Tag: Ecology

Journal updates

Issue 7.5

Issue 7.5 is now online!

The May issue of Methods is now online!

This month’s issue contains two Applications articles and two Open Access articles, all of which are freely available.

– piecewiseSEM: A practical implementation of confirmatory path analysis for the R programming language. This package extends the method to all current (generalized) linear, (phylogenetic) least-square, and mixed effects models, relying on familiar R syntax. The article also includes two worked examples.

– RPANDA: An R package that implements model-free and model-based phylogenetic comparative methods for macroevolutionary analyses. It can be used to:

  1. Characterize phylogenetic trees by plotting their spectral density profiles
  2. Compare trees and cluster them according to their similarities
  3. Identify and plot distinct branching patterns within trees
  4. Compare the fit of alternative diversification models to phylogenetic trees
  5. Estimate rates of speciation and extinction
  6. Estimate and plot how these rates have varied with time and environmental variables
  7. Deduce and plot estimates of species richness through geological time. Continue reading “Issue 7.5”
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Methods papers, Practical Tools

From Tree of Life to Web of Life: How Google Images Can Help Ecologists Study Evolution

Below is a press release about the Methods paper ‘Just Google it: assessing the use of Google Images to describe geographical variation in visible traits of organisms‘ taken from the British Ecological Society.

Black sparrowhawks are either completely dark or have a white breast. ©Oggmus
Black sparrowhawks are either completely dark or have a white breast. ©Oggmus

Animals caught on camera by amateur photographers and posted on the web could become an important new tool for studying evolution and other ecological questions, researchers from South Africa have found. Their study – the first of its kind – is published today in Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Colour polymorphism – when a species has two or more colour types – has fascinated biologists since Darwin. The occurrence of these different colour types often varies geographically, providing a useful way of studying how different colour morphs – or phenotypes – evolve.

But the fieldwork needed to collect these data is time consuming and expensive, so Dr Arjun Amar and his student Gabriella Leighton from the University of Cape Town wondered if ecologists could use the thousands of animal images posted on the internet instead. Continue reading “From Tree of Life to Web of Life: How Google Images Can Help Ecologists Study Evolution”

Unknown's avatarIndia Stephenson1 Comment
Methods papers, Online extras, Practical Tools

Tips for Publishing Methods Papers in Ecological Journals

At the 2015 Eco-Stats Conference at the University of New South Wales there was a Q&A panel discussion of tips for authors publishing methods papers. The panel was chaired by Methods in Ecology and Evolution Associate Editor David Warton. It included Jane Elith (winner of the Methods Recognition of Achievement award), Associate Editor Matt Schofield and former Associate Editor Shinichi Nakagawa. There was also a late appearance, straight off a long haul flight from China, by Doug Yu (another current Associate Editor).

Continue reading “Tips for Publishing Methods Papers in Ecological Journals”

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Methods papers, Online extras, Practical Tools

The Arborist Throw-line Launcher

Collecting leaves or seeds from tall trees is a difficult task that many plant physiologists, ecologists, geneticists and forest managers encounter repeatedly. In a series of videos on the Methods in Ecology and Evolution YouTube channel, Kara N. Youngentob, Christina Zdenek and Eva van Gorsel demonstrate how to use the arborist throw-line launcher, which significantly simplifies this task. This new way of collecting seeds and leaves from tall trees is explained in their Applications article ‘A simple and effective method to collect leaves and seeds from tall trees‘. As this is an Applications paper, it is freely available to everyone.

Basic Techniques for the Arborist Throw-line Launcher

The first of the three videos is a basic overview of the method. In this tutorial, the authors teach you how to find the ideal branch, how to use the throw-line launcher and go through some important safety information. Continue reading “The Arborist Throw-line Launcher”

Unknown's avatarIndia Stephenson2 Comments
Publishing Tips & Tricks

A Video is Worth a Million Words: Why You Should Make a Video about YOUR Article

Post provided by NATHALIE PETTORELLI & CHRIS GRIEVES

Why should you make a video about your article?
Why should you make a video about your article?

With impact being considered more and more in promotion applications and REF-style (Research Excellence Framework) exercises, science communication is becoming an integral part of a scientist’s job. The problem is: most of us academics aren’t exactly trained in science outreach and our communication styles are heavily biased towards anything written, as opposed to anything visual.

With technological advancements constantly making things easier, however, more and more scientists are taking the plunge and adventuring into the world of YouTube and Vimeo to disseminate their work. But why are they doing so? Is it easy? Do you need expert help or can you do it yourself easily?

This blog post aims to answer all the questions and worries you may have as a scientist thinking of making a video about your work for the first time. To address these worries and questions in the most comprehensive way, we asked 12 authors who recently produced a video about their paper (in some cases their first) if they could give us some insights on their experience, and detail for us the challenges and benefits of choosing this style of communication. Their stories are the background to our story. Continue reading “A Video is Worth a Million Words: Why You Should Make a Video about YOUR Article”

Unknown's avatarIndia Stephenson2 Comments
Conservation and management, Methods papers

Spatially-explicit Power Analysis: A First Step for Occupancy-Based Monitoring

Post provided by Martha Ellis and Jody Tucker

Where’s Waldo? Trying to find this fisher somewhere in a giant landscape is going to be tricky! ©Mike Schwartz
Where’s Waldo? Trying to find this little guy somewhere in a giant landscape is going to be tricky! © Mike Schwartz

The seemingly basic question of whether a population is increasing, decreasing, or stable can be one of the most difficult to answer. Collecting data on rare and elusive species is hard. Imagine trying to detect a handful of fisher or wolverine across hundreds of thousands of acres – it is physically demanding, time consuming and logistically complicated. And that’s just to do it once! To monitor a population for changes, you have to repeat these surveys regularly over many years. The long-term monitoring that is necessary for conservation requires careful planning and a substantial commitment of resources and funding. So before we spend these valuable resources, it’s critical to know whether the data we are collecting can help us to answer our questions. Continue reading “Spatially-explicit Power Analysis: A First Step for Occupancy-Based Monitoring”

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Journal updates

Issue 7.4

Issue 7.4 is now online!

The April issue of Methods is now online!

This month’s issue contains two Applications articles and one Open Access article, all of which are freely available.

– CPW Photo Warehouse: freely available software that has been customized to identify, archive, and transform photographs into data formats required for statistical analyses. Users navigate a series of point-and-click menu items that allow them to input information from camera deployments, import photos and store data. Images are seamlessly incorporated into the database windows, but are stored separately.

– SIMR: An R package that allows users to calculate power for generalized linear mixed models from the lme4 package. The power calculations are based on Monte Carlo simulations. It includes tools for (i) running a power analysis for a given model and design; and (ii) calculating power curves to assess trade-offs between power and sample size.

Continue reading “Issue 7.4”

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Methods papers

Biggest Library of Bat Sounds Compiled

Below is a press release about the Methods paper ‘Acoustic identification of Mexican bats based on taxonomic and ecological constraints on call design‘ taken from the University College London.

The Funnel-eared bat (Natalus stramineus)
The Funnel-eared bat (Natalus stramineus)

The biggest library of bat sounds has been compiled to detect bats in Mexico – a country which harbours many of the Earth’s species and has one of the highest rates of species extinction and habitat loss.

An international team led by scientists from UCL, University of Cambridge and the Zoological Society of London, developed the reference call library and a new way of classifying calls to accurately and quickly identify and differentiate between bat species.

It is the first time automatic classification for bat calls has been attempted for a large variety of species, most of them previously noted as hard to identify acoustically. Continue reading “Biggest Library of Bat Sounds Compiled”

Unknown's avatarIndia Stephenson3 Comments
Methods papers

Stage-dependent Demographic Modelling at Your Finger Tips

Post provided by EELKE JONGEJANS and ROB SALGUERO- GÓMEZ

Soay sheep: an organism that can be modelled with two-sex dynamics. ©Julian Paren
Soay sheep: an organism that can be modelled with two-sex dynamics. ©Julian Paren

Typically, ecology courses contain at least a day of matrix population models. So most ecologists are somewhat familiar with how simple life cycles (and complex ones) can be depicted and analysed using matrix models. Briefly, these models represent what happens to individuals over a certain time interval (do they die? do they reproduce? if so, how much?). What individuals do in the context of these models can then be used to study the dynamics of a population.

Often, individuals are classified by size in matrix models, as small individuals tend to have different survival, growth and reproduction rates than large ones. But how many classes do you need to model the dynamics of a size-structured population properly? Instead of choosing arbitrary size class boundaries, Easterling, Ellner and Dixon (2000) came up with the idea of using continuous size variables and integrals to define a population model… and that’s how the first Integral Projection Model (‘IPM’ for us friends) came to be.

Naturally, for the development of a new demographic tool to prove useful to the scientific community, it must be flexible enough to be ‘one-size-fits-all’… and the needs of ecologists, evolutionary biologists and conservation biologists – who have to date used extensively size-based matrix models – are rather variable in size, colour and shape. Continue reading “Stage-dependent Demographic Modelling at Your Finger Tips”

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Uncategorized

A Model Approach to Weed Management

Post provided by VANESSA ADAMS

Vanessa Adams in the field with gamba grass in the Batchelor region, NT. ©Amy Kimber (NERP Northern Australia Hub)
Vanessa Adams in the field with gamba grass in the Batchelor region, NT.
©Amy Kimber (NERP Northern Australia Hub)

Invasive weeds cause environmental and economic harm around the world. Land managers bear a heavy responsibility for the control of infestations in what is often a time-consuming and costly battle.

Fortunately, an increasing number of research-based solutions are giving land managers an advantage. This includes tools to determine the distribution of weeds and also the development of modelling approaches to predict their spread.

Understanding the current and future distribution of an invasive species allows managers to better direct their limited resources. However, the direct and strategic management of weeds is tricky and that’s why population models (in particular spatial dispersal models that can be applied without much data) are needed to inform and facilitate action on the ground. Continue reading “A Model Approach to Weed Management”

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