Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities

Sarah Legge, David Lindenmayer, Natasha M. Robinson, Benjamin C. Scheele, Darren M Southwell, Brendan Wintle

CSIRO Publishing, 2018 - Science - 451 pages

Monitoring is integral to all aspects of policy and management for threatened biodiversity. It is fundamental to assessing the conservation status and trends of listed species and ecological communities. Monitoring data can be used to diagnose the causes of decline, to measure management effectiveness and to report on investment. It is also a valuable public engagement tool. Yet in Australia, monitoring threatened biodiversity is not always optimally managed.

Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communitiesaims to improve the standard of monitoring for Australia's threatened biodiversity. It gathers insights from some of the most experienced managers and scientists involved with monitoring programs for threatened species and ecological communities in Australia, and evaluates current monitoring programs, establishing a baseline against which the quality of future monitoring activity can be managed. Case studies provide examples of practical pathways to improve the quality of biodiversity monitoring, and guidelines to improve future programs are proposed.

This book will benefit scientists, conservation managers, policy makers and those with an interest in threatened species monitoring and management.

About the author

Sarah Legge is with the Australian National University and University of Queensland and is one of Australia's leading conservation ecologists and managers. Her previous books include Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities.

David Lindenmayer is a Professor at The Australian National University. He has worked on the conservation of forests and their wildlife for more than 35 years. He has published 45 books and over 1100 scientific papers, and has broad interests in conservation biology, landscape ecology, vertebrate ecology, forest ecology and woodland conservation. He has received numerous awards and is a member of the Australian Academy of Science and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow.

Natasha Robinson performs research on threatened species monitoring and management, mammal re-introductions and fire ecology. She works closely with partner management agencies to ensure that her research improves on-ground management outcomes. Previously, she worked for the Victorian State Government in ecological fire management and biodiversity conservation, and in northern rural Vietnam developing sustainable livelihood projects that had cultural, conservation and socio-economic benefits. She completed her PhD on the importance of refuges for birds in the severely burnt forest of central Victoria.

Benjamin Scheele is an ecologist with a particular interest in threatened species management and recovery. He has researched threatened species across diverse landscapes ranging from the Australian Alps to the ancient farming landscapes of Transylvania. Ben's research has strong links to management and his work on threatened amphibians has informed the development of innovative applied management responses.

Darren Southwell is an ecologist with an interest in optimal monitoring, adaptive management and population viability analysis. His PhD developed population models for threatened and invasive species to inform cost-effective management decisions. Previously, he worked as a quantitative scientist at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and as a field biologist at the Australian Antarctic Division.

Brendan Wintle is a conservation ecologist who develops quantitative methods to support conservation decision-making and policy. He publishes in monitoring design, cost-efficient conservation spending, population viability analysis, species occupancy and distribution modelling, and Bayesian statistics with application to practical conservation problems.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities
• Editors: Sarah Legge, David Lindenmayer, Natasha M. Robinson, Benjamin C. Scheele, Darren M Southwell, Brendan Wintle
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: CSIRO Publishing, 2018
• ISBN: 148630771X, 9781486307715
• Length: 451 pages
• Subjects: Science / Environmental Science; Science / Life Sciences / Biological Diversity; Science / Life Sciences / Ecology