A century of statistical Ecology

For over 100 years, Ecology has been an important venue for introducing novel statistical methods and providing accessible guides on best practices in statistical modeling. The proliferation of statistical ecology papers starting in the latter decades of the 20th century reflects an ongoing data revolution (e.g., remote sensing, volunteer-collected data, and automated data collection). The influx of new data types and increased computational power has driven a need for quantitative methods to explain and interpret increasingly large datasets while properly incorporating uncertainty. This collection showcases 36 influential statistical ecology papers that have been published in Ecology throughout its history. The collection is organized thematically, highlighting the areas of statistical ecology that have received the most attention in the journal. The authorship of the papers reflects the discipline’s historical lack of diversity; recent years have seen a rise in the diversity of authors, but more efforts are needed to fully reduce barriers to participation. The accompanying photo is a spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer), one of the species featured in MacKenzie et al. (2002), which described the first occupancy model, an important advance in modeling species distributions while accounting for imperfect detection.

https://www.esa.org/blog/2024/05/15/a-century-of-statistical-ecology/

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