British Ecological Society Journals

Jane Elith and Michael Kearney, University of Melbourne, Australia and Steven Phillips, AT&T, USA talk with Graziella Iossa about their work: 'The art of modelling range-shifting species'. Jane explains that this is a method to predict species distributions, whose range are shifting, like invasive species or species responding to climate change. Mike Kearney then specifies why they used cane toads as a case study for their work. By taking characteristics of the animal and putting this information together they could ask from a physiological point of view, where cane toads could not live. They also asked how to bring together this mechanistic approach with more traditional approaches. This work advances methodology by combining information from physiological models to data in the correlation-based ones; by looking at details of how you can do the modelling; and by looking at tools for understanding models and data, something that a lot of people will find interesting. Then Steven explains about MaxEnt, a progr

Art Munson, Cornell University, USA, talks with Graziella Iossa about his work with colleagues in developing a method for measuring the relative information content of data from different monitoring protocols. Art presents a method to compare the information from two data sources. As often in ecology data are difficult to compare because they have been collected at different points in space and time, Art and colleagues propose using a model that summarises each of these data sources and allowing a direct comparison of the data. Their work advances methodology in ecology and evolution in two ways. At first they were analysing a citizen science project, the eBird dataset, which collects bird observations throughout the western hemisphere and there was a question of how much the biological information was being collected by this citizen science project. One outcome of their work found that eBird is collecting a lot of useful information. More generally, this method can be applied to verify data sources for lots

Karen Strier, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and Susan Alberts, Duke University, USA and Institute of Primate Research, Kenya, talk with Graziella Iossa, MEE Journal Co-ordinator, about their work with co-authors: The Primate Life History Database. This online database is based on long-term datasets that researchers at several institutions in North America have created to make data comparable across studies. It will aid future comparative analyses of primate data and the creation of easily archivable output. The most important features of this database, as Susan points out, are its structure and the use of a common vocabulary. Karen and Susan hope that it will be applicable to studies of most vertabrates and certainly of mammals. Read the article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2010.00023.x/full

Graziella Iossa interviews Jean-Pierre Moussus, MNHN - EGB about his work with co-authors Romain Julliard and Frederic Jiguet on phenological estimators using simulated data. Read the article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2010.00020.x/full

Doug Barron answers what is the main idea behind his work with co-authors, "Meta-analysis of transmitter effects on avian behaviour and ecology". Further, he explains how their meta-analysis advances methodology in ecology and evolution and finally shows how the findings of their study could be applied by anyone using transmitters on birds. Read the article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2010.00013.x/full

Matt Baker talks to Graziella about TITAN, their method for measuring ecological community thresholds that should be able to inform about conservation of rare and threatened species. Read the article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2009.00007.x/full

In this latest podcast, Alan Knapp, Editor of Functional Ecology, interviews Ryan Sponseller and his co-authors on their paper 'Variation in monsoon precipitation drives spatial and temporal patterns of Larrea tridentata growth in the Sonoran Desert'. Read the paper: Ryan A. Sponseller et al. (2012), Variation in monsoon precipitation drives spatial and temporal patterns of Larrea tridentata growth in the Sonoran Desert.: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2435.2012.01979.x/full

Alan Knapp interviews Amy Austin about her paper co-authored with Victoria Marchesini where they examined how a massive bamboo flowering event, which occurred in 2001 over 200,000 hectares in Patagonia, Argentina , impacted carbon and nutrient cycling in a native old-growth forest. Read the paper on Functional Ecology: Austin, A. T. and Marchesini, V. A. (2011), Gregarious flowering and death of understorey bamboo slow litter decomposition and nitrogen turnover in a southern temperate forest in Patagonia, Argentina. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2435.2011.01910.x/abstract

In Functional Ecology's first podcast, Phil Hulme talks to Alan Knapp, about his study which is the first comparison testing for consistency in flowering phenology of species established in the wild in both their native Europe and as introduced aliens in North America. Read the paper here: Hulme, P. E. (2011), Consistent flowering response to global warming by European plants introduced into North America. Functional Ecology, 25: 1189–1196. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2435.2011.01899.x/abstract