What Questions, Systems, or Phenomena Warrant Long-Term Ecological Study?

Abstract

Since long-term studies are generally more costly, time consuming, and difficult than shorter investigations, our group found it worthwhile to discuss our questions in a slightly different context. We asked ourselves: when are long-term studies (LTS) required? This helped focus our attention on the most compelling reasons and justifications for LTS. The group felt one situation requiring LTS was when monitoring changes of an unknown type. In this case, some changes may be expected but the nature of the change is not clear. For example, one might expect shoreline industrial development to alter the ecology of coastal waters but not know a priori what form the alteration would take. A second situation where LTS is required is in studying the dynamics of certain ecological systems where no surrogate methods are available. For example, LTS would be essential if one were interested in the population dynamics of long-lived birds because the ages of these animals, and some others, cannot be measured by indirect, nondestructive methods. Thus, population parameters for these animals can only be studied by direct, long-term observation. Given the nascent state of ecology, it seems that many ecological phenomena fall into our two categories of situations requiring long-term investigation. Improvements in the methodology, observational base, and theory of ecology should reduce the number of these situations requiring LTS in the future.