Abstract
Ecosystem and landscape studies are often faced with less than ideal, large-scale scenarios which are challenged by traditional approaches to experimental design and analysis, primarily because these studies can not be adequately replicated and are confronted by multiple spatial and temporal scales of variation. Variations in parameter and response time further complicate experimental design and data analysis. Rather than struggle with controlling or minimizing the influence of spatial and temporal variation via statistically required replication, we employed BACI and BACIPS designs and applied multiple spatial-scale controls and unbalanced temporal sampling schemes to account for the spatial and temporal structure of the studied system. This multiple-scale design allowed us to assess both pulsed and sustained responses of critical ecosystem processes to a prescribed fire in a nutrient-enriched wetland. A series of regression approaches and confidence intervals were employed to estimate onset, duration, and magnitude of post-fire ecosystem responses. This chapter describes a powerful approach for studying ecosystem disturbance including issue identification, experimental design, data analysis and interpretation, and management recommendations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bender, E. A., T. J. Case, and M. E. Gilpin. 1984. Perturbation experiments in community ecology: theory and practice. Ecology 65:1–13.
Box, G. E. P. and G. C. Tiao. 1965. A change in level of a nonstationary time series. Biometrika 52:181–192.
Box, G. E. P. and G. C. Tiao. 1975. Intervention analysis with applications to economic and environmental problems. Journal of the American Statistical Association 70:70–79.
Burns and McDonnell. 2003. Everglades Protection Area Tributary Basins Long-Term Plan for Achieving Water Quality Goals. South Florida Water Management District, West Palm Beach, FL.
Carpenter, S., N. F. Caraco, D. L. Correll, R. W. Howarth, A. N. Sharpley, and V. H. Smith. 1998. Nonpoint pollution of surface waters with phosphorus and nitrogen. Ecological Applications 8:559–568.
Carpenter, S. R. 1990. Large-scale perturbations: Opportunities for innovation. Ecology 71:2038–2043.
Carpenter, S. R. 1996. Microcosm experiments have limited relevance for community and ecosystem ecology. Ecology 77:677.
Carpenter, S. R., S. W. Chisholm, C. J. Krebs, D. W. Schindler, and R. F. Wright. 1995. Ecosystem experiments. Science 269:324–327.
Carpenter, S. R., T. M. Frost, D. Heisey, and T. K. Kratz. 1989. Randomized intervention analysis and the interpretation of whole-ecosystem experiments. Ecology 70:1142–1152.
Chimney, M. J. and G. Goforth. 2001. Environmental impacts to the Everglades ecosystem: a historical perspective and restoration strategies. Water Science and Technology 44:93–100.
Clark, J. S., S. R. Carpenter, M. Barber, S. Collins, A. Dobson, J. A. Foley, D. M. Lodge, M. Pascual, R. Pielke Jr., W. Pizer, C. Pringle, W. V. Reid, K. A. Rose, O. Sala, W. H. Schlesinger, D. H. Wall, and D. Wear. 2001. Ecological forecasts: an emerging imperative. Science 293:657–660.
Conquest, L. L. 2000. Analysis and interpretation of ecological field data using BACI designs: discussion. Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics 5:293–296.
Davis, S. M. and J. C. Ogden. 1994. Toward ecosystem restoration. Pages 769–796 in S. M. Davis and J. C. Ogden, editors. Everglades: The Ecosystem and Its Restoration. St. Lucie Press, Delray Beach, Florida, USA.
Gotelli, N. J. and A. M. Ellison. 2004. A Primer of Ecological Statistics. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.
Green, R. H. 1979. Sampling Design and Statistical Methods for Environmental Biologists. John Wiley & Sons, University of Western Ontario.
Hasler, A. D., O. M. Brynildson, W. T. Helm. 1951. Improving conditions for fish in brown-water bog lakes by alkalization. Journal of Wildlife Management 15:347–352.
Hewitt, J. E., S. E. Thrush, and V. J. Cummings. 2001. Assessing environmental impacts: effects of spatial and temporal variability at likely impact scales. Ecological Applications 11:1502–1516.
Hewitt, J. E., S. F. Thrush, P. K. Dayton, and E. Bonsdorff. 2007. The effect of spatial and temporal heterogeneity on the design and analysis of empirical studies of scale-dependent systems. The American Naturalist 169:398–408.
Keough, J. M. and G. P. Quinn. 2000. Legislative vs. practical protection of an intertidal shoreline in Southeastern Australia. Ecological Applications 10:871–881.
Legendre, P. 1993. Spatial autocorrelation: trouble or new paradigm? Ecology 74:1659–1673.
Legendre, P., M. R. T. Dale, M.-J. Fortin, J. Gurevitch, M. Hohn, and D. Meyers. 2002. The consequences of spatial structure for the design and analysis of ecological field surveys. Ecography 25:601–615.
Likens, G. E. 1985. An experimental approach for the study of ecosystems: The Fifth Tansley Lecture. Journal of Ecology 73:381–396.
Melbourne, B. A. and P. Chesson. 2005. Scaling up population dynamics: integrating theory and data. Oecologia 145:179–187.
Miao, S. and S. Carstenn. 2006. A new direction for large-scale experimental design and analysis. Frontiers in Ecology 4:227.
Miao, S. L. and S. Carstenn. 2005. Assessing Long-Term Ecological Effects of Fire and Natural Recovery in a Phosphorus Enriched Everglades wetlands: Cattail Expansion Phosphorus Biogeochemistry and Native Vegetation Recovery. West Palm Beach, Florida.
Mitsch, W. J. and J. W. Day Jr. 2004. Thinking big with whole-ecosystem studies and ecosystem restoration- a legacy of H.T. Odum. Ecological Modeling 178:133–155.
Murtaugh, P. A. 2007. Simplicity and complexity in ecological data analysis. Ecology 88:56–62.
Osenberg, C. W. and R. J. Schmitt, editors. 1996. Detecting Ecological Impacts Caused by Human Activities. Academic Press, Inc., San Diego, CA.
Osenberg, C. W., R. J. Schmitt, S. J. Holbrook, K. E. Abu-Saba, and A. R. Flegal. 1994. Detection of environmental impacts: natural variability, effect size, and power analysis. Ecological Applications 4:16–30.
Petersen, J. E., W. M. Kemp, R. Bartleson, W. R. Boynton, C.-C. Chen, J. C. Cornwell, R. H. Gardner, D. C. Hinkle, E. D. Houde, T. C. Malone, W. P. Mowitt, L. Murray, L. P. Sanford, J. C. Stevenson, K. L. Sunderburg, and S. E. Suttles. 2003. Multiscale experiments in coastal ecology: improving realism and advancing theory. BioScience 53:1181–1197.
Pickett, S. T. A. 1989. Space-for-time substitution as an alternative to long-term studies. Pages 110–135 in G. E. Likens, editor. Long-term studies in ecology. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Ponzio, K. J., S. J. Miller, and M. A. Lee. 2004. Long-term effects of prescribed fire on Cladium jamaicense crantz and Typha domingensis pers. densities. Wetlands Ecology and Management 12:123–133.
Schindler, D. W. 1998. Replication versus realism: The need for ecosystem-scale experiments. Ecosystems 1:323–334.
Simberloff, D. 2004. A rising tide of species and literature: a review of some recent books on biological invasions. BioScience 54:247–254.
Sindhøj, E. and S. Miao. Submitted. Recovery dynamics and underlying mechanisms of Typha domingensis communities following fire in a highly- and moderately-nutrient enriched Everglades wetland Ecosystem Restoration.
Sokal, R., R. and F. J. Rohlf. 1981. Biometry. 2nd edition. W.H. Freeman and Company, New York.
Stewart-Oaten, A. 1996a. Goals in environmental monitoring. Pages 17–27 in R. J. Schmitt and C. W. Osenberg, editors. Detecting Ecological Impacts: Concepts and Applications in Coastal Habitats. Academic Press, Inc.
Stewart-Oaten, A. 1996b. Problems in the analysis of environmental monitoring data. Pages 109–131 in R. J. Schmitt and C. W. Osenberg, editors. Detecting Ecological Impacts: Concepts and Applications in Coastal Habitats. Academic Press, San Diego.
Stewart-Oaten, A. 1996c. Problems in the analysis of environmental monitoring data. Pages 109–131 in R. J. Schmitt and C. W. Osenberg, editors. Detecting Ecological Impacts: Concepts and Applications in Coastal Habitats. Academic Press, Inc.
Stewart-Oaten, A. 2003. Using Before-After-Control Impact in Environmental Assessment: Purpose, Theoretical Basis, and Practical Problems. Coastal Research Center, Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California.
Thrush, S. F., J. E. Hewitt, V. J. Cummings, P. K. Dayton, M. Cryer, S. J. Turner, G. Funnell, R. Budd, C. Milburn, and M. R. Wilkinson. 1998. Disturbance of the marine benthic habitat by commercial fishing: impacts at the scale of the fishery. Ecological Applications 8:866–879.
Thrush, S. F., S. M. Lawrie, J. E. Hewitt, and V. J. Cummings. 1999. The problem of scale: uncertainties and implications for soft-bottom marine communities and the assessment of human impacts. Pages 185–210 in J. S. Gray, editor. Biogeochemical Cycling and Sediment Ecology. Kluwer Academic, Netherlands.
Underwood, A. J. 1989. The analysis of stress in natural populations. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 37:51–78.
Underwood, A. J. 1991. Beyond BACI: experimental designs for detecting human environmental impacts of temporal variations in natural populations. Australian Journal of Freshwater Research 42:569–587.
Underwood, A. J. 1993. The Mechanics of Spatially replicated sampling programs to detect environmental impacts in a variable world. Australian Journal of Ecology 18:99–116.
Underwood, A. J. 1994. On beyond BACI: sampling designs that might reliably detect environmental disturbances. Ecological Applications 4:3–15.
Urquhart, N. S., S. G. Paulsen, and D. P. Larsen. 1998. Monitoring for policy-relevant regional trends over time. Ecological Applications 8:246–257.
Acknowledgments
We thank the South Florida Water Management District for supporting the Fire project and Hawaii Pacific University for providing release time for S. Carstenn. We greatly appreciate many former (D. Pisut, H. Chen, J. Creasser, D. Salembier, M. Tapia, and D.Condo) and current members (Robert Johnson, Christina Stylianos, D. Monette) of the Fire project team who conducted field samplings. We thank C. Stow, D. Hui, J. Hewitt, J. Grace, S. Hill, M. Nungesser and D. Drum for their valuable comments on early drafts of the chapter. S.L. Miao contributed to overall idea, structure, and preparation of the manuscript; S.Carstenn contributed to analysis of moving regression and manuscript preparation; C. Thomas conducted BACI-ANOVA analyses related to control similarity and control numbers for detecting fire impacts; C. Edelstein was responsible for field setup and sampling, data management and figure and table creation; E. Sindhøj developed the model for nutrient pool analysis used in the synthesis section and contributed to manuscript preparation; and Binhe Gu contributed to the development of the nutrient pool analysis.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Miao, S., Carstenn, S., Thomas, C., Edelstein, C., Sindhøj, E., Gu, B. (2009). Integrating Multiple Spatial Controls and Temporal Sampling Schemes To Explore Short- and Long-Term Ecosystem Response to Fire in an Everglades Wetland. In: Miao, S., Carstenn, S., Nungesser, M. (eds) Real World Ecology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-77942-3_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-77942-3_4
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-77941-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-77942-3
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)