Designing Field Studies for Biodiversity Conservation: The Nature Conservancy - Softcover

Peter Feinsinger

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1559638788 ISBN 13: 9781559638784

Publisher: Island Press, 2001

Synopsis

This work explains how to undertake field studies to guide conservation work. It is aimed at anyone working in conservation regardless of their professional or scientific background. The methods and procedures of scientific inquiry are explained in a step-by-step manner. The author wants to make the process of doing science accessible and effective. The purpose of this book is not only to offer information, but primarily to catalyze the process of good thinking, so that readers can learn how to think and understand the importance of broad inquiry, no matter what the conservation project.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Feinsinger is Adjunct Professor of Biology at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, and conservation fellow with the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The book was sponsored by The Nature Conservancy, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving biodiversity through the protection of critical habitat.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Designing Field Studies for Biodiversity Conservation

By Peter Feinsinger

ISLAND PRESS

Copyright © 2001 The Nature Conservancy
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-55963-878-4

Contents

About Island Press, 
About The Nature Conservancy, 
Title Page, 
Copyright Page, 
Dedication, 
Table of Figures, 
List of Tables, 
Preface, 
Acknowledgments, 
CHAPTER 1 - Introduction: What's Science Got to Do with It?, 
CHAPTER 2 - The Inquiry Process, 
CHAPTER 3 - So, What's the Question?, 
CHAPTER 4 - Design: Matching Data Collection to the Scope of the Question, 
CHAPTER 5 - Small Samples and Big Questions: The Role of Statistical Inference, 
CHAPTER 6 - Points of View: Taking Natural History into Account, 
CHAPTER 7 - Contents and Context: Taking the Whole Landscape into Account, 
CHAPTER 8 - Indicators versus Targets: Shortcuts to the Landscape's "Health"?, 
CHAPTER 9 - Species Diversity: Easy to Quantify, but What Does It Mean?, 
CHAPTER 10 - Extending the Reach of Inquiry, 
APPENDIX A - Calculating Confidence Limits for the Population Mean, 
APPENDIX B - Deciding on Sample Size, 
APPENDIX C - Resources Especially for Latin American Readers, 
APPENDIX D - Design and Statistics without the Jargon: A Play in Two Acts, 
Literature Cited, 
Notes, 
Index, 
About the Author, 
Island Press Board of Directors, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: What's Science Got to Do with It?

Despite the potential of applied ecology, there is still disagreement about the extent to which ecological science is applicable to real-world problems.

—Alicia Castillo and Victor M. Toledo (2000)

This book is intended for all those who work toward sustainable and sustained conservation of the landscapes that surround them along with the native biota those landscapes support. What does conservation mean, though? It seems that each of us has a unique and constantly changing definition. At this moment my own definition of conservation is the field of study and action that concerns the management of the landscape so as (1) in the short and medium term, to minimize or buffer negative effects of human beings on nature, which includes the landscape's human inhabitants ourselves, and (2) in the long term, to provide other living beings with the maximum number of alternatives for tolerating and surviving our species' brief presence on this planet.

Getting at Conservation

How might conservation be achieved? The effects—positive, negative, and neutral—of humans on landscapes are the cumulative result of the individual choices that persons and institutions make. Perhaps sustainable and sustained conservation can be achieved only through education at all levels of society so that today's children, tomorrow's adults, become familiar with their natural surroundings, recognize the consequences that alternative decisions might have on those surroundings, and make decisions thoughtfully (Feinsinger, Mangutti, and Oviedo 1997; and see chapter 10). While we strive for that distant goal, though, management by conservation professionals, in consultation with local communities, provides one practical approach to biodiversity conservation (figure 1.1).

How should such management be carried out? The people responsible must develop practical guidelines and apply them to local landscapes in or out of protected areas (figure 1.1). But where do these conservation guidelines originate? Ideally, the people who will implement them will first consider the possible consequences of each reasonable choice and then select the alternative most likely to favor conservation goals while being acceptable to most local communities. By what means, though, can conservation professionals assess the likely consequences of each alternative? Can they simply follow their gut feelings? Sometimes—if and only if their insight into the landscape's natural history and social context is acute. Or should managers defer to "those who must know better" and base their guidelines on appealing, reasonable-sounding, and widely accepted ideas encountered in a published paper or heard at a conference? I certainly hope not (see box 1.1). Instead, might conservation professionals themselves evaluate the various alternatives in the very landscape where they would be applied (figure 1.2)? Yes, through thoughtfully designed and cautiously interpreted studies carried out firsthand (figure 1.1). How might such studies, on the ecological consequences of alternative management decisions, be designed well and interpreted cautiously? By using the approach of scientific inquiry.

Getting at Scientific Inquiry

Let's back up. What do scientific inquiry and science really mean? Formal science (or basic science) consists of two components that are linked by a dynamic process (figure 1.3). One component is the body of accumulated and continuously accumulating observations (data) that researchers generate with reference to the other component, the body of concepts that provide the current frame of reference. In turn, the body of concepts is constantly reevaluated and modified in light of the incoming data. The science process, or scientific inquiry as defined below, provides the means to cycle back and forth between concepts and data.

If science consists of a dynamic cycle, as in figure 1.3, is the isolated act of gathering data "science"? No. Does a long published list of observations (data) bereft of a conceptual context constitute science? No. Does sitting at one's desk and proposing a new theory make one a scientist? No. Does the use of sophisticated electronic instruments or complex statistical procedures justify applying the name "science" to any endeavor? No. Science requires that all four elements illustrated in figure 1.3 be present: the two boxes and the two arrows.

Combining the Two

In this book I'll stress scientific inquiry, the cycling process of figure 1.3, rather than dwelling overlong on details of the figure's two boxes. In the broad sense, scientific inquiry is a means of asking and answering firsthand, as objectively and precisely as possible, a question about a small piece of one's surroundings and then reflecting cautiously on the implications of the answer to the larger world. The quandary is that the concerns of conservation professionals and field ecologists often involve a fairly grand spatial scale on the one hand, and a fairly extensive time scale (the foreseeable future) on the other. In order to make the "correct" conservation decisions or the "correct" interpretations of ecological phenomena with absolute certainty, we'd have to be omniscient regarding that grand scale in time and space.

We aren't omniscient, though. We can't investigate simultaneously all possible individual organisms, populations, species, points in space, and landscapes of interest, nor can we evaluate the consequences of every possible variation of each feasible conservation guideline. We can only work in present time; we have only a fuzzy idea of those past events that might have caused present-day phenomena, and we certainly can't know for certain what the future portends. Thus, conservation scientists and others are restricted to working with "best guesses" based on the information available. That information comes from a sample restricted in space and time. We wish to extrapolate in as error-free a way as possible from that limited sample to the larger (and future) world where conservation guidelines will take effect or our conclusions might apply. Scientific inquiry guides us in (a) framing the question; (b) figuring out the most practical, meaningful, and objective way to obtain the sample so as to answer the question; (c) choosing the right tools to help get at the answer; (d) interpreting the results; and (e) extrapolating as cautiously as possible to the larger arena of conservation and management decisions.

This book is meant to guide you, the reader, in the practical use of scientific inquiry as a tool for conservation in protected areas and in the "semi-natural matrix" (Brown, Curtin, and Braithwarte 2001), or for studies in basic field ecology, wildlife biology, and related fields. Along the way, the text will address a number of specific concepts, approaches, useful quantitative tools, and concerns or warnings. This will be done, I trust, in a commonsense rather than a technical manner. For example, frequently I'll raise concerns about approaches, techniques, and labels that are currently fashionable in biodiversity conservation, not in order to discredit them forever but so that you will think twice before rushing out to apply them uncritically to your particular landscape. I'll also point out that basic science has a great deal to offer the practical realm by helping to provide the conceptual frameworks that generate conservation concerns and important management questions (Poiani et al. 2000; The Nature Conservancy 2000). Likewise, teamwork between trained ecologists and managers (who may be one and the same person), plus other professionals such as sociologists, can streamline the sequence illustrated in figure 1.1. Nevertheless, as you'll see in chapters 2 and 10, the tool of scientific inquiry is by no means the exclusive province of professionals (Cooperrider 1996), nor does its effective use depend on an intimate familiarity with the two boxes of figure 1.3.

How to Use This Book

Speaking of questions, if you're an ecologist or conservation biologist, do you believe that you're doing Real Science, and do you feel comfortable with that? If you're another sort of conservation professional, do you see any value whatsoever in applying scientific inquiry to conservation concerns? Do you feel at ease when you hear the word science or the scientific method? Whatever your answers, chapter 2 will encourage you to scrutinize them.

Whatever the theme that concerns you in the field, are you confident in your ability to phrase the crucial question in such a way that it can be answered directly and clearly firsthand and the answer then extended to the larger scale? In chapter 3, you'll get some practice.

Can you design the field study that will best answer your question, matching the scope of data collection to the scope of that question? Can you make the best possible compromise between a study that's perfectly designed but excruciatingly difficult to complete, and one that's easy to complete but so flimsy or biased that the answer does you no good? If not, chapter 4 might help. Even if you're delegating the actual study design and data collection to others, in a sense chapter 4 plus chapter 6 make up the heart of this book.

Have you ever encountered (a) confidence intervals for an estimate of something like the mean length of caimans in a lake, (b) a statistical test or a "P-value," (c) the word significant or the word sample? Are you perfectly satisfied with the particular set of results you obtained, period, or do you wish to use them to draw conclusions about, or apply decisions to, a larger universe in space and time? Are you aware that if you do calculate confidence limits on estimates or perform a statistical test, you always run the risk of drawing the wrong conclusion? Have you thought about the consequences to conservation policy and management decisions of unknowingly making such an error? Do you know any practical means to lower the risk of making such an error? Do you recognize the vast, and critical, difference between statistical significance and biological significance? Chapter 5 addresses these and many related doubts.

Please don't be put off by the subject matter of chapter 5—statistical inference—or the sudden appearance there of some mathematical equations. First, statistical inference is, or should be, based simply on common sense. Second, in chapter 5 you'll start with the most basic yet biologically important questions—how to present average values and the amount of variation among the data you've collected—and then build, step by step, your capacity in the logical philosophy and real-life application of statistical inference. Along the way you'll come to realize that statistical inference is more often misused and misinterpreted (again with potentially drastic consequences) than not, and that it may even be inappropriate to some questions in conservation, management, and basic ecology. If you're a student, you'll undoubtedly relish the thought of trying to convince your professors of this. Still, if you don't believe the assertion that the design of field studies (chapter 4) and statistical inference (chapter 5) are based on common sense yet are critically important to management decisions, skip to appendix D. You won't find a single mathematical equation there, but by the time you finish reading and acting, you may have grasped the most important fundamentals of both.

Speaking of the most important fundamentals of all, do you take natural history into account when choosing conservation guidelines or designing and interpreting studies? Are you adept at taking the point of view of the animals, plants, or landscapes you're trying to conserve or study, rather than unconsciously imposing your own? Again, the math- and technique-free chapter 6 is half of the heart of the book, so don't halfheartedly stick with chapter 4 only (or chapter 6 only, for that matter).

Do you work exclusively in protected areas or exclusively in the altered landscape outside of protected areas? Have you recognized, and have you taken into account, the ways in which those two landscapes—indeed, any two distinct habitats or landscapes—interact with each other? Chapter 7 presents some related points for you to ponder.

Do you realize that if you were to take into account everyone's point of view on your landscape's "ecological integrity," you'd have to monitor everything from bacteria to spectacled bears or jaguars? To simplify, and to attract public attention, do you base your conservation strategy on the concept of flagship species? Umbrella species? Keystone species? Indicator species? Have you clearly distinguished between species that are "indicators" and species that are "important," and have you thought of the consequences of basing conservation decisions on the latter rather than the former? Have you chosen the best possible species as indicators? Have you considered monitoring ecological processes, rather than species, to indicate "ecological integrity"? Chapter 8 will deal with these practical issues.

Before reading the title of this book, had you ever used, or heard, the word biodiversity? Like many others, did you equate biodiversity with species diversity? And, have you ever elegantly quantified species diversity with a well-known numerical index? Is the symbol H' or the name Shannon-Weaver index (or just plain Shannon index) familiar? Have you considered the basis, biological assumptions, and checkered histories of species diversity indices, or whether an index is even an appropriate way for expressing biodiversity? Are you aware of more informative alternatives? Chapter 9 will deal with these and other manifestations of "biodiversity."

Does the conservation you practice, or your field research, ever involve people who are neither conservation professionals nor basic ecologists? Have you considered involving a much broader audience in the philosophy of scientific inquiry? Schoolchildren? Park guards? Visitors? Community members? For some ideas, go to chapter 10. The last chapter won't make sense, though, if you've skipped the rest of the book. So, to start this off, let's return to the practical aspects of scientific inquiry. How does this investigative tool work, and how can it be made accessible to people not specifically trained in Real Science?

CHAPTER 2

The Inquiry Process

If science is to help in biological conservation, it must be a much more inclusive and widespread sort of science than we know now.

—Alien Y. Cooperrider (1996)

Any scientific inquiry whatsoever begins with a question about the features of one's surroundings. Depending on the interests of the investigator, the scale of those features might be that of subatomic particles, genes, whole organisms, species, entire landscapes, continents, our solar system, or the galaxies making up the universe. The questions that many ecologists and conservation professionals have, and the concerns that generate the questions, tend to involve the spatial scale of landscapes even if the focus is on a single species. In particular, conservation concerns might arise from a number of sources. Most have to do with how the protected area, its surroundings, or species of concern might be affected by different events, threats, or, of course, possible management guidelines—the last including alternative ways to counter a given threat (see figure 1.1). For example, your concern might involve the amount of firewood that can be extracted from the reserve without seriously compromising plant regeneration and soil quality, or the choice among alternative management guidelines that will lead to the most rapid recovery of a watershed from illicit gold mining activities. The key to enlightened conservation of protected areas or altered landscapes, just as to enlightened research in wildlife biology or forest ecology, is knowing how to frame questions. I urge you to go through the exercise of box 2.1 before reading any further.

The Formal Scientific Method: Too Academic?

Now that you're experienced at generating questions at the level of landscapes, albeit landscapes in miniature, let's discuss scientific inquiry as it might proceed from such questions. By any definition, scientific inquiry involves progressing through a series of logically related steps that eventually allow one to provisionally answer, or to revise, the original question as objectively as possible. Formal science and trained scientists, in theory at least, employ a detailed scheme called the scientific method or the hypothetico-deductive method (figure 2.1).

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Designing Field Studies for Biodiversity Conservation by Peter Feinsinger. Copyright © 2001 The Nature Conservancy. Excerpted by permission of ISLAND PRESS.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Island Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1559638788
• ISBN 13: 9781559638784
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 236