Rural System's

Modern Wild Faunal Resource System Management

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Notes on Wildlife Research: Alternatives to Conventional Research

based on a lecture by R.H. Giles at Virginia Tech, March 2, 1990

Some new personal awareness:

1. The role of knowledge - it is only one part of the natural resource decision process. 40% of wildlife budgets is devoted to wildlife law enforcement and there are virtually no studies done there. The number of biologists is inadequate for the asserted tasks. It is silly to act like it is and ignore the illogical reality.
2. The effects of a pesticide application - in my PhD study we discovered new species, we could not even name the parts of the ecosystem, much less describe the relations. We cannot estimate or predict the effects of a loss of any species. We rarely deal with concepts of consequences.Taxonomy remains important, even though employed by the biological sciences community and the financial support base.
3. A faunal database - We have a large one but the essential fields are half empty.We will never have enough money ($5 billion estimated as needed) to fill the empty spaces in the data base.

We have to start with the definition to isolate and limit the studies needed. We cannot study everything given our budgetary and time limits. Definition: Wildlife management is making decisions and acting to manipulate the structure, dynamics and relations of populations, habitats, and people to achieve specified human benefits from the wild faunal and floral resource.

The need: heuristic convergence toward a tentative, pragmatic paradigm

Such a paradigm will likely include:

1. Clarification of the realm
   1. Answers to stated questions
   2. Predictive as in: "If this, then what...?" consequential as in taxon loss or major increase.
   3. If "truth" is available in a situation, so what?
2. Broad likely utility of answers
   1. Process questions
   2. Multi-species
   3. "General" as in universal (not as in vague)
   4. Examples: Nitrogen budgets; calcium utilization; energy budgeting (A. Moen, Cornell)

   5. Faunal phenomena occur in volumes or layers, not just areas

      Examples: Abiotic factor (knowledge for "control"; (see attached temperature map); general algorithms for points, lines, areas, and layers; transition matrices, with supportive geographic information systems.
3. Attention to functional taxonomy (cf. diversity indexes calculated with variable grouping of taxa)
4. Attention to life group (cf. greater managerial differences in life group within some species than between some families)
5. New "expeditions," i.e., coordinated floral and faunal surveys in the U.S.
6. Attention to benefit units, e.g., sightings, pelts, harvest, loss, loss reduction
7. Attention to value, i.e., relative importance of benefit units
8. Attention to "demand," i.e., units perceived to be needed
9. Attention to "substitutability," i.e., how one faunal or floral event, experience, or benefit unit substitutes for another
10. How managerial "treatments" influence all of the above
11. Less effort toward parsimony in models; a retreat from the calculus to difference models
12. Development of geographic information systems suitable for use in optimization (e.g., locating powerline corridors)
13. Great reliance on and capturing opinion and observation of experienced people (expert systems)
14. Choice of greater statistical alpha, i.e.; 0.2 instead of 0.05 (i.e., 80% vs 95% confidence) with planned sequential studies
15. New attention to equifinality, multiple pathways to the same end-state (e.g., a climax forest stand)
16. A clinical paradigm, one that is sequential and adaptive ... but with good record keeping
17. General prescriptive systems, computer based, with reports or "plans" that are temporary and grounded in dynamic data bases, optimization programs, and report generators, progressively less-and-less of hard copy texts and maps
18. Attention to costs, especially the non-linear relationships of expected faunal and floral benefits produced per unit of expenditure over time
19. Increase permanence and utility of knowledge gained at high cost and often great risk and hardship by new institutional arrangements, data storage systems, hypertext, expert interviews, and video disk photo storage
20. Non-governmental strategies to assure stability of the research enterprise.

General Design Criteria: The Written Plan of Study

Provide detail - Do not be lengthy, simply allow reviewers to think through and visualize the entire project. Do not leave out steps or essential parts.

Clarity - Clarity in writing helps tell the details but connotes the researcher's grasp of the area.

Review - Make literature reviews thorough but not exhaustive. Show up-to-date sources and ability to distinguish studies relevant to the proposed project.

Hypothesis - All studies do not have to have an hypothesis (although many uncritical reviewers tend to be insistent). State a proposed solution, an approach, a system to be created, a model to be explored. In the worst case, state the null hypothesis that a system to perform X cannot be created, then proceed to show how to reject it.

Objectives - The criteria in Chapter ___ hold. They should be brief, few, singular (if possible), specific, without methodology, and form the basis for the "methods" to follow. Methods should address how each objective is to be achieved.

Methods - Be specific in stating sampling, experiments or other work, techniques, data expected, and analytical details.

Cooperation - Many formal studies require cooperation of various land owners, agencies, private groups, and governments. Logically, agreements need be gotten after a project is approved and funded but from the granter's point of view, it is needed before application since too much experience suggests failures in studies because expected or desired cooperation was not obtained.

Pilot Studies - Such studies are very convincing and show preliminary tests and verify that some results will be gotten and changes can be made which will increase the likelihood of others. Research reviewers need reduced risks.

Budgets - Budgets must match the methods. Excessive requests fare as well as those that cannot support the proposed work.A match is needed. Justify unusual or large items with footnotes.

Results - Increasingly faunal research system results must be brought into use (where the payoff is measured). "Publication in journal X" will no longer suffice. There need to be within the design itself the methods, means, and targets of the likely results. Into what system (and systems) will the results be made as direct inputs? Giles (1981) wrote of how faunal agency research results could be more readily and meaningfully transferred.

See Notes on Wildlife Research: Developing Hypotheses

See Studies and Research

See similar expanded notes of the Clearfork Community (an Eastern Tennessee group)- Community-Based Research.

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Revision January 18, 2004, January 2007