Evaluating impact using time-series data
Abstract
Humanity's impact on the environment is increasing, as are strategies to conserve biodiversity, but a lack of understanding about how interventions affect ecological and conservation outcomes hampers decision-making. Time series are often used to assess impacts, but ecologists tend to compare average values from before to after an impact; overlooking the potential for the intervention to elicit a change in trend. Without methods that allow for a range of responses, erroneous conclusions can be drawn, especially for large, multi-time-series datasets, which are increasingly available. Drawing on literature in other disciplines and pioneering work in ecology, we present a standardised framework to robustly assesses how interventions, like natural disasters or conservation policies, affect ecological time series.
Citation
Wauchope , H S , Amano , T , Geldmann , J , Johnston , A , Simmons , B , Sutherland , W J & Jones , J P G 2021 , ' Evaluating impact using time-series data ' , Trends in Ecology & Evolution , vol. 36 , no. 3 , pp. 196-205 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2020.11.001
Publication
Trends in Ecology & Evolution
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0169-5347Type
Journal item
Description
H.S.W. was supported by the Cambridge Trust Poynton Scholarship, Cambridge Department of Zoology J.S. Gardiner Studentship, and Cambridge Philosophical Society; T.A. was supported by the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT180100354), and the University of Queensland strategic funding; J.G. was supported by European Union’s Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie program (No. 706784), and VILLUM FONDEN (VKR023371); B.I.S. was supported by a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Research Fellowship; W.J.S. is funded by Arcadia and J.P.G.J. was supported by the Leverhulme Trust: RPG-2014-056.Collections
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