Why most conservation monitoring is, but need not be, a waste of time

Legg, Colin J.; Nagy, László

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2005.04.016

Cited by 398 publications

(372 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…One tool to investigate tolerable information loss when survey effort is reduced is to evaluate the statistical power of the different survey designs (Field et al 2005;Legg and Nagy 2006;Bailey et al 2007;Vellend et al 2008;Guillera-Arroita and Lahoz-Monfort 2012;Sewell et al 2012). Power analysis calculates the size of an effect that is detectable with a certain level of confidence and significance for a given design.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing robust field survey protocols in landscape ecology: a case study on birds, plants and butterflies

et al. 2014

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Sustainable land management requires scientists to provide reliable data on diversity distribution patterns. Resource restrictions limit the affordable sampling effort, both with respect to number of survey sites and amount of effort per site. We compared different levels of survey effort in a case study in Central Romania, varying the number of repeats per site and number of survey sites. Target taxa were plants, birds and butterflies. For plants, we surveyed three 10 m 2 plots and ten plots of 1 m 2 at each site. For birds, we used point counts and for butterflies Pollard walks, in both cases with four repeats. We fitted hierarchical community models to estimate true species richness per site. Estimates of true species richness per site strongly correlated with observed species richness. However, hierarchical community models yielded unrealistically high estimates of true species richness per site, hence we used observed richness for further analyses. For each species group, we compared diversity indices from subsets of the dataset with the full dataset. Findings obtained with a reduced survey effort reflected well those obtained with full effort. Moreover, we conducted a power analysis to assess how the number of survey sites affected the minimum detectable effect of landscape heterogeneity on species richness, and found there was an exponential decrease in the minimum detectable effect with increasing number of sites. In combination, our findings suggest that assessing broad 123Biodivers Conserv (2015) 24:33-46 DOI 10.1007 diversity patterns in abundant and readily detectable organisms may be possible with relatively low survey effort per site. Our study demonstrates the utility of conducting pilot studies prior to designing large-scale studies on diversity distribution patterns.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing robust field survey protocols in landscape ecology: a case study on birds, plants and butterflies

et al. 2014

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“…The methods applied in a monitoring program should be chosen according to their ability to generate appropriate data to address the selected monitoring objectives (McComb et al 2010;Legg and Nagy 2006). In the case of PMEM of GM crops, for some key features already approved monitoring methods may be available, but for most parts of PMEM rather new developments or modifications are necessary (Berhorn et al 2005).…”

Section: Availability Of Methodologies For Pmemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tools for a scientifically rigorous and efficient monitoring of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) – VDI Guidelines to ensure high quality of GMO-monitoring data

Zueghart¹,

Beismann²,

Schroeder³

2013

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“…In contrast, a Type II error has the potential to result in irreparable damage to resources. Prospective (a priori) power analyses of sampling designs can insure that adequate sample size is used (Steidl and others, 1997;Legg and Nagy, 2006).…”

Section: Design Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Framework for ecological monitoring on lands of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges and their partners

Woodward¹,

Beever²

2010

Open-File Report

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Why most conservation monitoring is, but need not be, a waste of time

Cited by 398 publications

References 33 publications

Developing robust field survey protocols in landscape ecology: a case study on birds, plants and butterflies

Developing robust field survey protocols in landscape ecology: a case study on birds, plants and butterflies

Tools for a scientifically rigorous and efficient monitoring of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) – VDI Guidelines to ensure high quality of GMO-monitoring data

Framework for ecological monitoring on lands of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges and their partners

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