Читать книгу Practical Field Ecology - C. Philip Wheater - Страница 18

Sometimes, projects may be targeted at a single species (i.e. an autecological study). For example, where a species is judged to be important for positive reasons (including its conservation or commercial value) you might require information about its distribution, population size and dynamics, age structure, behaviour, etc. Where there is a more negative view of a species (e.g. because it spreads disease, competes with native fauna and flora, or is an invasive species that dominates a habitat to the exclusion of other species), you may need information about its distribution, dispersal ability, vulnerability to disturbance and predation, etc. A biogeographical study that might be of interest is the examination of species' distributions where species are expanding or contracting their ranges – perhaps as a result of climate change or other factors (either natural or human‐influenced, e.g. habitat disturbance and fragmentation). Conversely, you may be interested in groups of organisms (i.e. community ecology or synecology), examining the diversity of communities, the interrelationships between plants and animals in protected areas, or in establishing ecosystem function in relation to environmental legislation (e.g. the EU Water Framework Directive).² Studies spanning a wide range of different taxa can be particularly valuable in understanding complex environmental systems, although they may be difficult to implement and the subsequent analysis and interpretation of the results can be complicated.