Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA.
Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
Nat Ecol Evol. 2018 May;2(5):819-826. doi: 10.1038/s41559-018-0524-4. Epub 2018 Apr 2.
To understand ecological phenomena, it is necessary to observe their behaviour across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Since this need was first highlighted in the 1980s, technology has opened previously inaccessible scales to observation. To help to determine whether there have been corresponding changes in the scales observed by modern ecologists, we analysed the resolution, extent, interval and duration of observations (excluding experiments) in 348 studies that have been published between 2004 and 2014. We found that observational scales were generally narrow, because ecologists still primarily use conventional field techniques. In the spatial domain, most observations had resolutions ≤1 m and extents ≤10,000 ha. In the temporal domain, most observations were either unreplicated or infrequently repeated (>1 month interval) and ≤1 year in duration. Compared with studies conducted before 2004, observational durations and resolutions appear largely unchanged, but intervals have become finer and extents larger. We also found a large gulf between the scales at which phenomena are actually observed and the scales those observations ostensibly represent, raising concerns about observational comprehensiveness. Furthermore, most studies did not clearly report scale, suggesting that it remains a minor concern. Ecologists can better understand the scales represented by observations by incorporating autocorrelation measures, while journals can promote attentiveness to scale by implementing scale-reporting standards.
为了理解生态现象，有必要在多个时空尺度上观察它们的行为。自 20 世纪 80 年代首次提出这一需求以来，技术已经使以前无法观察到的尺度可以进行观察。为了帮助确定现代生态学家所观察到的尺度是否发生了相应的变化，我们分析了 2004 年至 2014 年间发表的 348 项研究中的观测（不包括实验）的分辨率、范围、间隔和持续时间。我们发现，观察尺度通常很窄，因为生态学家仍然主要使用传统的野外技术。在空间域中，大多数观测的分辨率≤1 米，范围≤10000 公顷。在时间域中，大多数观测要么是未复制的，要么是很少重复（间隔>1 个月），持续时间≤1 年。与 2004 年之前进行的研究相比，观测的持续时间和分辨率似乎基本没有变化，但间隔变得更细，范围更大。我们还发现，现象实际观察到的尺度与观察到的尺度之间存在很大差距，这引发了对观察全面性的关注。此外，大多数研究没有明确报告尺度，这表明这仍然是一个次要问题。生态学家可以通过纳入自相关测量来更好地理解观察所代表的尺度，而期刊可以通过实施尺度报告标准来提高对尺度的关注。
