Hot off the presses! Sep 01 Trends Ecol Evol

The Sep 01 issue of the Trends Ecol Evol is now up on Pubget (About Trends Ecol Evol): if you're at a subscribing institution, just click the link in the latest link at the home page. (Note you'll only be able to get all the PDFs in the issue if your institution subscribes to Pubget.)

Latest Articles Include:

• Editorial Board
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):i (2009)
  
• A new dawn for citizen science
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):467-471 (2009)
  A citizen scientist is a volunteer who collects and/or processes data as part of a scientific enquiry. Projects that involve citizen scientists are burgeoning, particularly in ecology and the environmental sciences, although the roots of citizen science go back to the very beginnings of modern science itself.
• Assisted colonization: evaluating contrasting management actions (and values) in the face of uncertainty
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):471-472 (2009)
  
• Managed relocation: a nuanced evaluation is needed
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):472-473 (2009)
  
• Assisted migration: part of an integrated conservation strategy
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):473-474 (2009)
  
• The precautionary principle in managed relocation is misguided advice
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):474 (2009)
  
• Assisted colonization is a techno-fix
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):475 (2009)
  
• Assisted colonization: good intentions and dubious risk assessment
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):476-477 (2009)
  
• Galaxies of the ants
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):477-478 (2009)
  
• No sex please, we're clonal
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):478-479 (2009)
  
• Cherchez le Darwinism
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):479-480 (2009)
  
• Is it time for timetrees?
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):480-481 (2009)
  
• Adaptive monitoring: a new paradigm for long-term research and monitoring
  Lindenmayer DB Likens GE - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):482-486 (2009)
  Long-term research and monitoring can provide important ecological insights and are crucial for the improved management of ecosystems and natural resources. However, many long-term research and monitoring programs are either ineffective or fail completely owing to poor planning and/or lack of focus. Here we propose the paradigm of adaptive monitoring, which aims to resolve many of the problems that have undermined previous attempts to establish long-term research and monitoring. This paradigm is driven by tractable questions, rigorous statistical design at the outset, a conceptual model of the ecosystem or other entity being examined and a human need to know about ecosystem change. An adaptive monitoring framework enables monitoring programs to evolve iteratively as new information emerges and research questions change.
• Relaxed selection in the wild
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):487-496 (2009)
  Natural populations often experience the weakening or removal of a source of selection that had been important in the maintenance of one or more traits. Here we refer to these situations as 'relaxed selection,' and review recent studies that explore the effects of such changes on traits in their ecological contexts. In a few systems, such as the loss of armor in stickleback, the genetic, developmental and ecological bases of trait evolution are being discovered. These results yield insights into whether and how fast a trait is reduced or lost under relaxed selection. We provide a prospectus and a framework for understanding relaxed selection and trait loss in natural populations. We also examine its implications for applied issues, such as antibiotic resistance and the success of invasive species.
• Invasive species, ecosystem services and human well-being
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):497-504 (2009)
  Although the effects of invasive alien species (IAS) on native species are well documented, the many ways in which such species impact ecosystem services are still emerging. Here we assess the costs and benefits of IAS for provisioning, regulating and cultural services, and illustrate the synergies and tradeoffs associated with these impacts using case studies that include South Africa, the Great Lakes and Hawaii. We identify services and interactions that are the least understood and propose a research and policy framework for filling the remaining knowledge gaps. Drawing on ecology and economics to incorporate the impacts of IAS on ecosystem services into decision making is key to restoring and sustaining those life-support services that nature provides and all organisms depend upon.
• Emerging horizons in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning research
  Reiss J Bridle JR Montoya JM Woodward G - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):505-514 (2009)
  Two decades of intensive research have provided compelling evidence for a link between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (B-EF). Whereas early B-EF research concentrated on species richness and single processes, recent studies have investigated different measures of both biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, such as functional diversity and joint metrics of multiple processes. There is also a shift from viewing assemblages in terms of their contribution to particular processes toward placing them within a wider food web context. We review how the responses and predictors in B-EF experiments are quantified and how biodiversity effects are shaped by multitrophic interactions. Further, we discuss how B-EF metrics and food web relations could be addressed simultaneously. We conclude that addressing traits, multiple processes and food web interactions is needed to capture the mechanisms that underlie B-EF relations in natural assemblages.
• Evaluating the mitochondrial timescale of human evolution
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(9):515-521 (2009)
  Different methodologies and modes of calibration have produced disparate, sometimes irreconcilable, reconstructions of the evolutionary and demographic history of our species. We discuss how date estimates are affected by the choice of molecular data and methodology, and evaluate various mitochondrial estimates of the timescale of human evolution in the context of the contemporary palaeontological and archaeological evidence for key stages in human prehistory. We contend that some of the most widely-cited mitochondrial rate estimates have several significant shortcomings, including a reliance on a human-chimpanzee calibration, and highlight the pressing need for revised rate estimates.