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Associate Editor (Blog) –Methods in Ecology and Evolution – Methods Blog
Methods in Ecology and Evolution is looking for two new Editors to help run their highly successful blog. The Methods Blog is the widely-read blog for the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution, which receives over 100,000 views a year. We are looking for two engaging researchers with expertise in the fields of evolutionary biology and ecology and a…
Robert May Prize 2023: Winner announced for early career researcher award – Methods Blog
We're excited to announce Willem Bonnaffé as the winner of the 2023 Robert May Prize, celebrating the best article in the journal by an author at the start of their career. Winner: Willem Bonnaffé Research: Fast fitting of neural ordinary differential equations by Bayesian neural gradient matching to infer ecological interactions from time-series data About…
Measuring the mighty mudsnails with superpixels – Methods Blog
Post provided by Liam MacNeil Collecting data from thousands of biological specimens can reveal wide scale patterns, however, doing this manually is time intensive. In this blog post, Liam MacNeil describes their automated approach to data collection and the insights this provided on mudsnail morphology. Evolution on the beach Charles Darwin begins his masterwork On…
Detangling NODEs – Methods Blog
I'm Willem Bonnaffé, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. In my research, I integrate biological data, mathematical modelling, and machine learning. I spend most of my time modelling natural systems with neural ordinary differential equations - NODEs or Neural ODEs for short. In this blog post, I am hoping to shed light on…
Does my species senesce? – Methods Blog
Post provided by Lotte de Vries Animals and plants exhibit a wide range of patterns of longevity, growth, and reproduction but the general drivers of this enormous variation in life history are poorly understood. Comparative demography uses large demographic databases to attempt to identify patterns in life-history strategies across the tree of life (e.g. this…
Increasing Complexity in Species Distribution Modelling – Methods Blog
Megan Laxton and colleagues originally set out to translate an existing example of a species distribution model into a new software framework. However, what originated as a simple modelling example developed into a discussion on structural complexity in species distribution models. Complexity in Species Distribution Models The original idea for our paper was to provide…
The Data Double Standard: how this article came to be – Methods Blog
Post provided by Alison Binley As a new Master’s student at Carleton University, I was excited to learn the ins and outs of using community science data (also known commonly as citizen science, participatory research, and crowd-sourced data) to conduct conservation research. I was working on estimating population trends using eBird, a popular, opportunistic community…
Early career research: Increasing access, reproducibility and transparency in phylogenetic analyses with Cristian Román-Palacios – Methods Blog
Photo of Cristian Román-Palacios I was born in the Colombian Andes (Armenia, Quindío) back in the 90s. I received my bachelor's degree in Biology from Universidad del Valle, in Cali, Colombia, in 2015. I moved to the US in 2016 to pursue a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona –…
2023 Robert May Prize Shortlist: Methods Ecology and Evolution’s Award for Early Career Researchers – Methods Blog
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. With entries spanning the 14th Volume of the journal, our Senior Editors carefully shortlisted the following 9 papers: Megan Laxton; Balancing structural complexity with ecological insight in Spatio-temporal…
Methods in Ecology and Evolution: International Women’s Day 2024 – Methods Blog
To celebrate International Women's Day 2024, we are excited to share a collection of blog posts showcasing the work of some of our new Associate Editors. In each post, our editors discuss their experiences in ecology, as well as what this year's theme, 'Inspire Inclusion', means to them. Dr Lorna Hernandez-Santin (She/her) What work do…
Key Concepts in Ecology: Competition – Methods Blog
This blog post on ‘Competition’ is part of the BES ‘Key Concepts in Ecology’ series, designed to help ecologists in learning the key topics in ecology! Take a look at the full series for a list of key topics you might typically find in an ecology textbook, each providing a quick introduction to the topic,…
Opening Ecology to Local, Traditional, and Indigenous Knowledge – Methods Blog
Post provided by James T. Thorson Ecologists have a social responsibility to document, interpret, and forecast how human activities are impacting our shared world. There’s an ongoing movement to open ecology to new voices: for example, the Biden-Harris Administration has directed US agencies to incorporate Indigenous Knowledge through ethical and mutually beneficial relationships with tribal…
ToxTrac: A free and user-friendly animal tracking software – Methods Blog
Post provided by Magnus Andersson Animal tracking software no longer has to be costly or require advanced computational science skills to operate. Over the last decade, a significant number of free animal tracking software options have been released. However, many of these options suffer from infrequent updates and demand considerable computational expertise to utilize effectively.…
Key Concepts in Ecology: Adaptations to variable environments – Methods Blog
This blog post on ‘Adaptations to variable environments’ is part of the BES ‘Key Concepts in Ecology’ series, designed to help ecologists in learning the key topics in ecology! Take a look at the full series for a list of key topics you might typically find in an ecology textbook, each providing a quick introduction…
Our January issue is out now! – Methods Blog
This issue contains the latest methods in ecology and evolution, including automated tracking, unhatched eggs, quantifying colour vision and much more! Read to find out about this month’s featured articles and the article behind our cover! Featured There are two distinct approaches to describing the distributions of biomass and species in food webs: one to…
The buzzOmeter: Recording buzzing insects in motion – Methods Blog
Post provided by Marta Skowron Volponi Has the buzzing sound of a wasp flying past your ear ever made you recoil in fear of being stung? What if these buzzes are a warning display aimed at potential predators, just like the bees’ and wasps’ bright colouration that sends a message: “don’t touch me, I’m dangerous”?…
Our December Issue is out now! – Methods Blog
This issue contains 19 articles about the latest methods in ecology and evolution, including drones, leaf wettability and much more! Read to find out about this month’s featured articles and the article behind our cover! Featured Articles What makes for a good submission for Methods in Ecology and Evolution and what really doesn’t work? The…
Black History Month 2023 – Blessing Allen-Adebayo. – Methods Blog
For Black History Month 2023, the British Ecological Society (BES) journals are celebrating the work of Black ecologists from around the world and sharing their stories. In this blog, Blessing shares her story and journey in academia. Name: Blessing Allen-Adebayo Affiliation : Igbinedion Univerisity, Okada (School)/ People in Need (Work place) Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blessingallen-adebayo/ Interests: 1. Environmental…
Spooky ecology: A celebration of bats – Methods Blog
Marking the end of Bat appreciation month and Halloween explore some of the BES journals articles all about our favourite flying mammal! Bats are Important in many ways including as pollinators (Tremlett et al. 2020) , insect control, seed dispersal and can even act as indicators of habitat health. Echolocation is a vital communication and…
Black History Month 2023 – Akoth Sisiria – Methods Blog
For Black History Month 2023, the British Ecological Society (BES) journals are celebrating the work of Black ecologists from around the world and sharing their stories. In this blog, Akoth Sisiria shares her story and journey in academia. Name: Akoth Sisiria Affiliation: I am currently working with TotalEnergies Exploration and Production Uganda (TEPU) as a Biodiversity…
Double anonymous peer review frequently asked questions – Methods Blog
Like many of the other British Ecological Society journals, MEE has recently transitioned to a double anonymous peer review model. This decision was made after the results of a recent study conducted from 2019-2022 on the Journal of Functional Ecology. Below are some frequently asked questions to help with the preparation of your submission to…
Double anonymous peer review frequently asked questions – Methods Blog
Like many of the other British Ecological Society journals, MEE has recently transitioned to a double anonymous peer review model. This decision was made after the results of a recent study conducted from 2019-2022 on the Journal of Functional Ecology. Below are some frequently asked questions to help with the preparation of your submission to…
Our August Issue is out now! – Methods Blog
Our August issue is now online now! This issue contains 27 articles about the latest methods in ecology and evolution, including a special feature on active remote sensing, seed morphology, drones and much more! Read to find out about this month’s featured articles and the article behind our cover. Special feature Our Joint Special Feature with…
Tracking marine tetrapod carcasses, passive drifters and citizen science – Methods Blog
In this new video Maurício Tavares and coauthors showcase the findings of their latest article. They designed and tested a system for tracking carcasses of marine tetrapods on the Southern Subtropical Shelf of the southwestern Atlantic Ocean. Their research contributes to findings on marine tetrapod drift patterns and can be replicated in other coastal regions…
Active remote sensing- Behind the research – Methods Blog
Active sources of remote sensing data, in particular Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR), majorly differ from passive sources by offering data of three-dimensional (3D) character, which help representing the earth terrain, surface and the related structural attributes. This cross-journal special feature hosts a series of innovative publications from multiple…
Our July Issue is out now! – Methods Blog
Our June issue is now online now! This issue contains 19 articles about the latest methods in ecology and evolution, including a special feature on active remote sensing, seed morphology, drones and much more! Read to find out about this month’s featured articles and the article behind our cover Special feature Active sources of remote sensing…
AnimalTA: an easy-to-use program for tracking and analysing animal movement – Methods Blog
Post provided by Violette Chiara and Sin-Yeon Kim There are many tools available to track and analyse animal movement. In this post, Violette Chiara and Sin-Yeon Kim share insights on how AnimalTA fills the niche of an accessible, user-friendly software for video analysis. Why AnimalTA? AnimalTA is a new tool to track and analyse animal…
Seeds ‘exposed’! A method to automatically reveal seed morphological traits from images. – Methods Blog
Post provided by Roberta L. C. Dayrell The knowledge of seed morphology is an essential resource for practitioners and scientists across diverse disciplines such as botany, agriculture, restoration, conservation, and archaeology. Morphological attributes can inform studies on topics such as seed dispersal, predation, longevity, and germination. This knowledge also has practical applications, including seed identification…
Heat waves reconstructed! – Methods Blog
Post provided by Loke von Schmalensee For many decades, humans have tried to understand how to process continuous signals for our convenience. As a result, numerous innovative methods have been developed for recording, compressing, restoring, and transforming (and more) continuous signals. Consider, for instance, the relationship between signal processing and music: it comes into play…
Our June Issue is out now! – Methods Blog
Our June issue is now online now! This issue contains 17 articles about the latest methods in ecology and evolution, including citizen science data, drones and multi authored papers and much more! Read to find out about this month’s featured articles and the article behind our cover. Featured Articles Researchers in ecology and evolutionary biology are…
Welcoming our new Methods in Ecology and Evolution Associate Editors – Methods Blog
Methods in Ecology and Evolution is delighted to announce 13 new Associate Editors who have joined the Editorial Board following our latest open call across all seven BES journals Dr Timo AdamUniversity of Copenhagen, Denmark My research focuses on the development, implementation, and application of innovative statistical methods for stochastic processes, particularly hidden Markov models…
Using citizen science photos to perform phenological studies – Methods Blog
Post provided by Yves P. Klinger (he/him) Photos collected by citizen scientists are a rich source of information that is still relatively unexplored. Phenology, the study of recurring biological events, could make use of photos taken by citizen scientists at different times, but accessing and preparing the plethora of publicly available data is challenging. In…
Unraveling the identity of fish sounds to support marine conservation – Methods Blog
Post provided by Xavier Mouy Fish sounds and marine conservation Many fish species produce sounds to attract mates, scare away predators or defend their territory. These sounds are very useful to us, scientists! Just by listening to the ocean, we can detect the presence of different fish species, infer their behaviour and potentially find out…
Our May issue is out now! – Methods Blog
Our May issue is now online now! This issue contains 18 articles about the latest methods in ecology and evolution, including species distribution models, temperature measurements and much more! Read to find out about this month’s featured articles and the article behind our cover. Featured articles The insurance effect of biodiversity—that diversity stabilises aggregate ecosystem properties—is…
wingen: mapping genetic diversity using moving windows – Methods Blog
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…
Robert May Prize 2022: Winner announced for early career researcher award – Methods Blog
We’re excited to announce Tanya Strydom as the winner of the 2022 Robert May Prize , celebrating the best article in the journal by an author at the start of their career. Winner: Tanya Strydom Research: Food web reconstruction through phylogenetic transfer of low-rank network representation About the Research Despite their importance in many ecological…
Wind-robust sound event detection and denoising for bioacoustics – Methods Blog
Post provided by Julius Juodakis Common solutions to wind noise don’t work with bioacoustics Bioacoustics has great potential to help us understand animal communities. We already have strikingly futuristic hardware for capturing natural sounds, such as the autonomous Audiomoth or the 5-gram μMoth recorders, and projects making use of it, such as the live-observation WhaleMap,…
Searching for my (paleo)buddies – Methods Blog
Post provided by Bruno do Rosario Petrucci Inferring rates of diversification from phylogenies and fossils has been a focus of evolutionary biology for generations, since a quantitative understanding of the dynamics of speciation and extinction is necessary for a complete picture of the history of life. Computational and statistical methods with that goal have recently…
Increasing the accessibility of genetic sequencing with ISSRseq – Methods Blog
Post provided by Sandra J. Simon Working with a Genetic Model During my PhD at West Virginia University (WVU), I worked with the genetic models in the family Salicaceae, such as Populus trichocarpa,to understand the relationship between plant genetics and biotic interactions. Let’s take a moment to focus on what makes P. trichocarpa a good…
Our April issue is out now! – Methods Blog
Our April issue is now online now! This issue contains 11 articles about the latest methods in ecology and evolution including machine learning, mitochondrial gene extraction, robot birds and much more! Featured Articles The popularity of machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL) and artificial intelligence (AI) has risen sharply in recent years. This article provides a…