloads DNA barcode gene sequences from BOLD and NCBI databases for specified target taxonomic groups and then applies sequence clustering into operational taxonomic units to reduce biases introduced by the different number of available sequences per species.

 BarcodingR: An integrated software package that provides a comprehensive implementation of species identification methods, including artificial intelligence, fuzzy-set, Bayesian and kmer-based methods, that are not readily available in other packages.

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Issue 8.4: Technological Advances at the Interface of Ecology and Statistics

Issue 8.4 is now online!

The April issue of Methods, which includes our latest Special Feature – “Technological Advances at the Interface of Ecology and Statistics” – is now online!

This new Special Feature is a collection of five articles (plus an Editorial from Guest Editor David Warton) inspired by the December 2015 Eco-Stats conference at the University of New South Wales in Australia. It shows how interdisciplinary collaboration help to solve problems around estimating biodiversity and how it changes over space and time.

The five articles are based on joint talks given at the conference. They focus on:

As David Warton states in his Editorial, “interdisciplinary collaboration and the opportunities offered by recent technological advances have potential to lead to interesting and sometimes surprising findings, and will continue to be fertile ground for scientists in the foreseeable future”. Meetings like Eco-Stats 15 and Special Features like this one will, hopefully, help to encourage these sorts of collaborative research projects.

All of the articles in the ‘Technological Advances at the Interface of Ecology and Statistics‘ Special Feature will be freely available for a limited time.
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Virtual Issue: Advances in Phylogenetic Methods

Original Image ©PLOS One Phylogeny
Original Image ©PLOS One Phylogeny

Timed to coincide with Evolution 2015, we have released a new Virtual Issue on Phylogenetic Methods. All of the articles in this Virtual Issue will be freely available for a limited period.

An understanding of the tree of life contributes to many facets of biology. This Virtual Issue has assembled studies that showcase the breadth of the utility of phylogenetic trees, including phylogenetic beta diversity, trait evolution, diversification, biodiversity studies, phylogenetic signal, biogeography, ecosystem functioning, and host-pathogen dynamics.

The Research papers included are excellent examples of new ways that phylogenies can be applied to central questions in ecology, evolution and biodiversity, such as measuring niche conservatism, trait evolution and diversification rates. The issue also has articles on barcoding methods, which increasingly are used to understand phylogenetic and functional diversity.

You can see a little more information on each of the articles below.

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Issue 3.3

About the issue Issue 3.3 contains an amazing number of extra features: three videos, one podcast and one Powerpoint presentation. The topics in the issue range from DNA barcoding, surveys, measuring diversity, population and movement modelling and includes five free applications. About the cover Recently developed light-weighed tracking devices for positioning through light intensity pattern (‘geolocation’) have begun to greatly improve our knowledge of animal … Continue reading Issue 3.3

Top 10 speciation and evolution papers

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. Applications – concise papers describing new software, equipment, or other practical tools: PASSaGE: Pattern Analysis, Spatial Statistics and Geographic Exegesis. Version 2 by Micheal Rosenberg and Corey Anderson RBrownie: … Continue reading Top 10 speciation and evolution papers