Stephanie O'Donnell
- @StephODonnell
- | She / Her
WILDLABS
Applied ecological management relies in part on the application of technology to help mitigate anthropogenic impacts and facilitate the recovery of populations and ecosystems. In the past few decades, new and advanced technology has been applied to solve conservation and ecosystem management problems on ever increasing scales and scopes. However there remains a gap between implementation of those technologies and their dissemination.
Given the increasingly technical nature of applied ecological and conservation management, we believe that there is a large appetite amongst practitioners to learn about emerging technological advances and to understand how they can be applied to their specific applied problems and local contexts.
This joint special feature with Ecological Solutions and Evidence and Methods in Ecology and Evolution will not only highlight the application of new technologies to help with pernicious applied problems, but also reflect on the promise and potential pitfalls of new emerging technologies.
Examples of types of contributions may include (but certainly not limited to):
- Innovative use of smartphones to collect data (e.g., LIDAR forest mapping, tracking the use of urban greenspace)
- CRISPR-CAS9 and gene drives for managing endangered or invasive species
- Development and deployment of new AI algorithms for identifying species from images (e.g., mapping invasive species from Google Street View images).
- Advancement of remote sensing tools to identify species or ecological processes (e.g., assessments of pathogen outbreaks in forests).
- Tapping into user-contributed image databases to track natural processes (e.g., Crowdsourcing phenology assessments using Flickr images)
- Descriptions of new R packages or other software releases that provide value to applied conservation
- New machine-learning algorithms (e.g. mapping colonization and establishment of non-native species)
- Identifying biases in data and methods for overcoming them (e.g. digitized museum-collection data)
- Improving diversity and inclusion in conservation science (methods or solutions)
More specific examples for Ecological Solutions and Evidence:
- Review articles that evaluate how new technologies are being implemented or the policies supporting or limiting their use (e.g., policy frameworks directing the development and application of new biotech tools to manage invasive species).
- Perspective articles on the broader implications of technology development and use (e.g., ensuring equitable benefits from new ecosystem management technologies).
- Practice Insights articles by practitioners sharing their perspectives and insights on the use and deployment of new technologies
More specific examples for Methods in Ecology and Evolution:
- Applications articles describing and sharing worked examples of software packages (in R, Python or Julia) useful for monitoring, measuring and analysing conservation and restoration data
- Practical Tools articles introducing new smartphone-based platforms for collecting and assimilating measures of biodiversity
Click here to submit your proposal
Deadline for proposals: Sunday 12th March 2023
Proposals should meet the scope of the special feature as set out above and that of the journal you are proposing to submit to:
- Ecological Solutions and Evidence publishes articles with direct relevance for the management of biological resources and ecological systems. For more details, please read the full Aims and scope (ESE).
- Methods in Ecology and Evolution publishes articles that promote the development of new methods in ecology and evolution. For more details, please read the full Aims and scope (MEE).
Proposals should be submitted by Sunday 12th March 2023. They will be assessed by the journals’ Editors, and authors will be invited to prepare and submit their proposed articles if they are in scope of the journal and a good fit for the special feature. All authors will be notified of their proposal outcome within 3 weeks after the proposals deadline.
If your proposal is accepted, your manuscript must be submitted by Wednesdays 27th September 2023.
Please submit your proposal via the form linked above with the following:
- Corresponding author details
- Target journal
- Proposed article type (ESE article types, MEE article types)
- Title
- Outline of your proposed study or Abstract
If you have any queries, please contact [email protected]
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