Issue 6.7

Issue 6.7 is now online!

The July issue of Methods is now online!

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

– fuzzySim: Binary similarity indices are widely used in ecology. This study proposes fuzzy versions of the binary similarity indices most commonly used in ecology, so that they can be directly applied to continuous (fuzzy) rather than binary occurrence values, producing more realistic similarity assessments. fuzzySim is an open source software package which is also available for R.

– Actave.net: A freely accessible, web-based analysis tool for complex activity data, actave.net provides cloud-based and automatic computation of daily aggregates of various activity parameters based on recorded immersion data. It provides maps and graphs for data exploration, download of processed data for modelling and statistical analysis, and tools for sharing results with other users.

Anna Sturrock et al. provide this month’s Open Access article. In ‘Quantifying physiological influences on otolith microchemistry‘ the authors test relationships between otolith chemistry and environmental and physiological variables. The influence of physiological factors on otolith composition was particularly evident in Sr/Ca ratios, the most widely used elemental marker in applied otolith microchemistry studies. This paper was reported on in the media recently. You can read more about it here.

Our July issue also features articles on Monitoring, Remote Sensing, Conservation, Genetics and three papers on Statistics. Continue reading “Issue 6.7”

India StephensonJuly 20, 2015Leave a comment

General, Meetings, Statistical methods

Statistics in Ecology and Environmental Monitoring: A Look Back at the SEEM 2015 Conference

Post provided by Dr Matt Schofield

Matt is an Associate Editor for Methods in Ecology and Evolution. He was the principle organiser of this year’s SEEM conference. His research interests include Bayesian inference and hierarchical modelling, computational methodology, ecological statistics and much more. Matt is based at the University of Otago.

A photo taken during a lunch break at the conference

The Statistics in Ecology and Environmental Monitoring (SEEM) conference was held in Queenstown, New Zealand on June 22-26, 2015. Queenstown is a resort town in the Southern Alps of New Zealand that looks out on Lake Wakatipu, surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The venue gave a chance to explore some of the natural beauty of New Zealand, with excursions to local ski fields, wineries and various hiking trails.

SEEM conferences have been organized by members of the Statistics group at the University of Otago since 1993. The first SEEM conference was held in Dunedin, New Zealand and conferences were then held regularly (every 3 years) until 2002. The last SEEM conference, in 2007, also served as the EURING (European Union for Bird Ringing) technical meeting. With nearly ten years passing since 2007, we had a smaller conference of around 50 attendees this year. There was an engaging atmosphere during the meeting and productive discussion followed each of the 40 talks. The SEEM 2015 meeting maintained the tradition of previous SEEM conferences with delegates from across a broad spectrum of statistical ecology coming together to discuss research. Continue reading “Statistics in Ecology and Environmental Monitoring: A Look Back at the SEEM 2015 Conference”

India StephensonJuly 10, 2015July 10, 2015Leave a comment

Conservation and management, Evolution, Journal updates, Methods papers, Online extras, Phylogenetic analysis, Statistical methods

Volume 3 Issue 1: Now online

It seems that from the number of submissions we receive at the journal, Methods in Ecology and Evolution has filled an important niche. As our editor-in-chief, Rob Freckleton, wrote to introduce our second volume: “those doing science need to be kept up to date on new approaches, and those developing new methods need a place to publish, as well as be supported in getting their … Continue reading Volume 3 Issue 1: Now online

Harriet RhodesFebruary 2, 2012February 3, 2012Leave a comment

Journal updates

Issue 2.6

Our last issue for 2011 is out. Issue 2.6 is packed with the latest methodological developments. We have four new articles on monitoring: from positional accuracy in the field by Mike Dodd to distance sampling butterflies by Nick Isaac and colleagues, to how to account for non-independent detection of individuals by Julien Martin and collaborators and, finally, to a class of spatial capture-recapture models for … Continue reading Issue 2.6