Recommended Reading | October 2014

The women who built ENIAC, the world’s first programmable, all-electronic, general-purpose computer.

They say the personal is political, and Charley Krebs goes on to suggest that all our scientific activities are too.

Will Grant and Rod Lamberts list 10 stuff-ups we all make when interpreting research.

Ninety minute moments from Kate Clancy’s working week.

Tanya Golash-Boza entreats academics to take their weekends off.

I welcome the day that the chocolate stains on my shirt signal that I’m “distractedly intellectual”. (via @gemcarey)

QAEcologist Esti Palma recounts her first conference experience, at ESA 2014.

Ian Lunt’s top tips for writing engaging scientific blog posts. (via @MeganVeganGood)

I immediately edited three things in my CV after reading this. (via Brendan Wintle)

Linking population models to adaptive management

Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution has just published a mini-review written by José Lahoz-Monfort, Gurutzeta Guillera-Arroita and I on the role of population models within adaptive management.

Population modelling has been integral to the adaptive management process since its inception, with many of C.J. Walters’ articles from the 1970s centred around fish population growth and harvest. Still, they can drift apart – population modelling can be pursued without the sense of purpose and link to management outcomes demanded by adaptive management, while some shy away from the bold hypotheses and specific predictions that adaptive management needs and population modelling can provide. In our review article, we step through the adaptive management cycle and discuss how population modelling can be used for setting objectives, generating alternative hypotheses, predicting the consequences of management actions, and assessing the value of information.

Frontiers is an open-access academic publisher with a social-networking bent. The peer review process was rapid and a little more interactive than usual, with private conversation threading involving the editor, reviewers and authors. Informal peer review can continue even after publication, with a comment box located below the abstract (registration required) and all the requisite ‘sharing’ buttons – so now it’s your turn to tell us what you think.

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Lahoz-Monfort J.J., Guillera-Arroita G. & Hauser C.E. (2014) From planning to implementation: explaining connections between adaptive management and population models. Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution 2:60. doi:10.3389/fevo.2014.00060