Ecology is evolving rapidly and increasingly changing into a more open, accountable, interdisciplinary, collaborative and data-intensive science. Discovering, integrating and analyzing massive amounts of heterogeneous data are central to ecology as researchers address complex ques- tions at scales from the gene to the biosphere. Ecoinfor- matics offers tools and approaches for managing ecological data and transforming the data into informa- tion and knowledge. Here, we review the state-of-the-art and recent advances in ecoinformatics that can benefit ecologists and environmental scientists as they tackle increasingly challenging questions that require volumi- nous amounts of data across disciplines and scales of space and time. We also highlight the challenges and opportunities that remain.

Recovery or sustainable management of wildlife populations often entails management of habitat on which they depend. In this regard, turtles pose unique conservation challenges because of their life histories. The combination of late maturity, low survival when young, and dependence on high adult survival suggests they may be slow to respond demographically to conventional habitat management. Thus, long-term studies are necessary to understand population dynamics and recovery potential in these species. We used 5-11 years of mark-recapture data from 3 populations to evaluate survivorship, demography, and somatic growth of gopher tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus). Green Grove and Wade Tract (southwest GA) are ecological reserves with a history of land management compatible with tortoises. In contrast, Conecuh National Forest (south-central AL) is a closed-canopy pine plantation with prior intensive site preparation but where management intervention improved habitat for tortoises during the study. Apparent survival was high for mature tortoises (87-98%) compared to immature tortoises (70-82%). Adults comprised 57-79% of individuals captured, with Green Grove and Wade Tract populations dominated by larger individuals but Conecuh having a more uniform size distribution. The largest adults captured at Conecuh (297 mm maximum carapace length [CL]) were smaller than the largest adults from Green Grove (337 mm CL) or Wade Tract (341 mm CL), although characteristic growth constants from von Bertalanffy models were similar among sites. We suggest these results indicate a recovering population at Conecuh, where habitat conditions for gopher tortoises have improved despite a legacy of intense predation by humans and reduced habitat quality at the inception of this national forest. Further, we recommend using a combination of short-term and long-term monitoring metrics to assess population recovery in such long-lived species.