How do ecologists select and use indicator species to monitor ecological change? Insights from 14 years of publication in Ecological Indicators

Siddig, Ahmed A. H.; Ellison, Aaron M.; Ochs, Alison; Villar-Leeman, Claudia; Lau, Matthew K.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.06.036

Cited by 435 publications

(251 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…The extent that key attributes of biodiversity, including ecological (vegetation structure, species diversity and abundance and ecosystem functioning) and socioeconomic (Wortley et al, 2013). Moreover, diversity index as ecological indicators for monitoring environmental changes is reliable and cost-effective (Siddig et al, 2016). It is this a useful tool for monitoring and evaluating conservation areas (Nemeth and Jackson, 2007) and informing conservation policy and also provides information about the fish within the habitat.…”

Section: The Abundance and Diversity Of Fish As Indicators Of Seagrasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Threats to Seagrass Ecology and Indicators of the Importance of Seagrass Ecological Services in the Coastal Waters of East Lombok, Indonesia

Syukur

Wardiatno

Muchsin

et al. 2017

American Journal of Environmental Sciences

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Seagrass ecology contributes to the preservation of fish and other biota diversity and is also an important livelihood source for fishermen and local communities. The purpose of our research was (1) to determine the source of the threats toseagrass ecology and to the ecological services it provides for the sustainability of fish resources and (2) to determine the main indicators defining the conservation needs of seagrass in the study area. Data were collected through direct observation, questionnaires, interviews and discussions. Data for fish in the seagrass bed research sites were obtained using mini-trawlers belonging to local fishermen. All data were analyzed using descriptive statistical analyses. The results showed that seagrass beds play an important role in fish ecology and that local livelihoods were highly dependent on small-scale fishing. However, fishermen and local communities also constituted the two main threats to the preservation and sustainability of fish and other biota in the area. Our results found, too, that there is a scarcity of some types of biota: some fish species, mollusks, crabs, see-urchin and some types of sea cucumber were very difficult to find in the seagrass beds that were the focus of our study. Our conclusion is that, given the scarcity of fifteen species of fish, as well as of other biota and the lack of diversity in fish food in our study area, it is imperative that seagrass conservation becomes an important priority for conservation interventions.

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Section: The Abundance and Diversity Of Fish As Indicators Of Seagrasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Threats to Seagrass Ecology and Indicators of the Importance of Seagrass Ecological Services in the Coastal Waters of East Lombok, Indonesia

Syukur

Wardiatno

Muchsin

et al. 2017

American Journal of Environmental Sciences

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“…This assumes that the ecological security levels are N 1 , N 2 , ……, N m , and establishes the matter-element matrix R j (9) R j is defi ned as the classic domain matter-element matrix of ecological security; N j is the ecological security level (j = 1, 2,…m); ci (i = 1, 2,…n) is the characteristic of ecological security at level N j ; v ji is the stipulated value range of the N j on c i , which is the data range of the ecological security level corresponding to their characteristics. Next, the joint domain matter-element matrix R p is constructed: (10) …where N p is the total ecological security level and v ip is the data range of N p about c i .…”

Section: Matter-elemen T Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At present, although eco-security early warning research is still in the exploration stage, overseas and domestic scholars have achieved results in this area. Overseas scholars have performed many studies in climate and ecosystem shock prediction [2], natural disaster advanced warning [3][4][5][6][7][8], environmental health assessment [9], eco-environmental evolution [10], ecosystem function [11], and ecosystem stability [12], etc. Domestic scholars have performed many studies in ecological security mechanisms, theoretical study, early-warning models [13], etc., involving cities, landscape ecology, heritage sites, agriculture, soil, hydrology, and many other aspects [13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plateau Mountain Eco-Security Early Warning Research

Ma¹,

Zhang²,

Yang³

et al. 2016

Pol. J. Environ. Stud.

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At present, overseas and domestic eco-security early warning research is in the exploratory stage. This paper uses Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture as the research object and constructs an evaluation index system based on the pressure-state-response (P-S-R) conceptual model. This study analyzes eco-security early warning in the study area using the granger causality test model, the entropy weight method, and the matter-element model, and analyzes the present eco-security situation and future development trends in the study area. The author hopes that this study can further enrich eco-security early warning research and provide a scientifi c reference for ecological security in the study area. The specifi c research results were as follows: 1) This article evaluated the plateau mountain ecological security early warning system, and the application of the Granger causality test was further implemented with targeted and objective index system selection, achieving a one-to-one analysis in the results and further enriching the research theory of the importance of eco-security early warning systems. 2) On the whole, the eco-security situation in the study area is gradually moving in a positive direction, but the low level of overall eco-security continues to cause great pressure. 3) From 2005 to 2014, the study area gradually attached greater importance to the construction of ecosecurity, but the overall eco-security level is low, and the overall eco-security regulation capacity is insuffi cient. 4) The key eco-security pressure in the study area mainly derives from industrial and agricultural development, although the control power is gradually increasing, but the control effect is not obvious, and the contradiction between ecological security and socio-economic development is still very obvious. 5) The study area is a typical earthquake-prone area, and fi nancial input into the governance of natural geological disasters due to the high frequency of earthquakes is gradually increasing; but the study area still needs to increase its investments.

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“…In this context, patch shape/edge could actually be considered as an indicator for the true underlying management objective. While the efficacy of indicators in conservation has drawn mixed reviews (Carignan & Villard 2002;Seddon & Leech 2008;Fleishman & Murphy 2009), their practical utility has made their use almost standard monitoring practice in ecological systems (Caro 2010;Siddig et al 2016).…”

Section: Fish and Wildlife Services Adaptive Harvest Management Progrmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unfortunately, despite a marked increase in research and the use of indicator species (Siddig et al 2016), their role in "successfully" solving real world conservation challenges remains contested (Caro 2010). This may be because the link between monitoring an indicator and how the information provided is used in management is often ambiguous (Failing & Gregory 2003), or because the effectiveness of the indicator for helping achieve conservation outcomes is not well understood (Ferrier & Watson 1997;Grantham et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effective monitoring for biodiversity conservation

Bal¹

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Monitoring of biodiversity is expensive and can detract resources for managing biodiversity. Given limited resources for conservation, it is not only important to assess the choices we make for managing biodiversity but also those for monitoring biodiversity. This entails considering the benefits and costs of alternative monitoring strategies, and selecting the ones that best inform and improve management decisions. However, understanding which aspects of an ecosystem to monitor (e.g. which species, threat, or indicator) to make effective management decisions is a challenging task. This is especially true when we are faced with large uncertainties, such as those regarding the drivers of change when species are impacted by multiple threats. Although optimal monitoring approaches for conservation decision-making under limited resources have gained popularity over the last decade, similar approaches for monitoring and indicator selection to inform the management of multiple threats for biodiversity have received relatively little attention. In this thesis, I contribute to the theory and tools for selecting monitoring strategies and indicators to improve management decisions, with a focus on multi-species, multi-threat systems. The four objectives of my thesis are: (1) to review current approaches for selecting indicator species for biodiversity management; (2) to assess the value of monitoring species for managing multiple threats; (3) to assess the relative influence of uncertainty and expected benefits of management on monitoring decisions for multiple threats; and (4) to develop a simple indicator selection tool based on a return on investment framework for managing multi-species, multi-threat systems.The thesis starts with a systematic review of the conservation literature, in chapter two, to assess the extent to which the selection of indicator species for biodiversity management explicitly considers management objectives and the management outcomes of monitoring. I find that most indicator selection studies focus on improving the monitoring efficiency rather than the management effectiveness, potentially leading to ineffective indicators. Recommendations are provided to improve indicator selection for management decision-making. I also propose a decision framework for selecting indicator species and identify decision-analytic approaches to evaluate alternative monitoring choices that are further developed in the remainder of the thesis.In chapter three, I use value of information analysis to investigate how monitoring alternative species subject to multiple threats improves our ability to inform the management of these threats.iii Specifically, I compare the effectiveness of different monitoring approaches to learn about the threats i.e. monitoring just species and monitoring with experimental manipulation of threats. My results show that monitoring species alone is unlikely to provide useful information for threat management when there is uncertainty about the effect of multiple threats. Instead, an ...

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How do ecologists select and use indicator species to monitor ecological change? Insights from 14 years of publication in Ecological Indicators

Cited by 435 publications

References 20 publications

Threats to Seagrass Ecology and Indicators of the Importance of Seagrass Ecological Services in the Coastal Waters of East Lombok, Indonesia

Threats to Seagrass Ecology and Indicators of the Importance of Seagrass Ecological Services in the Coastal Waters of East Lombok, Indonesia

Plateau Mountain Eco-Security Early Warning Research

Effective monitoring for biodiversity conservation

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