Monitoring for Fish and Wildlife Management David R. Smith USGS – Leetown Science Center

Why Monitor?  Monitoring is the systematic acquisition of information over time to support management decisions Determine if management objectives are being met, Assess the status of populations or habitats being managed, or Reduce the uncertainty that is impeding decision making.

The “old way” delivery of monitoring design to natural resource manager Here’s my report. You’re welcome. Goodbye. Um, thanks, I think.

Adaptive Management  Monitoring design comes after Objectives Alternatives Models  First figure out what needs to be measured, and then figure out how to measure it.

Adaptive Management System Model Prediction Monitoring Observation System Model* Learning Adapt Slide credit: Michael C. Runge & James D. Nichols USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Management objectives A priori list of management actions that could affect populations or habitats and models to predict consequences of actions Targeted monitoring for adaptive management Yes Surveillance monitoring for sequential evaluation of resource condition No Monitoring Types

 Targeted Tightly focused on decision at hand or specific management actions Linked to predictive models or specific a priori hypotheses Predictive models are conceptual or quantitative Monitor measurable attributes determined for specific management objectives Designed to be efficient for the decision at hand  Surveillance Not focused on a particular decision or management actions Can be linked to conceptual models, but not always Typically broad geographic, temporal, and taxonomic scope Trend detection is often the objective, and power might be low or unevaluated

Monitoring Types (examples)  Targeted Adaptive Harvest Management Program for Waterfowl Adaptive Management of Horseshoe Crabs and Red Knots in Delaware Bay Integrated Waterbird Management and Monitoring Salt Marsh Management and Monitoring  Surveillance Breeding Bird Survey EMAP NPS I&M Networks NASA Earth System Research Laboratory: carbon dioxide monitoring

Targeted Monitoring for Adaptive Management System Model Prediction Monitoring Observation System Model* Learning Adapt Slide credit: Michael C. Runge & James D. Nichols USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Surveillance Monitoring Monitoring Observation Significant decline? Observation Yes Active management Initiate study to determine cause of decline Active management

Critique of Surveillance Monitoring  A time-lag is imposed when active management is delayed until significant trend  It’s costly to initiate study after decline is detected, and it might not be effective at determining best management action.  “We believe that this approach to monitoring [i.e., surveillance] is inefficient and frequently ineffective.” Nichols and Williams (2006) Monitoring for conservation. TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution 21:

Discovering ‘unknown unknowns’  Not everything important can be foreseen – there are surprises in life Emerging diseases and pollutants  Surveillance monitoring might be better at discovering surprises because typically broad geographic, temporal, and taxonomic scale However, targeted monitoring also has a chance of discovering emerging and unanticipated issues And, neither surveillance or targeted monitoring can guarantee discovery of emerging and unanticipated issues

Discovering ‘unknown unknowns’  Wintle et al. (2010) Allocating monitoring effort in the face of unknown unknowns. Ecology Letters 13:  Surveillance monitoring is justified when it has a better chance of discovering emerging and unanticipated issues than targeted monitoring, and expected benefits from discovery are higher than benefits from targeted monitoring

Summary  Limited budgets requires tradeoffs in what and how we monitor for fish and wildlife management  Targeted monitoring supports decision making by integrating with management Monitoring design comes after objectives, alternatives, and predictive modeling  Surveillance monitoring is not directly linked to specific management, but can be justified when It has a better chance of discovering emerging and unanticipated issues and The benefit of discovery outweighs benefit of targeted monitoring

Recent pubs  Nichols and Williams (2006) Monitoring for conservation. TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution 21:  Lyons et al. (2008) Monitoring in the context of structured decision-making and adaptive management. JWM 72:  Wintle et al. (2010) Allocating monitoring effort in the face of unknown unknowns. Ecology Letters 13: