Monitoring for conservation and management: some empirical and theoretical approaches
Utzurrum RC and Seamon JO. 2001. Monitoring for conservation and management: some empirical and theoretical approaches. Sylvatrop: The Technical Journal of Ecosystems and Natural Resources. 10:88-105
The performance of natural populations and communities is temporally and spatially dynamic. Thus, plans for species or community conservation may be enhanced by comprehensive knowledge of the relevant biology. However, it is often impractical or impossible to amass such information. We present empirical cases from the monitoring of populations of Pteropodid bats and Columbiform birds on the south Pacific island of Tutuila. These data illustrate: 1) the use of long-term monitoring of abundance for management of species historically subjected to hunting and unpredictable catastrophic weather disturbance; 2) field and analytical methods for the conduct of such a monitoring program: and 3) practical considerations relating to implementation of such approaches. Additionally, we consider qualitative theoretical approaches for those cases in which data on key variables in the community of interest are unavailable. Such an approach may be used to extrapolate future trends in difficult-to-monitor parameters of a system, or to suggest key indicator species.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Utzurrum, Ruth; Seamon, Joshua
- Units
- NPSA , PACN
- Keywords
- American Samoa, Animal Studies, Bats, biogeographic approach, Birds, columbiforms, Conservation Management, macrohabitat analysis, Modeling, Population Monitoring, pteropodids, Pteropus, spatial and temporal analysis