Ecologists or field biologists often work in study sites more or less accessible to a public that is not (always) familiar with the details of the research going on. People might have access to experimental plots, perhaps causing uncontrolled human - environment interactions changing the outcome of results. Do you think this happens frequently or not? Should science be conducted in protected private areas having potential consequences for bias in study site characteristics (e.g. nature reserves represent less than 8 % of the surface of the globe is is probably biased in characteristics). What is your opinion concerning costs and benefits of open access field plots used for fundamental research or education?
Long ago, as a lead technician for a large-scale field study on a bottomland hardwood wetland in South Carolina (350 ha) I helped manage and coordinate the research efforts of interdisciplinary teams (university, governmental, industrial) using the same site for a wide variety of ecological, hydrologic, wildlife, and forest studies.
The answer to your question, like many things, is "it depends". How sensitive/resiliant is the site? How sensitive/resiliant are the experiments?
Even longer ago, when I was doing my master's work, I was the only person visiting the headwater wetlands sites I was studying. I had to take great care that even singular visits to some locations could affect my results.
To avoid the pitfalls (like experiments being affected or damanged), it takes a lot of communication, coordination, and a lot of flagging/singnage to create buffers and control traffic around sensitive experiments or measurment plots. We had to interact with the hunt club that leased the land, and communication was key. They were usually very accomidating. It's usually best to have one or two people serve as gatekeepers and coordinators.
In other locations, science installations have to be camoflaged to avoid vandalism.
The benefits are the interdisciplinary collaborative opportunities, and the opportunities to obtain data and expertice that you can only have when experiments are done in the same place; the inference for ecological work is so much stronger.
In the end, I think it really just depends on the work. Controlled access, pristine sites are hard to come by. Humans are part of some landscapes.
If I understand the essence of the question, the answer is in the question. To create such open areas for research is necessary that benefits exceed costs. At the same time it is necessary to take into account the tangible and intangible benefits.
Yes it depends.
Many scientific discoveries are made under controlled environment. There are also many made in natural environment.
Openning access of field study sites is a cost-benefit analysis. We should compare the benefits we can gain aginst the costs we should bear.
Judging by the fact that all the set minus the topic someone does not like.
They apparently vehimently and annonymously contend that "it does not depend".
The fact there are down loads in this thread strongly indicates that emotions are indeed important in the perception of open access field set-ups, like RG...
A cost-- the general public might mess up one or several observations/installations. You have to take the added effort/precautions to track these observations. Of course, it's not just people. A bear enjoyed chewing on and destroying my lycemeter installations in my tightly access-controlled headland wetland study on a government reservation.
A benefit-- in places with high traffic there might also be active and cooperative management that control access to research areas; and alert your when/if your plots/instalations have been affected by outside factors.
A benefit-- outreach opportunities to the public.
I just think it's odd for such a tame discussion of cost/benefit to ilicit an annonymous "no" with no substantive contribution as to why the dissent exists. "No" to what exactly?
The answer "it depends" seems to recognize both positives and negatives... so "No" means it's binary? I don't get it.
as a biosystematics student, i think both indoor and outdoor investigations are necessary. if you want to have a karyotype, the germination in important and for this goal you should go on field to accumulate the seed of your plant. then i can say that both way of studies complete each other.
I've long worked in a largely closed system (Archbold Bio. Stn.) and enjoy not having to interact with the public while conducting research. Much of what we do could be negatively influenced by people wandering about. We do have a public road 'bisect' our study site and years ago while working (collecting a blood sample) at ~8 AM was approached by a local with a beer in hand who'd parked his car alongside the road to ask me "what are you doing?" I'd just as soon avoid such interactions!
Dear Stephan,
You give a good example of a private/protected study area. We placed our nesting boxes at a low height (ca. 2m above the ground) ) in an open access system, so it is very important to talk with locals about it. Citizens can be very constructive to help protecting the set up against uncontrolled intrusions.
Ha,
you all must work in nice places! In the 13 years I've been at this job I've had 4 incidences of people in my study locations that are on public land. I had a cap taken off of a SET, a note left on a SET setup by state agents, a water level recorder box opened, and randomly a guy walking 5 km from the River, and 14 km from the closest road. You folks just need to work in places no one wants to go!! Or maybe I have the wrong attitude about it, how can I get in on your jobs?
Dear Daniel,
we also had a limited number of nesting boxes removed by strangers, so they were simply replaced by others.. I presume some were curious and checked box contents.
Cheers
Yes
- I think you must have an open access treatment neighboring to your experiment site as a local check in order to measure your treatment effect.
- I am writing a scientific paper. results shows a decrease in feeding cost by 75% - 85% when compared the open access with protected and planted sites.
Bear in mind that if typically your study site is public access and you suddenly start controlling that, you are introducing a bias (although perhaps not a significant one). Similarly, the response might vary between public access and non-public access sites - generalising based solely on one or the other might be misleading.
BUFFFFF, I have done multiple field studies and, at least in my country, people is very curious so most of the times they just take off the sampling devices because they found them weird. At the beginning, we started sampling by installing the devices in opened areas, some of them disappeared, some not. Then we tried to install the devices at patrolled areas (e.g. marine reserves) but affected by aquaculture industries. The closest sampling points disappeared, they were removed from the sea.
So, at this moment, I use to camouflage the sampling devices by painting them with green, brown and black sprays (terrestrial) and install them in protected areas, such as hunting areas, special protection areas, ... In the water field, devices should be exposed without strinking parts (e.g. colorful floater). Therefore, if you want to find the sampling device, you require a GPS and diving equipment.
Sometimes you can not install the devices in remote areas so a lot of people may found them. In this cases, no camouflage neither protection may be operative so sometimes I just make stealing to be a difficult task, e.g. installing devices at high altitudes (by climbing or by using portable stairs).
If you have any specific doubt about sampling just let me know.
About the benefits; it is much more realistic than lab studies because all the factors affecting are already considered while lab studies have to simplify the number of factors.
I often use(d) a ladder to check nesting boxes for the study of breeding birds. Twice I put a ladder against a tree in an open-access city environment and watched the ladder from a distance (one observation on a sunny day, the other observation during a period of heavy rain). In both cases it took less than 10 minutes before a 'stranger' watched and touched the ladder, eventually to take it away. Such a simple set up might be used to test spatiotemporal variation of human pressures in open access systems. Humans become environmental factors, and this can be quantified easily.
My research was done in an urban setting. Initially it was disturbing that I lost equipment or that it was removed and placed where it was quite visiable so I could retrieve it. However, after doing 3 years of doing research in this setting I realize the experience helped me reframe some of my questions. Moreover, when I did a cost benefit analysis I realized I received the public was largely helpful and I was focusing on a few negative experiences. I can sympathize with the initial frustration of researchers that are trying to do comparative studies using the traditional scientific method and their negative response to human intervention. However, if this is an ongoing and serious problem it may be necessary to reframe the question as I did. And, it is worth considering if they are focusing on a few negative experiences. Overall, as was said earlier, humans are an environmental factor and their effects may be quantifiable.
”Should science be conducted in protected private areas”
nope
p.s. even if some of my on-going studies were certainly biased by people who heard about / see what we are measuring in certain control-plots
Or alternatively ------ Yes, if you want to see exclusion effects. No if you want to see the condition in it's existing state.
For instance, plots can have enclosures to exclude deer or other mammals. Plots with versus without enclosures can test impact of deer or other mammals on ecosystem structures
I already stated mine, and the answer simply depends on the subject matter, location, and inference space that research hopes to address.
Tens of millions of dollars of public money are spent every year in the United States on plant research, like how to replant native plants for ecological restoration, or how to control weeds like cheatgrass in the Great Basin that causes fires. But it is difficult to impossible for the public to view these experiments. All public funded experiments, should be open for viewing by the public, and that is what I do for my experiments, like you can see at http://www.ecoseeds.com/arastradero.html.
Dear Craig,
the flowers you show are beautiful. We placed nest-boxes for birds in the middle of a city (streets, parks). Excellent opportunities to talk with locals about birds and science and education
Humans really are an environmental factor and the input locals can give you is really important for the work you are developing. They are also a great oportunity for ecological education!
However, sometimes having people around when you have to manipulate fauna (draw blood from nestlings, for exemple), is almost impossible and not beneficial in terms of animal stress control.
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