Podcast

SPECIAL FEATURE: Understanding climate change response in the age of genomics

/ Julie / Leave a comment
The June issue of Journal of Animal Ecology is out now and includes a Special feature, Understanding climate change response in the age of genomics.

As global temperatures continue to rise, there is a major threat to species and ecosystems worldwide. In order to develop conservation and mitigation strategies, an understanding of how animal populations respond to changing environments is crucial. This Special Feature highlights emerging genomics approaches and how they can help us develop this understanding of how species respond to climate change. Blog Associate Editor, Julie Koch Sheard had a chat with Guest Editors for the feature, Maren Wellenreuther and Zachary Fuller about the motivation behind it and some of the papers included.

The Editorial for Understanding climate change response in the age of genomics is free to read here. All papers in the feature are also free to read for a limited time in issue 91:06.

Read the #StoryBehindthePaper for some of the featured articles here:

White seabream (Diplodus sargus). Credit: Robert A Patzner.
Striped red mullet (Mullus surmuletus). Credit: A. Dalongeville.
The characteristic love heart shaped ‘mating wheel’ formation of Ischnura elegans. Credit: Rachael Dudaniec
Some of the study species included in the special feature, which you can read about in the above-mentioned stories behind the papers.

Citizen Science Podcast: Mark Ditmer

/ Julie / Leave a comment

The fifth and final episode in our Citizen Science Special Issue podcast is live. Mark Ditmer tells us about their paper Artificial night light helps account for observer bias in citizen science monitoring of an expanding large mammal population, which was part of the Citizen Science Special Feature.

Featured image: An American black bear collared for research by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources rests after snacking on the contents of a bird feeder in northern Minnesota. © Kathy Stromberg. 

PREVIOUS EPISODES:

05/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, epsiode 1 Ian Thornhill
10/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 2 Frank La Sorte
15/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 3 Chris Latimer
19/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 4 Heather Williams

Citizen Science Podcast: Heather Williams

/ Julie / Leave a comment

The fourth episode in our Citizen Science Special Issue podcast is live. Heather Williams tells us about their paper Support for a relationship between demography and modeled habitat suitability is scale dependent for the purple martin Progne subis, which was part of the Citizen Science Special Feature.

Featured image: Purple martin nestlings (about 2 days old). © Adam Wilson.

COMING UP:

25/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 5 Mark Ditmer

PREVIOUS EPISODES:

05/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, epsiode 1 Ian Thornhill
10/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 2 Frank La Sorte
15/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 3 Chris Latimer

Citizen Science Podcast: Chris Latimer

/ Julie / Leave a comment

The third episode in our Citizen Science Special Issue podcast is live. Chris Latimer tells us about their paper Habitat loss and thermal tolerances influence the sensitivity of resident bird populations to winter weather at regional scales, which was part of the Citizen Science Special Feature.

Featured image by Jeremy Cohen

Coming up:

19/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 4 Heather Williams
25/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 5 Mark Ditmer

Previous episodes:

05/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, epsiode 1 Ian Thornhill
10/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 2 Frank La Sorte

Citizen Science Podcast: Frank La Sorte

/ Julie / Leave a comment

The second episode in our Citizen Science Special Issue podcast is live. Frank La Sorte tells us about their paper Phenological synchronization of seasonal bird migration with vegetation greenness across dietary guilds, which was part of the Citizen Science Special Feature.

Featured image: Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus) © Andy Eckerson

Coming up:

15/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 3 Chris Latimer
19/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 4 Heather Williams
25/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 5 Mark Ditmer

Previous episodes:

05/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, epsiode 1 Ian Thornhill

Citizen Science joint special issue is out now

/ Julie / Leave a comment

The February issue of Journal of Animal Ecology is out now, and includes the Citizen Science Special Feature. Joint with Journal of Applied Ecology, Journal of Ecology, Methods in Ecology and Evolution People and Nature and Ecological Solutions and Evidence there was an open call for papers surrounding the topic of ecological projects involving citizen scientists, and these papers are now released together across the six journals.

Over the next few weeks, we will be releasing podcast interviews with the lead authors of the four papers from the Journal of Animal Ecology included in the special issue. But first, we had a chat with Ian Thornhill, lead author of the special issue editorial, about what readers can expect to find in this special issue.

Listen to the first episode here:

Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 1 Ian Thornhill

Read the special issue editorial here.

Coming up:

10/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 2 Frank La Sorte
15/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 3 Chris Latimer
19/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 4 Heather Williams
25/02/2021 – Journal of Animal Ecology: Citizen Science Special Issue, episode 5 Mark Ditmer

Audio Abstracts: podcasts on the journal papers scripted and recorded by undergrads!

/ Ravindra / Leave a comment

With some exceptions, universities rarely teach STEM undergrads how to communicate science to a general audience. This is our initial step towards undergrad science education and teaching them how to communicate science to a wider audience.

I collaborated with Dr. Melissa McCartney and Amy Acosta at Florida International University to teach biology undergrads how to read and annotate research papers. We used papers from the Journal of Animal Ecology. I trained the students (from Evolution class and QBiC Genetics journal club) on how to script a podcast, based on the papers they annotated, for a general audience.

None of the students had experience in science communication through audio, and most of them did not have a habit of listening to science podcasts before.

The results of our short training, I think, are amazing!  Take a listen.

For more details about the stories, please refer to the papers under each podcast.

Episode 1. Diversity of skin microbiome on salamanders depends on the environment they live in

Paper– Effects of host species and environment on the skin microbiome of Plethodontid salamanders

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.12726

Episode 2. Restoration of Florida’s cat from an imminent danger

Paper– A cat’s tale: the impact of genetic restoration on  Florida panther population dynamics and persistence

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2656.12033

Episode 3. Metabolic rate in ants is adapted to the elevation they live at

Paper–Evidence for locally adaptive metabolic rates among ant populations along an elevational gradient

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.13007

Episode 4. GPS tracking helps uncover bull elephant reproductive tactics during Musth

Paper–Movement reveals reproductive tactics in male elephants

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2656.13035

Episode 5. Size of the fish we catch affects the species’ sexual behavior

Paper–Size‐selective harvesting fosters adaptations in mating behavior and reproductive allocation, affecting sexual selection in fish

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2656.13032

Episode 6. Can bacteria help manage environmental stress in aphids?

Paper-The influence of symbiotic bacteria on reproductive strategies and wing polyphenism in pea aphids responding to stress

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.12942

Episode 7. Diet-dependent gut microbe diversity in pikas

Paper–Gut microbial communities of American pikas (Ochotona princeps): Evidence for phylosymbiosis and adaptations to novel diets

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.12692

Episode 8. The buzz about urban bee adaptations

Paper–Urban bumblebees are smaller and more phenotypically diverse than their rural counterparts

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.13051

Episode 9. Inbreeding badgers prone to age and sex-dependent diseases

Paper– Inbreeding intensifies sex-and age-dependent disease in a wild mammal

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.12878

Episode 10. The effect of fishing and climate change on marine fish

Paper–Fishing constrains phenotypic responses of marine fish to climate variability

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2656.12999

Episode 11. The effect of plant diversity on the genetic structure of aphids

Paper–Effect of plant chemical variation and mutualistic ants on the local population genetic structure of an aphid herbivore

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.12995

Episode 12. Early-life environments in bank voles affect their next generation!

Paper–Intergenerational fitness effects of the early life environment in a wild rodent

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2656.13039

—

Music credits: Cinematic Digital – AShamaluevMusic. https://soundcloud.com/ashamaluevmusic/sets/documentary-music

Special thanks to Dr. Alessandro Catenazzi and Mr. Tommy Fieldsend for supporting their students in this process.

If you like this, please share it. And if you like to implement this in your class, please contact me (Ravindra, rpalaval@fiu.edu  or  rvndrpn@gmail.com).

 

Field Reports: Liam Bailey

/ Ravindra / 1 Comment

We are back with another episode of the Field Reports podcast. I interviewed Dr. Liam Bailey of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Berlin. We discuss climate change, R software, fieldwork stories and much more. To give you taste of what we chat about check out some pictures from his field work below:

Podcast

Read his recent paper: Habitat selection can reduce effects of extreme climatic events in a long‐lived shorebird.

You can listen to the future episodes of the podcast on iTunes, or by searching ‘British Ecological Society Journals’ (and then look for ‘FieldReports’ playlist) on your favorite podcast hosting app. Field Reports is hosted on the British Ecological Society’s Soundcloud account.

Host: @ravindra_pn;

Guest: @ldbailey255 Website: liamdbailey.com

Photographs provided by Liam

Music credits: http://podsummit.com/freemusic/

Field Reports: Natalie Clay, Elton Prize winner

/ Ravindra / Leave a comment

For this special episode of Field Reports, I interviewed the winner of this year’s Elton Prize, Dr Natalie Clay. We talk about ants, art, girls in STEM, nutritional ecology, and her award-winning paper.

 

Podcast:

You can listen to the future episodes of the podcast on iTunes, or by searching ‘British Ecological Society Journals’ (and then look for ‘FieldReports’ playlist) on your favorite podcast hosting app. Field Reports is hosted on the British Ecological Society’s Soundcloud account.

Websites

Host:http://rvndrpn.wixsite.com/ravindra

Natalie Clay: https://natalieclay.weebly.com/research.html 

Credits:

Music: Nihilore_Artifice (Freemusicarchive). Sound effects: Zedge.net. Additional footage: Videvo.org. Pictures provided by Natalie.

Congratulations to Ben Weinstein on winning the inaugural Sidnie Manton Award

/ Journal of Animal Ecology / Leave a comment

Today we are pleased to announce that to Ben Weinstein has won the inaugural Sidnie Manton Award for his paper ‘a computer vision for animal ecology’. Ben is a postdoctoral fellow at Oregon State University interested in community ecology, Bayesian modelling and data science.

Ben’s paper was selected as a winner from a shortlist of six excellent papers. All the shortlisted papers were excellent, topical examples of top-quality Reviews and Syntheses, but we’d also like to give the accolade of “highly commended” to the Synthesis by Jenni McDonald, Andy Robertson and Mathew Silk on “Wildlife disease ecology from the individual to the population: Insights from a long‐term study of a naturally infected European badger population“.

You can find out more about Ben’s paper and why we named the award after Sidnie Manton “the high priestess of the arthropods” in the Editorial in the current issue and in a special edition of the Field Reports podcast series.

Field Reports: Sidnie Manton Award – Ben Weinstein and Andrew Robertson (ft. Nathan Sanders)

For this special episode of Field Reports, Ravi interviewed the winner and the Highly Commended Early Career Researchers, Ben Weinstein and Andrew Roberston along with Senior Editor Nate Sanders. They talk about their research and the award-winning papers.

Figure from Ben Weinstein’s winning paper
Ben Weinstein
Andrew Roberston
Figure from the highly commended paper by Jenni McDonald, Andrew Roberston, and Mathew Silk.

Podcast:

You can listen to the future episodes of the podcast on iTunes, or by searching ‘British Ecological Society Journals’ (and then look for ‘FieldReports’ playlist) on your favorite podcast hosting app. Field Reports is hosted on the British Ecological Society’s Soundcloud account.

Websites

Host:http://rvndrpn.wixsite.com/ravindra

Ben Weinstein:http://benweinstein.weebly.com

Jenni McDonald: http://biosciences.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Jenni_McDonald

Andrew Robertson: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrew_Robertson8

Credits:

Music: Nihilore_Artifice (Freemusicarchive), Sound effects: Zedge.net, Additional footage: Videvo.org, Profile pictures taken from the guests’ websites.