Uncertainty and the design of in-situ biodiversity-monitoring programs

Abstract

Citation: Magnusson WE (2014) Uncertainty and the design of in-situ biodiversity-monitoring programs. Nature Conservation 8: 77-94. doi: 10.3897/natureconservation.8.5929 AbstractThere are many techniques to deal with uncertainty when modeling data. However, there are many forms of uncertainty that cannot be dealt with mathematically that have to be taken into account when designing a biodiversity monitoring system. Some of these can be minimized by careful planning and quality control, but others have to be investigated during monitoring, and the scale and methods adjusted when necessary to meet objectives. Sources of uncertainty include uncertainty about stakeholders, who will monitor, what to sample, where to sample, causal relationships, species identifications, detectability, distributions, relationships with remote sensing, biotic concordance, complementarity, validity of stratification, and data quality and management. Failure to take into account any of these sources of uncertainty about how the data will be used can make monitoring nothing more than monitoring for the sake of monitoring, and I make recommendations as to how to reduce uncertainties. Some form of standardization is necessary, despite the multiple sources of uncertainty, and experience from RAPELD and other monitoring schemes indicates that spatial standardization is viable and helps reduce many sources of uncertainty.

Building capacity in biodiversity monitoring at the global scale

“…Biodiversity Observation Networks (BONs) can be key players in driving forward all of these steps by identifying knowledge gaps and removing regional biases, identifying synergies across habitats, linking sampling approaches across spatial scales; ensuring data connectivity and coordination, and verifying policy relevance and application (Figure 1). Most new terrestrial monitoring programs established across the world and especially in developing regions in Asia, South America and Africa (Cui et al 2014;Jürgens et al 2012;Magnusson 2014;Yahara et al 2014), monitor progress towards the objectives of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity of the CBD (http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/). Only with policy-relevant data, which are current, reliable, comparable among sites, and understandable , may international conventions and processes like the CBD and the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) succeed in producing a reliable trend analysis of global biodiversity (Schmeller and Bridgewater 2016;Vohland and Nadim 2015).…”

“…Further, freshwater biodiversity data need to be coupled with the landscape context in which the freshwater habitats occur (Costa and Magnusson 2010;Magnusson 2014) and data availability for most regions is still poor, particularly in developing countries (Tonkin et al 2016). …”

Uncertainty in biodiversity science, policy and management: a conceptual overview

“…The connections between knowledge and policy reach deep down in specific forms along the dimensions of the semantic space. Methodological decisions on collecting background data for monitoring, for instance, have political implications, but these are mediated by the selection of the proxy and its conceptual status and reliability (Magnusson 2014). On the other hand, uncertainty can be a trigger for acquiring increasingly relevant background knowledge as well as promoting discussion (Haila et al 2014.…”

“…And finally, does the uncertainty matter, and if it does, in which sense? Every ecologist with field-work experience can come up with examples of such a chain of questions, pertaining to a specific research project, for instance, the taxonomic composition of the samples col-lected, or the correspondence between the samples and the populations sampled, and so on (Magnusson 2014).…”

“…The compilation of papers collected in this special section of Nature Conservation includes, in addition to this introductory text, a thematic overview of the November workshop (Haila et al 2014) and specific "standpoint" essays that were invited from the participants of both workshops. Magnusson (2014) discusses the uncertainties one has to deal with in the planning of in-situ monitoring programs from study design to data collection and analysis to management of programs and to linkages with stakeholders. He concludes that to be successful monitoring programs need to take these uncertainties into account already at the early conceptual stage.…”