Manage habitat, monitor species [Chapter 10]

Abstract

Monitoring is the collection of data over time. We monitor many things: temperatures at local weather stations, daily changes in sea level along the coastline, annual prevalence of specific diseases, sunspot cycles, unemployment rates, inflation, commodity futures-the list is virtually endless. In wildlife biology, we also conduct a lot of monitoring, most commonly measuring state variables that either directly or indirectly relate to the size and areal extent of wildlife populations. Most of these activities, both in wildlife biology and more generally, are not strongly targeted at answering specific questions. Rather, they reflect measurements of things we consider to be of general interest, but which, as data streams temporally extend, often produce a variety of novel insights. For instance, no one could have predicted the benefits of long-term, fixed local weather stations or atmospheric C02 measurements in evaluating climate change, a purpose for which neither data stream was initially intended (Lovett eta!. 2007; Harris 2010).

Citation

Schwartz, Michael K.; Sanderlin, Jamie S.; Block, William M. 2015. Manage habitat, monitor species [Chapter 10]. In: M. L. Morrison; Mathewson, H. A., editors. Wildlife Habitat Conservation: Concepts, Challenges, and Solutions. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 128-142.