Structure in your data can undermine your model validations: the problem and some solutions

Statistical models in ecology are used not just to describe the present state of natural systems, but also to predict their change or development over time. Such models are fairly simple to create and have thus become ubiquitous in all areas of ecological research. To...

No longer a black box: how did Maxent go open-source?

By Mary E. Blair and Robert P. Anderson

Fifteen years ago, Steven Phillips, a computer science researcher at AT&T Labs from South Africa, walked a few blocks from his apartment in New York City to the American Museum of Natural...

Spatial variation in Allee effects influences patterns of range expansion

In simulations comparing a population spread in a spatially homogenous (left) versus patchy (right) landscapes, variation in the Allee effect induces variation in spread patterns and increases the overall rate of spread.

By Jonathan A. Walter...

Shape analysis in a metacommunity context

The sigmodontine rodent genus Eligmodontia includes highly specialized desert-dwellers in the Southern Cone of South America. Species of gerbil mice have inflated auditory bullae, and are also capable of bipedal jumping and elevated urine concentration. Photo by...

Newly ice free areas in Antarctica and its consequences for coastal benthic ecosystems

Underwater pictures taken on the wall of the new island at Potter Cove. Both pictures were taken between 10 and 15 m depth where a high abundances of filters feeders such as ascidians and sponges were found. Note the aluminum ruler (10 cm long) that was attached to the...

Sleeping with the enemy: elephants alter rest behavior in risky areas

By Laura Keating and George Wittemyer

Sleep has been hypothesized to be fundamental to cognitive functioning, and extreme sleep deprivation can have lethal implications. In addition, sleep is one of the most susceptible times of day for an animal...

Making sense of of community phylogenetic metrics and null models

A rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus) and a helmeted friarbird (Philemon buceroides) eye each other warily at a flowering Schefflera actinophylla in Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia. Photo by Bryan Suson....

Plant traffic along mountain roads

Gravel road through Torres del Paine National Park in the Chilean Andes

Editor's choice March 2017

By Jonas Lembrechts

Roads help us to get from point A to point B. They are extremely useful structures for doing exactly...

Regression commonality analyses on hierarchical genetic distances

By Jerome G. Prunier

Landscape genetics is emerging as an important way of supporting decision-making in landscape management, in response to the deterioration of matrix permeability due to habitat loss and fragmentation. In line with unremitting methodological...

Tropical frugivorous birds are both more specialized and generalized than temperate frugivorous birds

Frugivorous bird assemblages at high latitudes consist mainly of bird species with an omnivorous diet containing both fruits and a wide range of other food types. This is here exemplified with the North American Turdus migratorius eating both earthworms and fruits...