Avoiding the misuse of BLUP in behavioural ecology

Avoiding the misuse of BLUP in behavioural ecology

Having recognized that variation around the population-level "Golden Mean" of labile traits contains biologically meaningful information, behavioural ecologists have focused increasingly on exploring the causes and consequences of individual variation in behaviour. These are exciting new directions for the field, assisted in no small part by the adoption of mixed-effects modelling techniques th...

The misuse of BLUP in ecology and evolution.

Best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) is a method for obtaining point estimates of a random effect in a mixed effect model. Over the past decade it has been used extensively in ecology and evolutionary biology to predict individual breeding values and reaction norms. These predictions have been used to infer natural selection, evolutionary change, spatial-genetic patterns, individual reaction ...

Avoiding the misuse of fresh frozen plasma.

Behavioural Ecology

Animals are exposed to many conflicting ecological pressures, and the effect of one may often obscure that of another. A likely example of this is the so-called ‘‘lunar phobia’’ or reduced activity of bats during full moon. The main reason for lunar phobia was thought to be that bats adjust their activity to avoid predators. However, bats can be prey, but many are carnivorous and therefore pred...

Behavioural Ecology

Selective oviposition can have important consequences for recruitment limitation and population dynamics of organisms with complex life cycles. Temporal and spatial variation in oviposition may be driven by environmental or behavioral constraints. The goals of this study were to: (1) develop an empirical model of the substrate characteristics that best explain observed patterns of oviposition b...