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Effective Long-term Ecological Monitoring Using Spatially and Temporally Nested Sampling

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Abstract

Effective environmental management requires documentation of ecosystem status and changes to that status. Without long-term data, short-term natural variability can mask chronic and/or cumulative impacts, often until critical levels are reached. However, a trade-off generally occurs between sampling in space and time. This study analyses a spatially and temporally nested long-term (12 years) monitoring programme conducted on benthic macrofauna in a large harbour. Sampling was carried out at six sites for 5.5 years, after which only two sites were sampled for the next 5 years. After this period, all six sites were sampled for another 2 years. While ecology is frequently thought of being highly variable, this design was able to detect trends, and cycles, in abundance, with only around 10% of species at each site exhibiting unpredictable temporal variability. Sites exhibiting similar trends in the abundance of a species over the 12.5-year period were generally spatially contiguous, and the spatial scale of change could be assessed. Continuous sampling at two sites identified whether changes in unsampled sites were related to long-term cycles. Moreover, this sampling provided a long-term background of temporal fluctuations against which to assess the ecological significance of observed changes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 11-115, Hamilton, New Zealand

    J. E. Hewitt & S. F. Thrush

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  1. J. E. Hewitt
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  2. S. F. Thrush
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Correspondence to J. E. Hewitt.

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Hewitt, J.E., Thrush, S.F. Effective Long-term Ecological Monitoring Using Spatially and Temporally Nested Sampling. Environ Monit Assess 133, 295–307 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-006-9584-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-006-9584-z

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