Yefeng Yang

UNSW Sydney | UNSW · School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES)

Meta-analysis has become commonplace within sport and exercise science for synthesising and sum-marising empirical studies. However, most research in the field focuses upon mean effects, particularly the effects of interventions to improve outcomes such as fitness or performance. It is thought that individual responses to interventions vary conside...

Uncovering general rules enhances the predictive capabilities in ecology and evolution. Meta-analytic approaches play a critical role in this endeavour, examining the extent to which phenomena can be replicated, generalized, and transferred. However, ecologists and evolutionary biologists have largely overlooked the role of meta-analytic heterogene...

Pesticides are indispensable in agriculture and have become ubiquitous in aquatic environments. Pesticides in natural environments can cause many negative impacts on aquatic species, ranging from mortality to sub-lethal physiological and behavioural changes. The complex sub-lethal impacts of pesticides are routinely tested on model species, with ze...

Sexual selection has been a popular subject within evolutionary biology because of its central role in explaining odd and counterintuitive traits found in nature. Consequently, the literature associated with this field of study became vast, with meta-analytical studies attempting to draw inferences from it. These meta-analyses have now accumulated,...

In a growing digital landscape, enhancing the discoverability and resonance of scientific articles is essential. Here, we offer ten recommendations to amplify the discoverability of studies in scientific databases. Particularly, we argue that the strategic use and placement of key terms in the title, abstract, and keyword sections can boost indexin...

Meta-analysis produces a quantitative synthesis of evidence-based knowledge, shaping not only research trends but also policy and practices in ecology and evolution. However, two statistical issues, selective reporting and statistical dependence, can severally distort meta-analytic evidence. Here, we propose a two-step procedure to tackle these cha...

Although meta‐analysis has become an essential tool in ecology and evolution, reporting of meta‐analytic results can still be much improved. To aid this, we have introduced the orchard plot, which presents not only overall estimates and their confidence intervals, but also shows corresponding heterogeneity (as prediction intervals) and individual e...

Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) has recently changed how author contributions are acknowledged. To extend and complement CRediT,we propose MeRIT, a new way of writing the Methods section using the author’s initials to further clarify contributor roles for reproducibility and replicability.

Collaborative efforts to directly replicate empirical studies in the medical and social sciences have revealed alarmingly low rates of replicability, a phenomenon dubbed the 'replication crisis'. Poor replicability has spurred cultural changes targeted at improving reliability in these disciplines. Given the absence of equivalent replication projec...

Power analysis currently dominates sample size determination, especially in grant and ethics applications. We plea for shifting away from this practice because such a focus could paradoxically result in a suboptimal study design. Also, undue focus on power increases disparities among scientists because only the wealthy can afford large experiments...

Meta-analysis is a quantitative way of synthesizing results from multiple studies to obtain reliable evidence of an intervention or phenomenon. Indeed, an increasing number of meta-analyses are conducted in environmental sciences, and resulting meta-analytic evidence is often used in environmental policies and decision-making. We conducted a survey...

1. Although meta-analysis has become an essential tool in ecology and evolution, reporting of meta-analytic results can still be much improved. To aid this, we have introduced the orchard plot, which presents not only overall estimates and their confidence intervals but also shows corresponding heterogeneity (as prediction intervals) and individual...

Meta-analytic techniques have been widely used to synthesize data from animal models of human diseases and conditions, but these analyses often face two statistical challenges due to complex nature of animal data (e.g., multiple effect sizes and multiple species): statistical dependency and confounding heterogeneity. These challenges can lead to un...

Rising temperatures represent a significant threat to the survival of ectothermic animals. As such, upper thermal limits represent an important trait to assess the vulnerability of ectotherms to changing temperatures. For instance, one may use upper thermal limits to estimate current and future thermal safety margins (i.e., the proximity of upper t...

Collaborative assessments of direct replicability of empirical studies in the medical and social sciences have exposed alarmingly low rates of replicability, a phenomenon dubbed the ‘replication crisis’. Poor replicability has spurred cultural changes targeted at improving reliability in these disciplines. Given the absence of equivalent replicatio...

Objective: The aim was to detect effects of blue light on reducing the adverse effect of heat stress in thermal manipulation (TM) of broiler embryos by subjecting embryos to heat stress during incubation development. Methods: Eggs were assigned to four treatments in which the TM (thermal manipulation) was exposed to 40°C for 4 h daily during fiv...

Recently, Costello and Fox (2022) tested, with a large dataset, the hypothesis of whether there is a widespread decline effect in the discipline of ecology. In other words, the magnitude of the reported ecological effect sizes declines over time (Leimu and Koricheva 2004). Contrary to early results from much smaller datasets (Jennions and Møller 20...

Field studies are essential to reliably quantify ecological responses to global change because they are exposed to realistic climate manipulations. Yet such studies are limited in replicates, resulting in less power and, therefore, unreliable effect estimates. Further, while manipulative field experiments are assumed to be more powerful than non‐ma...

Field studies are essential to reliably quantify ecological responses to global change because they are exposed to realistic climate manipulations. Yet such studies are limited in replicates, resulting in less power and, therefore, unreliable effect estimates. Further, while manipulative field experiments are assumed to be more powerful than non-ma...

Publication bias threatens the validity of quantitative evidence from meta‐analyses as it results in some findings being overrepresented in meta‐analytic datasets because they are published more frequently or sooner (e.g. ‘positive’ results). Unfortunately, methods to test for the presence of publication bias, or assess its impact on meta‐analytic...

1.Publication bias threatens the validity of quantitative evidence from meta-analyses as it results in some findings being overrepresented in meta-analytic datasets because they are published more frequently or sooner (e.g., ‘positive’ results). Unfortunately, methods to test for the presence of publication bias, or assess its impact on meta-analyt...

Physical exercise not only helps to improve physical health but can also enhance brain development and cognition. Recent reports on parental (both maternal and paternal) effects raise the possibility that parental exercise may provide benefits to offspring through intergenerational inheritance. However, the general magnitude and consistency of pare...

“Classic” forest plots show the effect sizes from individual studies and the aggregate effect from a meta‐analysis. However, in ecology and evolution meta‐analyses routinely contain over 100 effect sizes, making the classic forest plot of limited use. We surveyed 102 meta‐analyses in ecology and evolution, finding that only 11% use the classic fore...

Nighttime lighting is an increasingly important anthropogenic environmental stress on plants and animals. Exposure to unnatural lighting environments may disrupt circadian rhythm. However, studies involved in molecular biology, e.g. disruption of molecular circadian clock by light pollution, always have a small sample sizes. The small sample sizes...

LED has shown great advantages in poultry husbandry. This study focused on the behavioral preferences and production performance of chicken broilers reared under unevenly distributed yellow LED light. Four pens were divided into two groups adopting respective maximum light intensities (MLIs, 60 lx and 30 lx). Because of different distances from the...

Though previous study indicated that the 580 nm-yellow-LED-light showed an stimulating effect on growth of chickens, the low luminous efficiency of the yellow LED light cannot reflect the advantage of energy saving. In present study, the cool white LED chips and yellow LED chips have been combined to fabricate the white × yellow mixed LED light, wi...

Although many experiments have been conducted to clarify the response of broiler chickens to light-emitting diode (LED) light, those published results do not provide a solid scientific basis for quantifying the response of broiler chickens. This study used a meta-analysis to establish light spectral models of broiler chickens. The results indicated...

Light intensity is an important aspect for broiler production. However, previous results do not provide a solid scientific basis for quantifying the response of broilers to light intensity. This study performed a meta-analysis to model the response of broilers to 0.1 − 200 lux of light intensity. Meta-analysis was used to integrate smaller studies...

The average weight and flock uniformity of broilers in group housing is important information that allows producers to know the flock growth conditions and determine the selling time. However, gathering weight information of chickens is not only labor-intensive for humans but also frightening for the birds. In this study, an image-assisted rod-plat...

Light-emitting diode (LED) light sources have high potential for replacing traditional incandescent lamps in broiler production. LEDs with short wavelengths (480 and 560 nm) have been reported to stimulate broiler growth. However , short-wavelength stimuli might also have potential negative effects on husbandry workers, which has restricted the app...

Present study introduced a new method to manipulate broiler chicken growth and metabolism by mixing the growth-advantage LED. We found that the green/blue LED mixed light system (G-B and G × B) have the similar stimulatory effect on chick body weight with single green light and single blue light (G and B), compared with normal artificial light (P =...

Long daylength artificial light exposure associates with disorders, and a potential physiological mechanism has been proposed. However, previous studies have examined no more than three artificial light treatments and limited metabolic parameters, which have been insufficient to demonstrate mechanical responses. Here, comprehensive physiological re...

A previous study demonstrated that birds that are exposed to light at night develop advanced reproductive systems. However, spectrum might also affect the photoperiodic response of birds. The present study was aimed to investigate the effects of spectral composition on the growth and reproductive physiology of female breeders, using pure light-emit...

This study aimed to establish response curves between broiler chicken growth parameters and artificial light periods, as opposed to optimizing a lighting regimen for broiler production. Medium-growing broiler chickens were illuminated for periods of 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, or 24 h each day. The BW of the broilers were significantly influenced by li...

Previous study and our laboratory have reported that short-wavelength (blue and green) light and combination stimulate broiler growth. However, short-wavelength stimuli could have negative effects on poultry husbandry workers. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of human-friendly yellow LED light, which is acceptable to humans a...

The important task of replugging bad or missing cells with healthy seedlings in greenhouses is carried out by automatic transplanters. Grippers of such transplanters spend a considerable amount of time shuttling between the source and target trays during replugging. Therefore, work efficiency of transplanters can be significantly improved by tour p...

This study aimed to establish response curves between broiler chicken growth parameters and artificial light periods, as opposed to optimizing a lighting regimen for broiler production. Medium-growing broiler chickens were illuminated for periods of 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, or 24 h each day. The BW of the broilers were significantly influenced by li...

Despite the overwhelming use of artificial light on captive animals, its effect on those animals has rarely been studied experimentally. Housing animals in controlled light conditions is useful for assessing the effects of light. The chicken is one of the best-studied animals in artificial light experiments, and here, we evaluate the effect of poly...