Practical guidance for wildlife professionals working to improve study
design, data analysis, and the application of results to habitat and
population management.
Winner of the Wildlife Society Publications Book Award by The Wildlife
Society
Despite major advances in sampling techniques and analytical methods,
many animal ecologists conduct research that is primarily relevant to a
specific time and place. They also tend to focus more on the statistical
analyses and nuances of modeling than actual study design. Arguing that
studies of animal ecology should always begin with a focus on the
behaviors and characteristics of individual organisms, including how
they form into distinct biological populations, Applications for
Advancing Animal Ecology takes a fresh and critical look at the field.
Building from its companion volume, Foundations for Advancing Animal
Ecology, this practical book presents readers with the principal
methods used to observe animal behavior. Teaching them to assess
resource abundance categories of species-environmental relationships
models, it also explores
- major aspects of measuring animal habitat: what to measure and how to
measure it;
- common sampling and estimation methods to assess population
parameters;
- when to measure and how to analyze data;
- problems that will confront ecologists in the coming years--and how to
gather information to adequately address them; and
- how the experimental approach can be used to advance the science of
animal ecology.
Throughout the book, the authors stress the importance of speaking a
common and well-defined language. Avoiding vague and misleading
terminology, they assert, will help ecologists translate science into
meaningful and lasting actions in the environment. Taking the
perspective of the organism of interest in developing concepts and
applications, the authors always keep the potentially biased human
perspective in focus. They also provide a selection of suggested
research projects, cautions, and caveats. A major advancement in
understanding the factors underlying wildlife-habitat relationships,
Applications for Advancing Animal Ecology will be an invaluable
resource to natural resource management professionals and practitioners,
including state and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations,
and environmental consultants.
