Stefano Mammola doing fieldwork in a cave. Photo by courtesy of Francesco Tomasinelli (http://www.isopoda.net/).

Stefano Mammola: Revisiting Janzen’s hypothesis using cave-dwelling spiders

In this insight, Dr. Stefano Mammola discusses his paper “Extending Janzen’s hypothesis to temperate regions: a test using subterranean ecosystems” as well his experience as a subterranean ecologist. What’s your paper about? This paper is about testing the underlying assumption of Janzen’s hypothesis in caves. Published in 1967 under the evocative title “Why Mountain Passes are Higher in the Tropics”, Janzen’s hypothesis is an important … Continue reading Stefano Mammola: Revisiting Janzen’s hypothesis using cave-dwelling spiders

British Ecological Society4 Jul 2019Leave a comment

Behind the paper

Julie Marie van der Hoop: foraging amongst old data with the whales

Julie Marie van der Hoop has just finished up a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellowship with the Marine Bioacoustics Lab at Aarhus University. In this Insight, she talks about her work on Foraging rates of ram-filtering North Atlantic right whales. In this paper, the authors used multi-sensor bio-logging tags to ask the questions: How much prey-laden water is filtered by right whales over the course … Continue reading Julie Marie van der Hoop: foraging amongst old data with the whales

British Ecological Society1 Jul 2019Leave a comment

Behind the paper

Brian Gerber: Sage grouse and site-fidelity: moving beyond the win-stay:lose-switch rule.

Dr. Brian D. Gerber is an assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island in the department of Natural Resources Science (Lab Website, Google Scholar, ResearchGate). He focuses on understanding behavioral, population, and community ecology to conserve and manage wild animals. In this insight, Dr. Gerber discusses the background of the paper, “Extreme site fidelity as an optimal strategy in an unpredictable and homogeneous environment” … Continue reading Brian Gerber: Sage grouse and site-fidelity: moving beyond the win-stay:lose-switch rule.

British Ecological Society25 Jun 201925 Jun 2019Leave a comment

Behind the paper

Tamir Klein: broadleafs, conifers and a high-CO2 world

In this Insight, Dr. Tamir Klein of Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, talks about this latest paper Stomatal sensitivity to CO2 diverges between angiosperm and gymnosperm tree species.

British Ecological Society24 Jun 2019Leave a comment

Micah Scholer with female Barred Fruiteater (Pipreola arcuata)

Behind the paper

Micah Scholer: birds, BMR and survival

In our latest Insight, Micah Scholer, a PhD student in Zoology at the University of British Columbia Biodiversity Research Centre, talks about his new paper, Survival is negatively related to basal metabolic rate in tropical Andean birds and his path into ecology.

British Ecological Society21 Jun 2019Leave a comment

Behind the paper

Manuela Abelho: fallen leaves and feeding streams

The journey is as important as the destination: autumn-leaves as the main food source for stream communities

In this Insight, Manuela Abelho discusses her recent paper, Litter movement pathways across terrestrial–aquatic ecosystem boundaries affect litter colonization and decomposition in streams.

British Ecological Society19 Jun 2019Leave a comment

Behind the paper

Alex Strauss: disease, diversity and dilution

Dr Alex Strauss is a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the University of Minnesota and winner of the 2018 Haldane Prize for Early Career Researchers for his paper, Linking host traits, interactions with competitors and disease: Mechanistic foundations for disease dilution.

In this Insight, he talks about the background behind his paper, digs into disease, dilution and biodiversity, and what he wants to see happen next in this area.

British Ecological Society14 Jun 201924 Jun 2019Leave a comment

Behind the paper

Insight: Andrew Durso

Dr Andrew Durso is a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He was recently shortlisted for Functional Ecology’s Haldane Prize for Early Career Researchers for his paper, Stable isotope tracers reveal a trade‐off between reproduction and immunity in a reptile with competing needs

In this Insight, he talks about how he got into ecology and what he’s been working on since then.

British Ecological Society13 Jun 2019Leave a comment

Behind the paper

Francois-Xavier Joly: decomposition, detritivores and filling in the gaps.

Dr Francois-Xavier Joly is a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the University of Stirling, Scotland. He was recently shortlisted for Functional Ecology’s Haldane Prize for Early Career Researchers.