Tag: #StoryBehindThePaper

#StoryBehindThePaper, Guest post

Up silt creek without a niche: how do stream food webs respond to sedimentation?

This blog post is provided by Francis J. Burdon, Angus McIntosh, and Jon Harding and tells the #StoryBehindThePaper for their article ”Mechanisms of landscape disturbance: evidence from landscape disturbance”. Food webs represent a holistic systems approach to characterizing patterns of biodiversity and energy flow by describing trophic interactions between consumers and resources. However, how these ecological networks respond to natural and anthropogenic perturbations remains poorly … Continue reading Up silt creek without a niche: how do stream food webs respond to sedimentation?

Julie SheardLeave a comment
#StoryBehindThePaper

Untangling community dynamics using spatially explicit Bayesian networks

In this article, Nick Fountain-Jones from the University of Tasmania introduces how advances in Bayesian networks can be used to untangle community dynamics and, in particular, the moose microbiome by telling us the #StoryBehindThePaper. Microbial communities are inherently complex systems with potentially hundreds of millions of interacting species. Every surface of the body is occupied by a diverse set of microbes; interactions between them, mediated … Continue reading Untangling community dynamics using spatially explicit Bayesian networks

Journal of Animal Ecology1 Comment
Guest post

There are no second acts in animal life cycles

This blog post has been provided by Mike Moore, a post-doctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative in St. Louis, USA. It tells the #StoryBehindThePaper for “On the evolution of carry-over effects”, a review that was short-listed for the Sidnie Manton Award.  Simply put, the things that animals need to do in one part of the life cycle are almost always different from the things … Continue reading There are no second acts in animal life cycles

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Guest post

Large mammals at Mt. Kilimanjaro: the importance of resource availability and protected areas

This blog post is provided by Friederike Gebert from the University of Würzburg and tells the #StoryBehindThePaper for her article  Primary productivity and habitat protection predict elevational species richness and community biomass of large mammals on Mt. Kilimanjaro which has been shortlisted for the 2019 Elton Prize. Mountains are biodiversity hotspots and prior areas for conservation. Even though elevational gradients belong to the best described … Continue reading Large mammals at Mt. Kilimanjaro: the importance of resource availability and protected areas

Journal of Animal Ecology1 Comment
Guest post

How good are we at identifying cues for breeding?

This blog post is provided by Emily Simmonds from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and tells the #StoryBehindThePaper for her article  Cue identification in phenology: A case study of the predictive performance of current statistical tools which has been shortlisted for the 2019 Elton Prize. How do individuals decide when to start breeding, come out of hibernation, drop their leaves, or migrate? … Continue reading How good are we at identifying cues for breeding?

Journal of Animal EcologyLeave a comment
Guest post

Persistence (and a bit of luck) pays off: Costs of reproduction in mountain ungulates

Fitness costs of reproduction are expected when resources are limited. This can drive the evolution of life‐history strategies and can affect population dynamics, particularly if females change their allocation of resources to reproduction. Dr Marco Festa-Bianchet (Université de Sherbrooke) explains the value of long-term studies for understanding such trade-offs and gives the #StoryBehindThePaper for his recent synthesis article in the Journal of Animal Ecology. Long-term studies … Continue reading Persistence (and a bit of luck) pays off: Costs of reproduction in mountain ungulates

Sarah MarleyLeave a comment
Guest post

Disease Ecology: The Lion’s Share

For the 2017 Elton Prize, the Editors selected one winning paper and two highly-commended papers. Last month we featured a blog post about prize winner Natalie Clay, and now we are proud to feature a post by highly-commended author Nick Fountain-Jones. Nick is a postdoc with the Department of Veterinary Population Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Read on to hear the #StoryBehindThePaper Understanding disease transmission … Continue reading Disease Ecology: The Lion’s Share

Sarah MarleyLeave a comment
#StoryBehindThePaper, Guest post

Frogs and Herbicides: A Gut Feeling

Dr. Sarah Knutie led a study to explore whether a commonly-used herbicide affects the gut microbes of frogs and if the gut microbes could mediate the effect of the herbicide on infection risk by the amphibian chytrid fungus. She conducted the work as a Post-doctoral Researcher at the University of South Florida and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut. Here, she … Continue reading Frogs and Herbicides: A Gut Feeling

Sarah MarleyLeave a comment
Guest post

Behind the scenes: An evolutionary framework outlining the integration of individual social and spatial ecology

Our latest #StoryBehindThePaper comes from Quinn Webber, a PhD student working with Dr Eric Vander Wal in the Wildlife Evolutionary Ecology Lab at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada. Quinn is studying social and spatial behaviour of caribou on the Island of Newfoundland and Fogo Island. His work focuses on improving scientific unerstanding of how social network structure is related to habitat selection and space use, and how these … Continue reading Behind the scenes: An evolutionary framework outlining the integration of individual social and spatial ecology

Sarah Marley1 Comment
Guest post

A practical guide for inferring reliable dominance hierarchies and estimating their uncertainty

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

Sarah MarleyLeave a comment