Table Of ContentEFFECTIVE
ECOLOGICAL
MONITORING
We are most pleased to dedicate the Second Edition of this book to
Phyllis C Likens, now deceased. Her indefatigable spirit, good humour and
exceptional support and encouragement for this book project are
enthusiastically acknowledged and greatly missed.
SECOND EDITION
EFFECTIVE
ECOLOGICAL
MONITORING
SECOND EDITION
David B. Lindenmayer and Gene E. Likens
© David Lindenmayer and Gene Likens 2018
All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the Australian Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent
amendments, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, duplicating or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the copyright owner. Contact CSIRO Publishing for all permission requests.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.
Published by
CSIRO Publishing
Locked Bag 10
Clayton South VIC 3169
Australia
Telephone: +61 3 9545 8400
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.publish.csiro.au
Front cover: (clockwise from top left) Dan Florance in the field (photo by Dave Blair); Litoria fallax (photo by
Damian Michael); Fungus in the Victorian Central Highlands (photo by Elle Bowd); Bull moose at Isle Royale
National Park (photo by Shawn Malone)
Back cover: Eastern yellow robins (photo by Dave Blair)
Set in 11/13.5 Minion & Helvetica Neue LT Std
Edited by Karen Pearce
Cover design by James Kelly
Typeset by Desktop Concepts Pty Ltd, Melbourne
Index by Max McMaster
Printed in China by Toppan Leefung Printing Limited
CSIRO Publishing publishes and distributes scientific, technical and health science books, magazines and
journals from Australia to a worldwide audience and conducts these activities autonomously from the research
activities of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). The views expressed
in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of, and should not be
attributed to, the publisher or CSIRO. The copyright owner shall not be liable for technical or other errors or
omissions contained herein. The reader/user accepts all risks and responsibility for losses, damages, costs and
other consequences resulting directly or indirectly from using this information.
Original print edition:
The paper this book is printed on is in accordance with
the rules of the Forest Stewardship Council®. The FSC®
promotes environmentally responsible, socially
beneficial and economically viable management of the
world’s forests.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface to Second Edition xi
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Some of the ecological values and uses of long-term datasets 4
Time until expression 5
Informing policies and legislation in environmental management 7
Use in simulation modelling 8
Tests of ecological theory 9
Development of co-located, collaborative and multidisciplinary work 12
Detection of surprises 12
Poor record of long-term ecological monitoring 13
Why we wrote this book 15
1. Societal need 15
2. Correcting the record – countering the perception that long-term
studies in ecology are poor quality science 15
3. Making sense of the vast monitoring literature 16
4. Providing an overview of success and failure 17
5. New perspectives 17
References 18
Chapter 2 Why monitoring fails 27
Characteristics of ineffective monitoring programs 28
Failure to ask the preliminary and fundamental question – Is monitoring
needed at all? 28
Passive, mindless and lacking questions 29
Lack of trigger points for action 30
Poor experimental design 31
Snowed by a blizzard of ecological details 32
Squabbles about what to monitor – ‘It’s not monitoring without the mayflies’ 32
v
vi Effective Ecological Monitoring
Assumption that ‘one size fits all’ 35
Big machines that go ‘bing’ 37
Disengagement 40
Rush to get ‘real work’ happening on the ground and accusations of program
over-engineering 41
Poor data management 42
Breaches of data integrity 43
Other factors contributing to ineffective monitoring programs 45
Lack of funding – grant myopia 46
The loss of a champion 46
Out of nowhere 47
Excessive bureaucracy 48
Summary 49
References 50
Chapter 3 What makes long-term monitoring effective? 59
Characteristics of effective monitoring programs 59
Good questions and evolving questions 60
The use of a conceptual model 62
Selection of appropriate entities to measure 63
Good design 65
Well-developed partnerships 67
Strong and dedicated leadership 70
Potential to identify key emerging issues 75
Ongoing funding 76
Frequent use of data 77
Scientific productivity 77
Maintenance of data integrity and calibration of field techniques 78
Little things matter a lot! Some ‘tricks of the trade’ 78
Field transport 78
Field staff 80
Access to field sites 80
Time in the field 81
The adaptive monitoring framework 81
Examples of the adaptive monitoring framework 83
Adaptive monitoring is a general and not a prescriptive framework 85
Increased future role for adaptive monitoring 86
Summary 86
References 89
Contents vii
Chapter 4 The problematic, the effective and the ugly – some case studies 99
The problematic 101
PPBio Australasia 101
The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Program (ABMP) 104
EMAP 109
The effective 114
Rothamsted 114
Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program (EHMP) for Moreton Bay in
South East Queensland, Australia 118
The Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study 121
The Central Highlands of Victoria, south-eastern Australia 129
Need to wait and see 139
NEON/TERN 139
The ugly 150
Summary 150
References 151
Chapter 5 The upshot – our general conclusions 163
Changes in culture needed to facilitate monitoring 165
The academic culture and rewards systems 165
Structure of organisations 171
Funding 172
Societal culture 174
Good things that can come from non-question based monitoring 175
The role of citizen science in long-term monitoring 175
The challenge of intellectual property and data sharing 177
The challenges in effective monitoring of rare, threatened and
endangered species 178
The major challenge of keeping monitoring and long-term studies going 180
The big issue of integrating different kinds of monitoring 181
Approaches to integrate data from different kinds of monitoring 185
The challenges posed by differences in the kinds of entities that are
monitored in different ecosystems 185
Using environmental and economic accounts as a way to demonstrate
the value of monitoring and cement support for monitoring in place 186
Concluding remarks 187
References 188
Index 199
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments
Since the completion of the first edition of this book, DBL would like to
acknowledge the support of many organisations who have begun to or continued
to support long-term work in south-eastern Australia including the Australian
Research Council, the Commonwealth Department of Environment and Energy
(and its various previous incarnations), Murray Local Land Services, Riverina
Local Land Services, Parks Australia, Victorian Department of Environment,
Water and Land Planning (and its many earlier incarnations), Parks Victoria, the
now sadly defunct Land and Water Australia, the Ian Potter Foundation, the
Thomas Foundation, and the Graeme Wood Foundation. Data from long-term
studies have been guided in their collection and then expertly analysed by truly
outstanding professional statisticians, especially Ross Cunningham, Jeff Wood,
Wade Blanchard and Alan Welsh. The field research officers who expertly gathered
high-quality data over many years have included David Blair, Mason Crane, Daniel
Florance, Ryan Incoll, Chris MacGregor, Lachlan McBurney, Damian Michael,
Rebecca Montague-Drake, Sachiko Okada, Thea O’Loughlin and Matthew Pope.
Finally, many of the key insights in this book have been shaped through
collaborations with the many outstanding scientists in both the Australian
Government’s Threatened Species Recovery Hub and the Australian Long-Term
Ecological Research Network (LTERN) that is part of the Terrestrial Ecosystem
Research Network (TERN) (especially Emma Burns).
DBL would particularly like to thank Karen Viggers, Ryan Lindenmayer and
Nina Lindenmayer for their understanding of a husband/father spending too much
time parked in front of a computer.
GEL initiated the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study in 1963 with colleagues, F
Herbert Bormann, Robert S Pierce and Noye M Johnson, and has continued to
work within this large and complicated ecosystem study since then. Throughout
the years, numerous other colleagues, students and technicians have contributed to
this study. John S Eaton, Donald C Buso and the late Phyllis C Likens, three
long-term support staff, and the current field and data management staff, Tammy
ix
