Tag: R package

Code and Applications, Ecology, Statistical methods

Into the Swarm-Verse: quantifying collective motion across species and contexts

Post provided by Marina Papadopoulou Authors We are three researchers interested in collective animal behaviour. Marina Papadopoulou is a postdoctoral researcher at Tuscia University in Italy, Simon Garnier is a Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (USA), and Andrew King is an Associate Professor at Swansea University (UK). As a Greek-French-Welsh team with empirical, mathematical, and computational backgrounds in different study systems, we … Continue reading Into the Swarm-Verse: quantifying collective motion across species and contexts

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Second Language Post

Introducción a sabinaNSDM: Un nuevo paquete de R para mejorar los modelos de la distribución de especies basado en modelos jerárquicos anidados espacialmente

Post escrito por Teresa Goicolea y Alejandra Zarzo This post in also available in English. Los Modelos de Distribución de Especies (SDMs, por sus siglas en inglés) son herramientas esenciales para que científicos y especialistas de la conservación puedan predecir dónde es probable encontrar especies, dónde han existido en el pasado y dónde podrían aparecer en el futuro. Ante problemas urgentes como el cambio climático … Continue reading Introducción a sabinaNSDM: Un nuevo paquete de R para mejorar los modelos de la distribución de especies basado en modelos jerárquicos anidados espacialmente

Unknown's avatarbesmee2 Comments
Methods papers

Introducing sabinaNSDM: A New R Package for Improved Species Distribution Modeling based on Spatially-Nested Hierarchical models

Post provided by Teresa Goicolea and Alejandra Zarzo Esta publicación también está disponible en español. Species Distribution Models (SDMs) are essential tools for scientists and conservationists to predict where species are likely to be found, where they have existed in the past, and where they might appear in the future. As we face urgent issues like climate change and biodiversity loss, producing accurate predictions is … Continue reading Introducing sabinaNSDM: A New R Package for Improved Species Distribution Modeling based on Spatially-Nested Hierarchical models

Unknown's avatarbesmee2 Comments
Statistical methods

wingen: mapping genetic diversity using moving windows

Post provided by Anusha Bishop (she/her)

Global biodiversity loss and increased availability of genomic-scale data has motivated a growing interest in conserving genetic diversity. To do so, we need tools that help us understand how genetic diversity is distributed. In pursuit of this, we have developed a new method for creating maps of genetic diversity using spatial moving windows, which we have implemented in the R package wingen.

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Unknown's avatarBen WhittakerLeave a comment
Statistical methods

voluModel: a new R package to model species distributions in 3 dimensions

Post provided by Hannah Owens (she/her)

One of the base units of analysis for biogeography and conservation science is the species range map. Once we know where a species is, we can ask questions like “Why is it there?”, “How did it get there?”, or “What can we do to make this place better for it?” Especially these days, I am very interested in mapping marine fish distributions, which, it turns out, is not as simple as mapping terrestrial species.

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Unknown's avatarBen Whittaker1 Comment
Journal Issues

September 2022 Issue Out Now!

Our September issue is now online! This issue contains 22 articles about the latest methods in ecology and evolution, including methods for using the US National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), measuring understory vegetation structure, inducing cancer in invertebrates and much more! Read on to find out about this month’s featured articles and the article behind our magical marine cover. National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) In this … Continue reading September 2022 Issue Out Now!

Unknown's avatarIndia StephensonLeave a comment
Journal Issues

July 2022 Issue Out Now!

Our July Issue is now online! This issue contains 20 articles about the latest methods in ecology and evolution, including methods for characterising soil bacterial biodiversity, identifying fish species in fish markets using eDNA, standarising and cleaning biodiversity data and much more! Plus, read the editorial about our switch to a gold open access model this month. Read on to find out about this month’s featured articles … Continue reading July 2022 Issue Out Now!

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Methods papers, Statistical methods

Revealing the hidden lives of cryptic mountain lions using GPS data and a Moving-Resting Motion model

Post provided by Mark Elbroch, Chaoran Hu, Tom Meyer, Vladimir Pozdnyakov & Jun Yan

Female mountain lion collared in Washington USA in late December 2021.

Information on how and even why terrestrial mammals move through their habitat landscapes is important for forming the foundation of how to manage and conserve species. For elusive mountain lions, GPS data is particularly vital for monitoring these important apex predators in relation to their ecosystems and the people they share the land with. In this blog post, the team discusses their novel motion model, published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, which helps us understand the movement of mountain lions from GPS location data.

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Unknown's avatarChloe V. RobinsonLeave a comment
Code and Applications, Methods papers, Statistical methods

plantR: Managing species records from biological collections

Post provided by Renato Lima

Many biodiversity studies, covering a wide range of goals, need species records. These records are becoming readily available online, however there is minimal standardisation for these records at this stage, therefore requiring final users to spend a significant amount of time formatting records prior to using data. To overcome this, Renato Lima et al. have created plantR – an open-source package that provides a comprehensive toolbox to manage species records from biological collections. In this blog post, Renato discusses the workflow of the package and describes how this package can help researchers better assess data quality and avoid data leakage.

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Unknown's avatarChloe V. RobinsonLeave a comment
Statistical methods

A Multiple-Part Morphospace

Post provided by Daniel Thomas

Many biologists dedicate their careers to finding out why life has taken the shape it has. Darwinian natural selection gives us the how, but researchers are deeply interested in why we find particular morphologies amongst certain organisms, when these morphologies arose, and what these morphologies mean for the organisms and the communities in which they reside. In this post, Daniel Thomas (Massey University, New Zealand) describes the philosophy behind the new morphoBlocks package for R. The package is presented in a new paper within the ‘Realising the promise of large data and complex models’ Special Feature for Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Researchers interested in exploring the morphoBlocks package are encouraged to try these three vignettes.

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