Abstract
To understand ecological phenomena, it is necessary to observe their behaviour across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Since this need was first highlighted in the 1980s, technology has opened previously inaccessible scales to observation. To help to determine whether there have been corresponding changes in the scales observed by modern ecologists, we analysed the resolution, extent, interval and duration of observations (excluding experiments) in 348 studies that have been published between 2004 and 2014. We found that observational scales were generally narrow, because ecologists still primarily use conventional field techniques. In the spatial domain, most observations had resolutions ≤1 m2 and extents ≤10,000 ha. In the temporal domain, most observations were either unreplicated or infrequently repeated (>1 month interval) and ≤1 year in duration. Compared with studies conducted before 2004, observational durations and resolutions appear largely unchanged, but intervals have become finer and extents larger. We also found a large gulf between the scales at which phenomena are actually observed and the scales those observations ostensibly represent, raising concerns about observational comprehensiveness. Furthermore, most studies did not clearly report scale, suggesting that it remains a minor concern. Ecologists can better understand the scales represented by observations by incorporating autocorrelation measures, while journals can promote attentiveness to scale by implementing scale-reporting standards.
Highlights
To understand ecological phenomena, it is necessary to observe their behaviour across multiple spatial and temporal scales
Ecological patterns emerge from temporal and spatial domains that may be coarser or finer than the processes that shape them, which means that investigation across multiple scales is essential for understanding ecological phenomena[1,4]
Empirical observations are critical for developing and testing the models that explain why ecological patterns vary in time and space[1,8]; the spatio-temporal domains of observations provide an important indicator of the field’s progress towards achieving a holistic, predictive understanding of ecosystems[1,2]
Summary
It is necessary to observe their behaviour across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Given the growing awareness of scale, expanding data-gathering capabilities and the fact that the most comprehensive (and arguably best-known) meta-analyses[8,9] of ecological research scales were published nearly 30 years ago (but see refs 4,10 for more recent reviews), it is both timely and important to assess the scales of contemporary ecological investigation To address this need, we quantified the spatial and temporal domains of empirical observations that were reported within recently (2004–2014) published ecological studies. We assessed two additional dimensions—actual extent (the summed area of spatial replicates) and actual duration (the summed observational time of temporal replicates)—which we used to evaluate how much the actual scales of observation (that is, how much space and time are covered by the measurement) differ from the scales they ostensibly represent These differences may impact how effectively observations characterize ecological phenomena. Since natural systems are frequently complex, nonlinear and non-random[11,12,13], a larger gap increases the likelihood of data challenges such as censoring (sensu14) as phenomena may resolve themselves in the space or time between replicates
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