Monitoring and evaluating the ecological integrity of forest ecosystems

Tierney, Geraldine L.; Faber-Langendoen, Don; Mitchell, B. R.; Shriver, W. Gregory; Gibbs, James P.

doi:10.1890/070176

Cited by 117 publications

(94 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(40 reference statements)

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“…''Monitoring of status and trends'' (Faber-Langendoen et al 2012a: 7) ''Detect ecological change'' and ''reveal trends'' (Vickerman and Kagan 2014) ''Report on the decline or improvement in the status of biodiversity'' (Vickerman and Kagan 2014) Make management decisions ''Support environmental decision making'' (Andreasen et al 2001) ''Provide a methodology to support planning and management for the conservation of native biological diversity'' (Unnasch et al 2009) Assess ''ecosystem condition and management effectiveness'' (Tierney et al 2009) ''Prioritize sites for conservation or restoration'' (Faber-Langendoen et al 2012a, p. 7) ''Guide mitigation applications '' (Faber-Langendoen et al 2012a, p. 7) ''Contribute to land use planning'' (Faber-Langendoen et al 2012a, p. 7) Biodivers Conserv (2016Conserv ( ) 25:1011Conserv ( -1035Conserv ( 1013 and other practitioners who are understandably looking for practical and inexpensive ways to generate useful information. However, ecological integrity assessment methodology so far lacks a thorough review in the refereed literature and a compilation of empirical evidence that it actually measures biological diversity.…”

Section: Measure Biodiversity Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…After the set of major attributes has been chosen for a particular type of ecosystem, specific indicator or proxy variables are chosen for each of the attributes. The raw data collected for each variable or metric are converted as necessary into ordinal categories (scored excellent/good/fair/poor on a simple ranked scale, according to criteria established by NatureServe), and then weighted and combined into a single score (Parrish et al 2003;Tierney et al 2009;Faber-Langendoen et al 2012a). This process is illustrated schematically in Fig.…”

Section: General Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…NatureServe has developed a version of ecological integrity assessment that includes geographic information system (GIS)-based landscape features, vegetation, and abiotic attributes. This framework has been used by NatureServe to build ecosystem-specific ecological integrity indices for wetlands (Faber-Langendoen et al 2012a, p. 49) and northeastern temperate forests (Tierney et al 2009), with the potential for application to other ecosystem types as well. The stated intention is to provide a standardized measure of outcomes of conservation programs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As more narrowly defined, but more easily measurable, it encompasses chemical, physical, and biological integrity…A comprehensive index must consider the components of ecological integrity. Composition, structure, and function are equally important attributes of ecosystems'' [italics added] (Andreasen et al 2001) ''Ecological integrity is a measure of the composition, structure, and function of an ecosystem in relation to the system's natural or historical range of variation, as well as perturbations caused by natural or anthropogenic agents of change'' [italics added] (Tierney et al 2009) ''Ecological integrity is the ability of an ecological system to support and maintain a community of organisms that has species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable to those of natural habitats within a region'' [italics added] (Parrish et al 2003;Unnasch et al 2009, p. 2;NatureServe 2012) ''Ecological integrity [assessment] can be defined as 'an assessment of the structure, composition, and function of an ecosystem, as compared to reference ecosystems operating within the bounds of natural or historic disturbance regimes''' [italics added] (Faber-Langendoen et al 2012a, p. 7) Purported uses…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ecological integrity assessment as a metric of biodiversity: are we measuring what we say we are?

Brown

Williams

2016

Biodivers Conserv

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As the recognition of the importance of biological diversity in biological conservation grows, an ongoing challenge is to develop metrics that can be used for effective conservation and management. The ecological integrity assessment has been proposed as such a metric. It is held by some to measure species composition, diversity, and habitat quality, as well as ecosystem structure, composition, and function. The methodology relies on proxy variables that include data on landscape characteristics such as patch size, abiotic factors such as hydrology, and some features of vegetation structure and composition. We suggest that the measure is flawed on four levels. First, its putative representation of general ecological form and function, and its lack of specific detail about how it actually represents those attributes, leaves the metric without the focus needed to be useful for measuring ecological features on the ground and testing associated hypotheses and predictions. Second, the proxy variables used to represent biological diversity, such as habitat (vegetation) metrics and vascular plant species diversity, are not empirically correlated with diversity of a range of taxa or of other components of the biota. Third, like other ecological indices that integrate many distinct features, the ecological integrity index is subject to the loss of information in its condensation of multi-dimensional variability into a one-dimensional index, and it may be subject to systematic bias from the conversion of raw data into categorical scores. Fourth, the sampling protocols are at risk of sampling bias, observer bias, and measurement error, any of which can confound the estimation of conservation value. In terms of biological diversity, the methodology produces an unreliable estimate of the number of vascular plant species and their relative percentages of occurrence, and an absence of any protocols for taxa other than plants. For these reasons 123Biodivers Conserv (2016) 25:1011-1035 DOI 10.1007/s10531-016-1111 we believe that ecological integrity assessment is currently of limited value as a measure of site-specific biological diversity and its change over time. A considerable amount of investigation is needed in order to have confidence in the results of an ecological integrity assessment, especially if it is to be used for regulatory purposes. We suggest further refinements and discuss alternative measures of biological diversity that provide reliable metrics for assessing change. A thoughtful choice among measures can help to identify the most appropriate assessment for conservation decisions.

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Section: Measure Biodiversity Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: General Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ecological integrity assessment as a metric of biodiversity: are we measuring what we say we are?

Brown

Williams

2016

Biodivers Conserv

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“…The qualitative attribute of species composition should be replaced by quantifiable variables such as species richness and species diversity. Correlation analysis should be conducted to determine the correlations among different attributes [39]. Criteria which are specific for different forest types or geographic regions should be developed to grade each indicator.…”

Section: The Strength and Limitations Of China's Monitoring Programmentioning

confidence: 99%

China’s National Monitoring Program on Ecological Functions of Forests: An Analysis of the Protocol and Initial Results

Yang

Dai

Wang

2015

Forests

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Information on the ecological functions of forests is important for sustainable forest management. In this study, we introduced the national monitoring program which has been used in China to evaluate the overall health status and ecological functions of forests. We also compared it to similar monitoring programs operating in Europe and the United States of America. We revealed the strength and drawbacks of China's monitoring program by analyzing the initial evaluation results. Our analysis showed that among the three programs, the European program gives the most detailed measurements of conditions of forests while the U.S. program generates the most detailed information on individual trees. In comparison, China's monitoring program has a higher spatial resolution but is narrowly focused on trees and uses coarse classifications of indicators. The health status of forests in China suggested that more resources should be invested to improve the health of existing forests, especially plantations. The limitations in China's monitoring program need to be addressed to improve the accuracy of future assessments.

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Testing the effectiveness of the forest integrity assessment: A field‐based tool for estimating the condition of tropical forest

Suggitt

Yeong

Lindhe³

et al. 2021

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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1. Global targets to halt biodiversity losses and mitigate climate change will require protecting rainforest beyond current protected area networks, necessitating responsible forest stewardship from a diverse range of companies, communities and private individuals. Robust assessments of forest condition are critical for successful forest management, but many existing techniques are highly technical, timeconsuming, expensive or require specialist knowledge.2. To make assessment of tropical forests accessible to a wide range of actors, many of whom may be limited by resources or expertise, the High Conservation Value Resource Network (HCVRN), with the SE Asia Rainforest Research Partnership (SEARRP), developed a South East Asian version of the Forest Integrity Assessment (FIA) tool as a rapid (< 1 hour) method of assessing forest condition in the field, where non-experts respond to 50 questions about characteristics of the local environment while walking a site transect. Here, we examined the effectiveness of this survey tool by conducting ∼ 1000 assessments of forest condition at 16 tropical rainforest sites with varying levels of disturbance in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.3. We found good agreement (R-squared range: 0.50-0.78) between FIA survey scores and independent measures of forest condition, including biodiversity, vegetation structure, aboveground carbon and other key metrics of ecosystem function, indicating that the tool performed well. Although there was variation among assessor responses when surveying the same forest sites, assessors were consistent in their ranking of those sites, and prior forest knowledge had a minimal effect on the FIA scores. Revisions or further training for questions where assessors disagree, for example, on the presence of fauna at a site, could improve consistency. 4. We conclude that the FIA survey tool is a robust method of assessing forest condition, providing a rapid and accessible means of forest conservation assessment.The FIA tool could be incorporated into management practices in a wide range of forest conservation schemes, from sustainability standards, to community forestry and restoration initiatives. The tool will enable more organizations and individualsThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Monitoring and evaluating the ecological integrity of forest ecosystems

Cited by 117 publications

References 43 publications

Ecological integrity assessment as a metric of biodiversity: are we measuring what we say we are?

Ecological integrity assessment as a metric of biodiversity: are we measuring what we say we are?

China’s National Monitoring Program on Ecological Functions of Forests: An Analysis of the Protocol and Initial Results

Testing the effectiveness of the forest integrity assessment: A field‐based tool for estimating the condition of tropical forest

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