It’s Friday and that means that it’s time for our Friday link dump, where we highlight some recent papers (and other stuff) that we found interesting but didn’t have the time to write an entire post about. If you think there’s something we missed, or have something to say, please share in the comments section!

Jon recently posted a great introduction to machine learning in his blog. If you are interested in learning more about these techniques you should definitely check it out! And also, take a look at this older publication: “Machine Learning Methods Without Tears: A Primer for Ecologists”.

Scott L. Nuismer and Luke J. Harmon evaluated the factors affecting the explanatory power of phylogenetic information on species interaction in their recently published paper “Predicting rates of interspecific interaction from phylogenetic trees”. Their findings suggest that mutualistic networks exhibit less phylogenetic signal in rates of interactions than competitive ones and that if interactions  depend on a mechanism of phenotype differences, phylogenetic information has little predictive power for trait evolution and interaction rates.

Tim Coulson, 
senior editor of the Journal of Animal Ecology, shares his experience of working with theoreticians and empiricists in a very awesome post titled “Modelers to the left of me, field biologists to the right; here I am, stuck in the middle with you”.

Here is another great post, which was also recently posted in the Journal of Animal Ecology blog on model complexity.

At last, yesterday we celebrated the International Darwin Day,  a date intended to “inspire people to reflect and act on the principles of intellectual bravery, perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth as embodied in Charles Darwin”. So Happy late Darwin Day!

– Vinicius Bastazini

February 13, 2015