To what degree are philosophy and the ecological niche concept necessary in the ecological theory and conservation?

Ecology as a field produces philosophical anxiety, largely because it differs in scientific structure from classical  physics. The hypothetical deductive models of classical physics are simple and predictive; general ecological models are predictably limited, as they refer to complex, multi-causal processes. Inattention to the conceptual  structure of ecology usually imposes difficulties for the application of ecological models. Imprecise descriptions of ecological niche have obstructed the development of collective definitions, causing confusion in the literature and complicating communication between theoretical ecologists, conservationists and decision and policy-makers. Intense, unprecedented erosion of biodiversity is typical of the Anthropocene, and knowledge of ecology may provide solutions to lessen the intensification of species losses. Concerned philosophers and ecologists have characterised ecological niche theory as less useful in practice; however, some theorists maintain that is has relevant applications for conservation. Species niche modelling, for instance, has gained traction in the literature; however, there are few examples of its successful application. Philosophical analysis of the structure, precision and constraints upon the definition of a ‘niche’ may minimise the anxiety surrounding ecology, potentially facilitating communication between policy-makers and scientists within the various ecological subcultures. The results may enhance the success of conservation applications at both small and large scales

Beyond ‘Interaction’: How to Understand Social Effects on Social Cognition

In recent years, a number of philosophers and cognitive scientists have advocated for an ‘interactive turn’ in the methodology of social-cognition research: to become more ecologically valid, we must design experiments that are interactive, rather than merely observational. While the practical aim of improving ecological validity in the study of social cognition is laudable, we think that the notion of ‘interaction’ is not suitable for this task: as it is currently deployed in the social cognition literature, this notion leads to serious conceptual and methodological confusion. In this paper, we tackle this confusion on three fronts: 1) we revise the ‘interactionist’ definition of interaction; 2) we demonstrate a number of potential methodological confounds that arise in interactive experimental designs; and 3) we show that ersatz interactivity works just as well as the real thing. We conclude that the notion of ‘interaction’, as it is currently being deployed in this literature, obscures an accurate understanding of human social cognition

Implicit Multisensory Associations Influence Voice Recognition

Natural objects provide partially redundant information to the brain through different sensory modalities. For example, voices and faces both give information about the speech content, age, and gender of a person. Thanks to this redundancy, multimodal recognition is fast, robust, and automatic. In unimodal perception, however, only part of the information about an object is available. Here, we addressed whether, even under conditions of unimodal sensory input, crossmodal neural circuits that have been shaped by previous associative learning become activated and underpin a performance benefit. We measured brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging before, while, and after participants learned to associate either sensory redundant stimuli, i.e. voices and faces, or arbitrary multimodal combinations, i.e. voices and written names, ring tones, and cell phones or brand names of these cell phones. After learning, participants were better at recognizing unimodal auditory voices that had been paired with faces than those paired with written names, and association of voices with faces resulted in an increased functional coupling between voice and face areas. No such effects were observed for ring tones that had been paired with cell phones or names. These findings demonstrate that brief exposure to ecologically valid and sensory redundant stimulus pairs, such as voices and faces, induces specific multisensory associations. Consistent with predictive coding theories, associative representations become thereafter available for unimodal perception and facilitate object recognition. These data suggest that for natural objects effective predictive signals can be generated across sensory systems and proceed by optimization of functional connectivity between specialized cortical sensory modules

Digital Web Ecosystem Development for Managing Social Network Data Science

The World Wide Web (WWW) unfolds with diverse domains and associated data sources, complicating the network data science. In addition, heterogeneity and multidimensionality can make data management, documentation, and even integration more challenging. The WWW emerges as a complex digital ecosystem on Big Data scale, and we conceptualize the web network as a Digital Web Ecosystem (DWE) in an analytical space. The purpose of the research is to develop a framework, explore the association between attributes of social networks and assess their strengths. We have experimented network users and usability attributes of social networks and tools, including misgivings. We construe new insights from data views of DWE metadata. For leveraging the usability and popularity-sentiment attribute relationships, we compute map views and several regressions between instances of technology and society dimensions, interpreting their strengths and weaknesses. Visual analytics adds values to the DWE meta-knowledge, establishing cognitive data usability in the WWW

Digital Web Ecosystem Development for Managing Social Network Data Science

The World Wide Web (WWW) unfolds with diverse domains and associated data sources, complicating the network data science. In addition, heterogeneity and multidimensionality can make data management, documentation, and even integration more challenging. The WWW emerges as a complex digital ecosystem on Big Data scale, and we conceptualize the web network as a Digital Web Ecosystem (DWE) in an analytical space. The purpose of the research is to develop a framework, explore the association between attributes of social networks and assess their strengths. We have experimented network users and usability attributes of social networks and tools, including misgivings. We construe new insights from data views of DWE metadata. For leveraging the usability and popularity-sentiment attribute relationships, we compute map views and several regressions between instances of technology and society dimensions, interpreting their strengths and weaknesses. Visual analytics adds values to the DWE meta-knowledge, establishing cognitive data usability in the WWW

Estimating encounter location distributions from animal tracking data

1. Ecologists have long been interested in linking individual behaviour with higher level processes. For motile species, this ‘upscaling’ is governed by how well any given movement strategy maximizes encounters with positive factors and minimizes encounters with negative factors. Despite the importance of encounter events for a broad range of ecological processes, encounter theory has not kept pace with developments in animal tracking or movement modelling. Furthermore, existing work has focused primarily on the relationship between animal movement and encounter rates while the relationship between individual movement and the spatial locations of encounter events in the environment has remained conspicuously understudied. 2. Here, we bridge this gap by introducing a method for describing the long-term encounter location probabilities for movement within home ranges, termed the conditional distribution of encounters (CDE). We then derive this distribution, as well as confidence intervals, implement its statistical estimator into open-source software and demonstrate the broad ecological relevance of this distribution. 3. We first use simulated data to show how our estimator provides asymptotically consistent estimates. We then demonstrate the general utility of this method for three simulation-based scenarios that occur routinely in biological systems: (a) a population of individuals with home ranges that overlap with neighbours; (b) a pair of individuals with a hard territorial border between their home ranges; and (c) a predator with a large home range that encompassed the home ranges of multiple prey individuals. Using GPS data from white-faced capuchins Cebus capucinus, tracked on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, and sleepy lizards Tiliqua rugosa, tracked in Bundey, South Australia, we then show how the CDE can be used to estimate the locations of territorial borders, identify key resources, quantify the potential for competitive or predatory interactions and/or identify any changes in behaviour that directly result from location-specific encounter probability. 4. The CDE enables researchers to better understand the dynamics of populations of interacting individuals. Notably, the general estimation framework developed in this work builds straightforwardly off of home range estimation and requires no specialized data collection protocols. This method is now openly available via the ctmm R package

Scale-specific spatial density-dependence in parasitoids: a multi-factor meta-analysis

1. Within a landscape, the risk of an insect being attacked by a parasitoid varies with the local density of the host species. This relationship should be strongest when observed at medium extents and resolutions with respect to the parasitoids’ foraging range, and turn negative at fine resolutions. The relationship is also hypothesised to depend on certain traits of the host and parasitoid taxa – e.g. being more positive for more specialised hosts or parasitoids and more negative for mobile hosts or gregarious parasitoids. Building on earlier literature reviews, it is now possible to investigate these hypotheses using meta-analysis. 2. We performed a multi-factor meta-analysis on 151 analyses of parasitism rates with respect to host densities at specified scales, from 61 empirical studies published from 1988 to 2012. We explored how the correlation between host density and parasitism rate may be related to the explanatory variables already mentioned, plus parasitoid body-size and various other characteristics of both hosts and parasitoids. 3. Correlations (Pearson’s r) between host density and parasitism rate ranged from –0.88 to 0.98 (mean 0.16, standard deviation 0.39). The correlation was more often negative where the host was exotic or in the orders Lepidoptera or Diptera, where the parasitoid was larger or exotic, or where the study was conducted at a finer grain-size. Hymenoptera and Homoptera were the most likely host orders to reveal positive associations, with Coleoptera and Diptera intermediate. 4. The fact that increased observational grain-size had similar effects to decreased parasitoid body length could be taken as evidence that parasitoids’ foraging ranges increase with their body-length. However, the hypothesis about scale-specific foraging was not supported by studies that compared multiple scales. 5. We conclude that parasitism most commonly produces positive (compensatory) spatial density-dependence, but ecological context is all-important. These findings should help improve the design and interpretation of field experiments on parasitism as well as their application to the modelling of population dynamics and the practice of biological control

Differences in signal contrast and camouflage among different colour variations of a stomatopod crustacean, Neogonodactylus oerstedii

Animal colouration is often a trade-off between background matching for camouflage from predators, and conspicuousness for communication with con- or heterospecifics. Stomatopods are marine crustaceans known to use colour signals during courtship and contests, while their overall body colouration may provide camouflage. However, we have little understanding of how stomatopods perceive these signals in their environment or whether overall body coloration does provide camouflage from predators. Neogonodactylus oerstedii assess meral spot colour during contests, and meral spot colour varies depending on local habitat. By calculating quantum catch for N. oerstedii’s 12 photoreceptors associated with chromatic vision, we found that variation in meral spot total reflectance does not function to increase signal contrast in the local habitat. Neogonodactylus oerstedii also show between-habitat variation in dorsal body colouration. We used visual models to predict a trichromatic fish predator’s perception of these colour variations. Our results suggest that sandy and green stomatopods are camouflaged from a typical fish predator in rubble fields and seagrass beds, respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate signal contrast and camouflage in a stomatopod. These results provide new insight into the function and evolution of colouration in a species with a complex visual system