LARGE-SCALE MONITORING PROGRAMS: ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES

CONVENORS
Marc Kéry
Swiss Ornithological Institute, 6204 Sempach
fax 0041 41 462 97 10, email: marc.kery@vogelwarte.ch

Frédéric Jiguet
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Département Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodiversité
Centre de Recherches sur la Biologie des Populations d'Oiseaux, Case postale 51, 55 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, FRANCE
Téléphone : (33) 1 40 79 30 80 ; Fax : (33) 1 40 79 38 35, fjiguet@mnhn.fr

DESCRIPTION
Ecological monitoring programs are mushrooming and bird surveys are particularly well-represented among such programs, owing to the fairly wide availability of skilled ornithologist volunteers to conduct field work. In setting up such monitoring programs, many issues need to be considered, some of which, we believe, do not at current receive sufficient attention. This includes the clear statement of the goals of a scheme, the selection of field and analysis methods that are likely to lead to the achievement of these goals, as well as the choice of spatial sampling units and treatment of the observation process (e.g, detection probability). We suggest that with more input at the beginning of a program the interpretation of the data that it generates is likely to be greatly enhanced.

On the other hand, we believe that many programs don't use the data they generate to the extent possible. Many monitoring programs collect ecological data at spatial and temporal scales that are virtually impossible to tackle in "pure" ecological studies. These data have a great and hitherto somewhat underused potential to be used to answer basic ecological questions, for instance in biogeography, climate change research, invasion ecology and so forth.

We invite contributions that deal with methodological aspects that are relevant for large-scale monitoring programs or that illustrate clever use of the data generated by such programs to answer basic ecological questions.

KEYNOTE 1: Kéry, M
Hierarchical estimation and modeling of distribution and abundance in metapopulation designs

KEYNOTE 2: JIGUET, F & the CRBPO
Using large scale bird monitoring data in the study of global change impacts

Besnard, A. and Lyet, A.
Large-scale monitoring of rare and elusive species combining capture-recapture with presence/absence data

Sillett, T.S., Royle, J. A., Kéry, M., and Morrison, S. A.
Rangewide population size and habitat-specific abundance of the island scrub-jay (Aphelocoma insularis)

Voříšek P. Škorpilová J., Klvaňová A., Van Strien A., Gregory R.D.
Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme: using bird monitoring and science at European scale