Handbook of Biodiversity Methods. Survey,Evaluation and Monitoring

D. Hill, M. Fasham, G. Tucker, M. Shewry and P.Shaw (eds). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,UK, 2006. 573 pp. Price AUD$299 (hardback).ISBN 0521823684.

As a postgraduate student, I would have killed for aone-stop shop of all of the standard ecological surveyand monitoring techniques available. Southwood(1978) was good, but it did not comprehensively tellme how to plan a survey or monitoring programme,discuss the advantages and disadvantages of eachmethod relative to my research questions, tell me howto design and lay out my chosen sampling regime, howlong my sampling should take, or how to analyse thedata that I collected. I was supposed to learn thosethings by ploughing through research papers andlooking at how others had addressed similar issues.

Sure, it was all part of the experiential learningprocess, but it was not terribly efficient. I hesitate tosay it, but my postgraduate research may have beenbetter if I had access to that one-stop shop. Experien-tial learning is one thing, but reinventing or copying awheel, and not necessarily the best wheel, is counter-productive. One of my professional tasks post-PhDwas to evaluate environmental impact assessmentsdeveloped by consultants, on behalf of a governmentconservation agency. All too often dodgy methods leadto dodgy Environmental Impact Assessments. Andthese consultants were university trained!

Help is at hand. The editors of the Handbook ofBiodiversity Methods have undertaken a huge task incompiling what may become an ecological researcher’sor consultant’s revered text. They did this to enablethe standardized collection of ecological data so that,‘future decisions on policy reforms, land management,development impacts and biodiversity conservationinitiatives at a range of scales can . . . be based on factrather than on conjecture’ (p. xii). This is a laudableobjective and the resulting book is an excellent product.It should certainly help to improve the rigour of eco-logical research, survey or monitoring across the board,consequently improving the advice that we appliedecologists provide to managers or policymakers.

The one major distraction for Austral Ecology’s read-ership will be the framing of the book around UK andEuropean statutory requirements. However, it is easyenough to visualize Australia’s Environmental Protec-tion and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 or NewZealand’s Conservation Act 1987 in place of theNature Conservation (Scotland) Act EU Birds andHabitats Directive, for example.

The book is divided into three parts. The first partaddresses the planning of studies, from the setting of

objectives through to data analysis, interpretation andreview, and has a significant discussion of biodiversityevaluation methods. Lest anyone think that this is acookbook, this section requires the researcher tothink about what is required for their study, and bothchallenges and helps them to tailor the methodsappropriately. The second part of the book deals withhabitat surveys and evaluations. The habitats are UK-and Euro-centric, and would have arid rangelandresearchers in Australia asking what they should bedoing in their habitats. However, most New Zealandresearchers, and those doing work on the eastern sea-board of Australia, will see enough parallels with theirenvironments to make it useful. The third part of thebook covers specific methods for sampling and study-ing the various taxonomic groups, from fungi andlichens through moths, fish, and of course birds andmammals. Again, these were targeted at a Europeanaudience, so you won’t find any methods for studyingkangaroos or echidnas. However, most Austral ecolo-gists are unlikely to be disappointed by the selection.

I found the layout of the book to be clear andconcise, and the use of text boxes was particularly welldone. At $299 this book is not going to be bought bystudents, unless they have a particularly good studygrant, but they would surely benefit from having accessto it. Therefore, it should be on their supervisor’sshelves and definitely in university libraries. Consult-ants, and government and industry ecologists shouldalso have this book – it would be nice to see policydecisions being made on the basis of good and robustresearch!

OK. All of that being said, while I am glad to havethis among my books, it would be really nice to have anantipodean version. I’m sure that we have enoughdistinctive species, habitats and environmental issuesto warrant this. Are you interested, CambridgeUniversity Press?

CRAIG MILLERCSIRO Sustainable EcosystemsSt Lucia, Queensland, Australia

Email: craig.miller@csiro.au

REFERENCE

Southwood T. R. E. (1978) Ecological Methods, 2nd edn.Chapman & Hall, London.

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© 2007 Ecological Society of Australia