There are many challenging environments on the planet, and the Andes Mountains are no exception. Animals living at height need to overcome a range of extremes – but how do they achieve this and what impact does it have on their evolution? Chauncey Gadek is a Masters student at the University of New Mexico, and his research with Dr Christopher Witt examines the impact of … Continue reading Glimpsing evolutionary instability in mountains
Studying aquatic animals has never been easy. Hidden from view beneath the water surface, they can be hard to find let-alone study in terms of their long-range movements. A recent paper published in the Journal of Animal Ecology investigated migratory behaviour in lake sturgeon. Lead author Steven Kessel from the Daniel P. Haerther Center for Conservation and Research at the John G. Shedd Aquarium is here to … Continue reading Divergent Migration in Lake Sturgeon
How can automated image processing be applied for detecting, counting and identifying animals in natural landscapes? A recent review article published in the Journal of Animal Ecology covers this exact question! Dr Ben Weinstein is a postdoctoral fellow at Oregon State University interested in community ecology, Bayesian modeling and data science. He studies a wide range of taxa including tropical hummingbirds, Antarctic whales, and temperate trees. … Continue reading It’s a bear! Adopting a ‘computer vision for animal ecology’
Animals move around. A lot. Migratory animals are widely assumed to play an important role in the long-distance dispersal of parasites and pathogens. But how does this affect the migratory animals themselves? PhD student Alice Risely, Deakin University, explains how infections might alter animal migration. Migratory animals spread pathogens. But how frequently? And how far? Is it super common for migratory birds to spread pathogens … Continue reading How does infection alter animal migration performance? It’s complicated.
Understanding the size of animal populations is necessary – but also extremely challenging. Andrea Campos Candela, a PhD student with the Fish Ecology Lab in the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA-CSIC) talks us through this problem. “How many animals are there? Understanding ecological processes and the dynamics of wild animal populations is dependent on our answer to such seemingly simple question. Further, recognizing changes … Continue reading Estimating Species Populations – a critical step in understanding ecological processes
There are thousands of academic papers published each year. But how do they all come about? Damien Farine and Alfredo Sánchez-Tójar share the ‘behind the scenes’ story of their recent paper on dominance hierarchies, and how it was all due to a fortunate encounter… Do you have a great #StoryBehindThePaper to share? Get in touch! One of the growing challenges in research is data analysis. Here are … Continue reading A practical guide for inferring reliable dominance hierarchies and estimating their uncertainty
A recent paper published in the Journal of Animal Ecology has found that poor-quality female southern elephant seals use breeding pauses as a tactic to produce more offspring over their lifetime. Here to tell us more are three of the authors: Marine Desprez, Clive McMahon and Rob Harcourt. Breeding is a costly activity. In long-lived multiparous animals, some individuals may skip one or several breeding … Continue reading Strategic pauses in female elephant seals
Since all models are wrong the scientist cannot obtain a “correct” one by excessive elaboration. On the contrary following William of Occam he should seek an economical description of natural phenomena. Just as the ability to devise simple but evocative models is the signature of the great scientist so overelaboration and overparameterization is often the mark of mediocrity. – George Box Ecology is fundamentally intertwined … Continue reading Spatial disease models: picking a “useful” model for pressing ecological questions
As well as being fascinating creatures with a unique sensory ecology, bats are also potentially useful indicator species whose population trends may help to provide broader information about the health of ecosystems. To mark Halloween, Ella Browning and Rory Gibb describe new research developing smart tools to more effectively and accurately monitor bat populations across the globe. Ella Browning and Rory Gibb are both PhD … Continue reading New technologies for listening to bats
Traditionally one of the UK’s most charismatic (and certainly distinctive) mammals, the badger has received mixed attention in recent times as a result of their involvement in disease transmission. To celebrate National Badger Day, Dr Andy Robertson describes the long-term study of these animals in Woodchester Park. Dr Robertson is a NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the University of Exeter’s Environment and Sustainability Institute, and … Continue reading Badgers and Disease Ecology
A blog from the Journal of Animal Ecology
Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process
Understanding life history and demography across the tree of life
Conservation research ... with bite
A blog from the Journal of Animal Ecology
Animal Ecology in Focus 