Effective Ecological Monitoring

David Lindenmayer is a Research Professor at The Australian National University who has specialised in established large-scale, long-term ecological monitoring and research programs that have extended for more than 35 years in many different parts of south-eastern Australia. Professor Gene Likens is one of the world’s most highly decorated scientists and widely recognised for his pioneering and ground-breaking work on acid rain in north-eastern USA.

Acknowledgments
Preface to Second Edition
1: Introduction
Some of the ecological values and uses of long-term datasets
Poor record of long-term ecological monitoring
Why we wrote this book
2: Why monitoring fails
Characteristics of ineffective monitoring programs
Other factors contributing to ineffective monitoring programs
3: What makes long-term monitoring effective?
Characteristics of effective monitoring programs
Little things matter a lot! Some 'tricks of the trade'
The adaptive monitoring framework
4: The problematic, the effective and the ugly – some case studies
The problematic
The effective
Need to wait and see
The ugly
5: The upshot – our general conclusions
Changes in culture needed to facilitate monitoring
Good things that can come from non-question based monitoring
The role of citizen science in long-term monitoring
The challenge of intellectual property and data sharing
The challenges in effective monitoring of rare, threatened and endangered species
The major challenge of keeping monitoring and long-term studies going
The big issue of integrating different kinds of monitoring
Approaches to integrate data from different kinds of monitoring
Index