Two additional principles for determining which species to monitor

Wilson, Howard B., Rhodes, Jonathan R. and Possingham, Hugh P. (2015) Two additional principles for determining which species to monitor. Ecology, 96 11: 3016-3022. doi:10.1890/14-1511.1

Attached Files (Some files may be inaccessible until you login with your UQ eSpace credentials)
Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads
UQ376166_OA.pdf Full text (open access) application/pdf 112.93KB 0

Author Wilson, Howard B.
Rhodes, Jonathan R.
Possingham, Hugh P.
Title Two additional principles for determining which species to monitor
Journal name Ecology   Check publisher's open access policy
ISSN 0012-9658
1939-9170
Publication date 2015-11-01
Year available 2015
Sub-type Article (original research)
DOI 10.1890/14-1511.1
Open Access Status File (Publisher version)
Volume 96
Issue 11
Start page 3016
End page 3022
Total pages 7
Place of publication Hoboken, NJ, United States
Publisher John Wiley & Sons
Language eng
Abstract Monitoring to detect population declines is widespread, but also costly. There is, consequently, a need to optimize monitoring to maximize cost-effectiveness. Here we develop a quantitative decision analysis framework for how to optimally allocate resources for monitoring among species. By keeping the framework simple, we analytically establish two new principles about which species are optimal to monitor for detecting declines: (1) those that lie on the boundary between species being allocated resources for conservation action and species that are not and (2) those with the greatest uncertainty in whether they are declining. These two principles are in addition to other factors that are also important in monitoring decisions, such as complementarity. We demonstrate the efficacy of these principles when other factors are not present, and show how the two principles can be combined. This analysis demonstrates that the most cost-effective species to monitor are ones where the information gained from monitoring is most likely to change the allocation of funds for action, not necessarily the most vulnerable or endangered. We suggest these results are general and apply to all ecological monitoring, not just of biological species: monitoring and information are only valuable when they are likely to change how people act.
Keyword General rules
Information
Monitoring
Multi-species
Optimization
Population declines
Q-Index Code C1
Q-Index Status Provisional Code
Institutional Status UQ

 
Versions
Version Filter Type
Citation counts: TR Web of Science Citation Count  Cited 2 times in Thomson Reuters Web of Science Article | Citations
Scopus Citation Count Cited 2 times in Scopus Article | Citations
Google Scholar Search Google Scholar
Created: Sun, 27 Dec 2015, 10:31:30 EST by System User on behalf of Learning and Research Services (UQ Library)