Article Long term amphibian monitoring at wetlands lacks power to de...
One could conclude from this article that results from most amphibian monitoring programs aren't useful due to lack of statistical power and extreme temporal variability in results. Do you agree? Would resources spent on monitoring better serve conservation in other ways?
I read this paper carefully and was shocked. I totally can't understand why this paper could be published by Biological Conservation. The experimental design was unsuitable, and the the conclusion was insane, less alone the title which was pretty misleading. Long-term monitoring is always fundamental and necessary in ecology, especially in macro-ecology regarding wildlife animals. This paper focused on small, isolated wetlands, with never-moving traps, which was quite unsuitable for ecology research. Hope you do not being misled by this paper.
Appropriate methods consistently applied over a considerable period of time, revealing variations as a result, are expected to show statistical power. Monitoring is worth it.
Having worked on some monitoring programs from the management/government side and also from the academic side, I can tell you that your question is constant concern. All things being equal, monitoring is worth it. If you can't detect subtle trends, hopefully you can detect a crash. Monitoring can be designed to help inform management as well. With no monitoring data, it's more difficult to justify spending money on other conservation actions. Finally, management often proceeds on the best available information, not statistical significance. So if a negative trend starts to appear, even if its not significant yet, you can justify more funds to look into it, or start management that may reverse the trend. At the end of the day, some information, no matter how weak, is often better than no information.
I guess this paper can of interest for you. It is not monitoring stricto sensu but it can bring some light to you. Bests
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2994/SAJH-D-17-00076.1?fbclid=IwAR1QPAzzpRtErIqlyzH692HPAfbnbKH65vWfWVGlKi5Be0QzaxebDuC5JNo&
If you have long term monitoring data, at numerous replicates, and you are able to analyse your data properly, then yes, it is worth it! There is no perfect method, but it is possible always possible to analyse your data, keeping in mind the weaknesses of your sampling design.
An example: Article Population trend inferred from aural surveys for calling anu...
Best,
Amael
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