Alba Motes Rodrigo: Precise tactile stimulation of worker ants by a robotic manipulator reveals that individual responses are density- and context-dependent

Throughout March and April, we are featuring articles shortlisted for the 2024 Robert May Prize. The Robert May Prize is awarded by the British Ecological Society each year for the best paper in Methods in Ecology and Evolution written by an early career author. Alba Motes Rodrigo’s article ‘Precise tactile stimulation of worker ants by a robotic manipulator reveals that individual responses are density- and context-dependent‘ is … Continue reading Alba Motes Rodrigo: Precise tactile stimulation of worker ants by a robotic manipulator reveals that individual responses are density- and context-dependent

Jonathan Sauder: Scalable semantic 3D mapping of coral reefs with deep learning

Throughout March and April, we are featuring articles shortlisted for the 2024 Robert May Prize. The Robert May Prize is awarded by the British Ecological Society each year for the best paper in Methods in Ecology and Evolution written by an early career author. Jonathan Sauder’s article ‘Scalable semantic 3D mapping of coral reefs with deep learning‘ is one of those shortlisted for the award. The paper … Continue reading Jonathan Sauder: Scalable semantic 3D mapping of coral reefs with deep learning

Nicolas Mongiardino Koch: Chronospaces: An R package for the statistical exploration of divergence times promotes the assessment of methodological sensitivity

Throughout March and April, we are featuring articles shortlisted for the 2024 Robert May Prize. The Robert May Prize is awarded by the British Ecological Society each year for the best paper in Methods in Ecology and Evolution written by an early career author. Nicolas Mongiardino Koch’s article ‘Chronospaces: An R package for the statistical exploration of divergence times promotes the assessment of methodological sensitivity‘ is one … Continue reading Nicolas Mongiardino Koch: Chronospaces: An R package for the statistical exploration of divergence times promotes the assessment of methodological sensitivity

Omar Saif: Fieldwork in conservation organisations–A review of methodological challenges, opportunities and ethics

Throughout March and April, we are featuring articles shortlisted for the 2024 Robert May Prize. The Robert May Prize is awarded by the British Ecological Society each year for the best paper in Methods in Ecology and Evolution written by an early career author. Omar Saif’s article ‘Fieldwork in conservation organisations–A review of methodological challenges, opportunities and ethics‘ is one of those shortlisted for the award. The … Continue reading Omar Saif: Fieldwork in conservation organisations–A review of methodological challenges, opportunities and ethics

From Kenya to Ohio – the inspiration for WildWing: an open-source, autonomous and affordable unmanned aerial system for animal behavioural video monitoring

Post provided by Jenna Kline, PhD Candidate, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA The story of the WildWing project began in 2022 when I enrolled in the Experiential Introduction to Imageomics course. For the fieldwork component of the course, I travelled to the Mpala Research Centre in Laikipia, Kenya. My course project advisors, Dr Tanya Berger-Wolf and Dr … Continue reading From Kenya to Ohio – the inspiration for WildWing: an open-source, autonomous and affordable unmanned aerial system for animal behavioural video monitoring

From Personal Reflections to Emerging Ecological Methods: My BES2024 Experience

Post provided by Sthandiwe Nomthandazo Kanyile The British Ecological Society (BES) held its Annual Meeting in Liverpool in December last year, attracting over 1,600 delegates from around the world! As the oldest ecological society in the world, the BES has a rich history of promoting ecological research, serving as a vital hub for scientists, practitioners, and conservationists across the globe. So, when plans were set … Continue reading From Personal Reflections to Emerging Ecological Methods: My BES2024 Experience

The photo that got away: Camera traps may monitor less space than we think

Post provided by Brendan Carswell. Brendan (he/him/his) is currently a PhD student in Biology at the University of Calgary in the Weaving Wildlife and Land Based Knowledges lab. This paper, however, came from Brendan’s Masters work at the Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador in the Wildlife Evolutionary Ecology Lab. Motivation Our research team is interested in facilitating inclusive and accessible wildlife management across Canada. … Continue reading The photo that got away: Camera traps may monitor less space than we think

From lab tanks to river banks: taking fish cognition research into the wild

Post provided by Catarina Vila Pouca This post is also available in Portuguese Hello there! My name is Catarina Vila Pouca and I study how and why animals behave and learn in different ways. I have had a passion for sharks and swimming for as long as I can remember, and so in my career I have mostly focused on sharks and fish. My latest … Continue reading From lab tanks to river banks: taking fish cognition research into the wild

Our March issue is out now!

This issue contains the latest methods in ecology and evolution. Read to find out about this month’s featured articles and the article behind our cover! Featured Bayesian views of generalized additive modelling This study aims to highlight useful links (and differences) between Bayesian and frequentist approaches to smoothing, as detailed in the statistical literature, in an accessible way, with a focus on the mgcv implementation. By … Continue reading Our March issue is out now!

From a frustrated undergraduate to a motivated PhD: The story of YOLO-Behaviour for automated behavioural coding from videos

Post provided by Alex Chan Hoi Hang, PhD student, Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz The story of this project can be traced back to 2019, as a second-year undergraduate in biological sciences at Imperial College London, UK, where I took an animal behaviour course. For one of the hands-on sessions, Dr. Julia Schroeder (who later became my undergraduate and … Continue reading From a frustrated undergraduate to a motivated PhD: The story of YOLO-Behaviour for automated behavioural coding from videos