Why We Need to Invest in Large-Scale, Long-Term Monitoring Programs in Landscape Ecology and Conservation Biology

Abstract

Purpose of Review Large-scale and/or long-term monitoring has many important roles in landscape ecology and conservation biology. We explore some of these roles in this review. We also briefly discuss some of the key design issues that need to be considered when developing long-term, large-scale monitoring to ensure it is effective. Recent Findings Much has been written on the importance of ecological monitoring, but the record on monitoring in landscape ecology and conservation remains generally poor. For populations of many species and for many environmental management interventions, monitoring is rarely done, or done well. This review outlines some of the reasons it is critical to invest in well-designed, implemented, and maintained monitoring. New ways of using monitoring data, such as in environmental accounting and mandated environmental reporting, might provide avenues for garnering greater support for monitoring programs in the future. Summary We discuss seven of the most important roles of monitoring in landscape ecology and conservation biology. These are (1) documenting responses to environmental change, (2) answering key ecological questions, (3) testing existing ecological theory and developing new theory, (4) quantifying the effectiveness of management interventions, (5) informing environmental prediction systems, (6) engaging citizen scientists and the general public, and (7) contributing data and other insights to environmental initiatives. We illustrate these key roles with examples, drawn from existing large-scale, long-term work in a range of environments in Australia. We argue that some of these functions can only be realized if a monitoring program is well designed, implemented, and maintained.

The undetectability of global biodiversity trends using local species richness

“…Arguably, we need a representative network of sampling sites that provides unbiased, integrated and regularly updated biodiversity data. This requires long‐term and large‐scale monitoring programs at the national and regional levels designed to measure relevant biodiversity trends and assess policy‐relevant targets (Lindenmayer et al 2022). Designing effective national and regional biodiversity surveys can be accomplished by selecting sampling sites that cover the full array of different environmental and geographical conditions to improve the effectiveness of biodiversity inventories (Nuñez‐Penichet et al 2022).…”

A 91% decline in a common anuran in an otherwise stable amphibian community inferred from 17 years of rapid road surveys

“…(4) Maintain the study in the long term. This includes creating meaningful partnerships with communities and/or stakeholders for consistent surveys, storing the data and relevant metadata in an organized manner and deliberating results through public reports or a publicly available data repository (Lindenmayer, Lavery, & Scheele, 2022).…”

“…First and foremost, we recommend that long‐term sampling sites be selected according to perceived detection and abundance, as well as sampling convenience, and, thus, advocate for a non‐random sample of a population in the landscape. We argue, however, that this problem is generally endemic to long‐term studies, where populations and sites may be selected specifically because they host an unusually large abundance of the target taxa or taxon, which facilitates sampling and increases statistical power and long‐term stability of the project (Lindenmayer et al ., 2022). Thus, semi‐structured road surveys may be no more or less biased in terms of sampling location than other long‐term studies, and, therefore, deserve similar scrutiny.…”

Long‐term occupancy monitoring reveals value of moderate disturbance for an open‐habitat specialist, the Stephens' kangaroo rat (Dipodomys stephensi)

“…Long‐term ecological studies of populations can be valuable for quantifying how spatial and demographic parameters change over time and for better understanding population dynamics in association with environmental change (e.g., Hughes et al, 2017; Likens & Lindenmayer, 2018; Lindenmayer et al, 2022). Long‐term monitoring efforts are especially valuable when studying species that experience significant intra‐ and inter‐annual variation in reproduction and survival and can provide more robust understanding of overall population trends (Meserve et al, 2003; Whitford, 1976).…”

“…Similarly, variation in the spatial distribution can result from meta‐population dynamics and where availability of suitable habitat patches varies over space and time (i.e., Fahrig, 1992). As a result, long‐term studies provide some of the most robust data on trends in populations, critical to evidence‐based policy decisions (Lindenmayer et al, 2022).…”