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abstract: In recent years, ecological research has become increasingly synthetic, relying on revolutionary changes in data availability and accessibility. In spite of their strengths, these approaches may cause us to overlook natural history knowledge that is not part of the digitized English-language scientific record. Here, we combine historic and modern documents to quantify species-specific nesting habitat associations of bumblebees (Bombus spp. Latreille, 1802 Apidae). We compiled nest location data from 316 documents, of which 81 were non-English and 93 were published before 1950. We tested whether nesting traits show phylogenetic signal, examined relationships between habitat associations at different scales, and compared methodologies used to locate nests. We found no clear phylogenetic signals, but we found that nesting habitat associations were somewhat generalizable within subgenera. Landcover associations were related to nesting substrate associations; for example, surface-nesting species also tended to be associated with grasslands. Methodology was associated with nest locations; community scientists were most likely and researchers using nest boxes were least likely to report nests in human-dominated environments. These patterns were not apparent in past syntheses based only on the modern digital record. Our findings highlight the tremendous value of historic accounts for quantifying species’ traits and other basic biological knowledge needed to interpret global-scale patterns.
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Discovering accounts of Native American burning within digitized historical documents using information retrieval methods
Historical accounts (ca 17th–19th centuries ce) are valuable for understanding how and where past Native American cultures used fire as a land management tool. Previous research has compiled and interpreted accounts, but methods of compiling them remains less systematic, leaving open the possibility that undiscovered accounts exist. This study uses information retrieval methods to locate accounts of Native American burning within digitized historical documents. Utilizing known accounts from digitized documents, this research develops a model to rank text portions within unread documents based on their predicted relevance. The model used frequencies of key terms and related textual features as predictors, and the presence and absence of accounts within text portions as the dependent variable. Within 121 documents related to western New York State (NYS), USA, this study discovered 40 accounts including 28 in western NYS. Of accounts in western NYS, 12 accounts (describing 21 locations) made explicit connections to Native American burning, were resolvable to town-level or finer resolution, and were not derivative of other texts. To locate all known accounts, the model aided in reducing the amount of text to read to only 0.61% of total. Locations of burning were 0.0 to 16.2 km (median = 5.6 km) from the nearest Native American village area, and 0.1 to 12.5 km (median = 1.5 km) from the nearest trail. This study demonstrates how information retrieval can discover accounts of Native American burning, and suggests that undiscovered historical accounts exist that may advance historical, cultural, and ecological understandings of burning practices.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1660388
- PAR ID:
- 10216362
- Editor(s):
- Bittmann, Felix
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Vegetation history and archaeobotany
- Volume:
- 29
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1617-6278
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 463-476
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-019-00753-2
