Ecological Data

Ecologists are increasingly tackling difficult issues like globalchange, loss of biodiversity and sustainability of ecosystemservices. These and related topics are enormously challenging,requiring unprecedented multidisciplinary collaboration and rapidsynthesis of large amounts of diverse data into information andultimately knowledge. New sensors, computers, data collection andstorage devices and analytical and statistical methods provide apowerful tool kit to support analyses, graphics and visualizationsthat were unthinkable even a few years ago. New and increasedemphasis on accessibility, management, processing and sharing ofhigh-quality, well-maintained and understandable data represents asignificant change in how scientists view and treat data. Theseissues are complex and despite their importance, are typically notaddressed in database, ecological and statistical textbooks.This book addresses these issues, providing a much neededresource for those involved in designing and implementingecological research, as well as students who are entering theenvironmental sciences. Chapters focus on the design of ecologicalstudies, data management principles, scientific databases, dataquality assurance, data documentation, archiving ecological dataand information and processing data into information and knowledge.The book stops short of a detailed treatment of data analysis, butdoes provide pointers to the relevant literature in graphics,statistics and knowledge discovery. The central thesis of the bookis that high quality data management systems are critical foraddressing future environmental challenges. This requires a newapproach to how we conduct ecological research, that views data asa resource and promotes stewardship, recycling and sharing ofdata.Ecological Data will be particularly useful to thoseecologists and information specialists that actively design, manageand analyze environmental databases. However, it will also benefita wider audience of scientists and students in the ecological andenvironmental sciences.