Monitoring Plant and Animal Populations

Monitoring Plant and Animal Populations is a thorough overview of monitoring issues. It is designed for field biologists and land managers with a modest statistical background. The authors have written a practical text that will include concrete guidelines for ecologists to follow to design a statistically defensible monitoring program for natural populations and communities.

Features

• User-friendly, practical guide, written in a highly readable format which integrates the theme of decision making guidance and management.
• Only population monitoring text to focus on both plant and animals.
• Interdisciplinary in scope, given the current, widespread interest in monitoring in many environmental fields including pure and applied ecology, conservation biology, and wildlife management.
• Includes suggestions for monitoring plant and animal communities.
• Outlines the essential concepts in monitoring populations.
• Emphasizes the role o monitoring in adaptive management.
• Defines important terminology and contrasts monitoring with other data-collection activities.
• Provides a step-by-step overview of the monitoring process, as illustrated by flow charts and references.
• Illustrates the foundation of management objectives and describes their components, types, and development.
• Describes basic terms and concepts relevant to sampling using simple examples.
• Explains how to make basic decisions in designing a sample-based monitoring study.
• Provides field techniques for measuring important attributes of animal and plant populations.
• Covers different ways of recording monitoring data in the field and describes means for entering and managing field monitoring data sets with computers.
• Comprehensive presentation of statistical analysis and communicating results.