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Advancing landscape ecology as a science: the need for consistent reporting guidelines

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Abstract

Context

In the face of global change, evidence-based information for policy development and political action is needed. Research syntheses have the potential to produce more reliable and generalizable results than are possible from small and regional extent primary studies. Data-sharing and detailed reporting are indispensable prerequisites for syntheses, however syntheses often are seriously hindered by insufficient reporting of primary data.

Objectives

Since many ecological processes are strongly influenced by spatial pattern, we suggest reporting guidelines for landscape-ecological studies. Better data reporting will not only benefit the quality of primary research studies, and allow replication, but also facilitate research syntheses.

Methods

We evaluated how landscape context information was reported in primary research articles including recently published articles in the journal Landscape Ecology. We further looked at the author guidelines for several journals to check what authors are expected to report.

Results

Specifically, we found that the existing reporting of landscape context information was insufficient to evaluate the effects of tropical forest edges on bird nest predation risk. More generally, exact study locations were not provided in any evaluated article. No journal gave detailed instructions to authors on how to report study characteristics.

Conclusions

We argue that consideration of the following reporting guidelines could substantially facilitate research syntheses: (1.1) detailed map of study area, (1.2) spatial location of sampling points; (2.1) land-use types; (2.2) vegetation, key resources, soil, geology, and disturbance history; (2.3) additional site parameters; (3) results for each sampling point.

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Acknowledgments

D.V. was supported by a grant from the ‘‘Landesgraduiertenförderung Baden-Württemberg’’. Support for J.A.B. was provided by the Department of Wildland Resources and the USGS Utah Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Utah State University. We are grateful to all our colleagues from the Chair of Wildlife Ecology and Wildlife Management for providing input and ideas. We thank T. Ludwig for help and advice with all GIS-related questions. Three anonymous reviewers made valuable comments on earlier versions and helped to improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chair of Wildlife Ecology and Management, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacher Str. 4, 79106, Freiburg, Germany

    Daniela Vetter & Ilse Storch

  2. Department of Wildland Resources, Quinney College of Natural Resources, Utah State University, Logan, UT, 84320, USA

    John A. Bissonette

Authors
  1. Daniela Vetter
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  2. Ilse Storch
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  3. John A. Bissonette
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Correspondence to Daniela Vetter.

Electronic supplementary material

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Table S1

Most recently published articles in Landscape Ecology (searched on April 23rd 2015) (docx 34 kb)

Table S2

A concrete case of research synthesis: Reporting of matrix type(s), forest fragment sizes, and forest cover (docx 21 kb)

Table S3

A concrete case of research synthesis: Reporting of location of the study area and sampling points (docx 20 kb)

Table S4

Reporting of location of the study area and sampling points in recently published articles in Landscape Ecology (docx 21 kb)

Table S5

Evaluation of the Author Guidelines of the five highest ranked journals in the Journal Citation Report 2012 (5-year IF) in the Web of Knowledge (Category: Biodiversity Conservation) (docx 17 kb)

Table S6

Coordinates of the study locations for our concrete case of research synthesis (Example 1). Coordinates are displayed in WGS 84 system and can be directly imported to a GIS environment. Note that the coordinates refer to study locations, but we suggest providing sampling point locations for your primary study (xlsx 10 kb)

Shapefile files 1-6

Shapefile containing the study locations for our concrete case of research synthesis (Example 1). Note that the shapefile contains study locations, but we suggest providing sampling point locations for your primary study (zip 4 kb)

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Vetter, D., Storch, I. & Bissonette, J.A. Advancing landscape ecology as a science: the need for consistent reporting guidelines. Landscape Ecol 31, 469–479 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-015-0296-z

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