Using expert knowledge in landscape ecology
- PDF / 95,449 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
- 85 Downloads / 206 Views
BOOK REVIEW
Using expert knowledge in landscape ecology Ajith H. Perera, C. Ashton Drew and Chris J. Johnson (eds.): Expert knowledge and its application in landscape ecology. Springer, New York, USA, 2012, 307 pp. illus., maps; 24 cm. Hardcover, ISBN 978-1-4614-1033-1, US $209.00, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-1034-8 Eric J. Gustafson
Received: 19 October 2012 / Accepted: 3 November 2012 / Published online: 15 November 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht (outside the USA) 2012
This volume perfectly illustrates the truism—‘‘we don’t know what it is that we don’t know.’’ I have been a landscape ecologist for over 20 years, and have even used expert knowledge many times in my own research. Yet I learned something profoundly new in almost every chapter of this collection of primers and case studies focused on the use of expert knowledge in landscape ecology. The volume is comprised of contributed chapters featuring a nice variety of research questions, ecosystems and approaches, all from a landscape ecology perspective. The quality of the chapters is consistently high, and the explicit focus on the application of expert knowledge (EK) is the unifying thread. The volume reveals that this field is very young and without established protocols, and yet some critical advances have already been made. The first chapter was written by the editors and it includes a careful definition of terms and a clear statement of the objectives and organization of the book. It nicely provides the context for the chapters that follow, increasing the coherence of the volume. The following three chapters provide some ‘‘nuts and bolts’’ about EK and how to acquire it in a scientifically rigorous way. Chapter 2, by McBride and Burgman, is a primer on the types of EK and how it can be acquired to minimize bias and maximize accuracy
E. J. Gustafson (&) USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, Rhinelander, WI 54501, USA e-mail: [email protected]
and usefulness. Chapter 3, by Low-Choy et al., describes the ‘‘Elicitator’’ software tool that was designed to elicit knowledge from experts in a systematic and repeatable way. They provide a case study applying EK to parameterize a species distribution model for wallabies in Australia, and conclude with an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of their use of EK and their software tool. Chapter 4, by Drescher et al., describes a different elicitation software tool and its application to study forest succession in Ontario Canada. The authors delineate the considerable advantages of a formal process to elicit EK and conclude with some lessons learned. These chapters each provide a unique perspective, but a common thread is the importance of assessing the uncertainty associated with EK as a key to ensuring the scientific value of EK. The remaining chapters (except the last) are case studies that describe how EK was elicited, quantified and used for various research and resource management purposes. The variety of approaches and applications is quite remarkable. There is lots of food fo
Data Loading...
