Quantifying and addressing the prevalence and bias of study designs in the environmental and social sciences

Abstract: Building trust in science and evidence-based decision-making depends heavily on the credibility of studies and their findings. Researchers employ many different study designs that vary in their risk of bias to evaluate the true effect of interventions or impacts. Here, we empirically quantify, on a large scale, the prevalence of different study designs and the magnitude of bias in their estimates. Randomised designs and controlled observational designs with pre-intervention sampling were used by just 23% of intervention studies in biodiversity conservation, and 36% of intervention studies in social science. We demonstrate, through pairwise within-study comparisons across 49 environmental datasets, that these types of designs usually give less biased estimates than simpler observational designs. We propose a model-based approach to combine study estimates that may suffer from different levels of study design bias, discuss the implications for evidence synthesis, and how to facilitate the use of more credible study designs

Population dynamics of the brown alga Himanthalia elongata under harvesting pressure

International audienceThrough experimental harvesting, followed by a 12-month monitoring of demographic attributes, we tested the influence of harvesting on the population dynamics of Himanthalia elongata. We further explore the data to test the hypothesis that the canopy would exert a negative effect on the other developmental stages (intraspecific competition) throughout the recovery cycle of the population. This showed that the H. elongata canopy plays a marked seasonal role not by precluding the presence of other developmental stages but by delaying or preventing their growth and development. The removal of the canopy facilitates the transition from one developmental stage to another, eventually permitting a fast recovery of size structure in the population. This study allows us to integrate population dynamics and intraspecific relationships in our understanding of macroalgal recovery patterns

Effects of commercial harvesting of intertidal macroalgae on ecosystem biodiversity and functioning

In 2009, the European Union has defined an organic label for macroalgae, which implies that the commercial harvest of algae shall not cause a significant impact on ecosystems. The aim of this work was to study the effects of hand harvesting of three algae: Focus serratus, Palmaria palmata, and Porphyra linearis on the associated biodiversity and metabolism of the ecosystem. We used the BACI (Before-After Control-Impact) design to assess the impact of the disturbance (i) on the recovery of the harvested species, (ii) on the specific and functional diversity of the associated algal and animal communities, and (iii) for F. serratus and P. linearis, on the metabolism of the area, using benthic chambers. Our work is based on a mix of fundamental and applied research to identify the effects of commercial harvesting regarding long-term changes, biological and functional interactions, and system responses (including socio-economic interactions). Results of the 12-month monitoring on F. serratus showed that canopy loss seemed to have a negative impact mainly on the diversity of the animal community and the metabolism of the studied area. No significant effects were observed on the algal community. The harvesting impact on the animal community was amplified by the settlement of an ephemeral canopy of Ulva spp., a seasonal opportunistic green alga. Results of the 12-month monitoring of P. palmata after harvesting did not show any significant impact. This alga was epiphytic on the dominant canopy of F. serratus, which was thus maintained, minimizing the impact of the harvest. Finally, results of the 12-month monitoring of P. linearis were difficult to interpret because of an unexpected but continuous sand burial of the study site, one month after the beginning of the study and still covering the population after eight months. Hence, effects of P. linearis harvesting were overshadowed by the natural variability. So far, our results have shown that commercial harvesting has different effects according to the target species, which emphasizes the necessity to continue long-term monitoring. Finally, this study also points out the valuable use of a ``fundamental research'' approach to deal with a practical management issue. (c) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Smart Aquaponics: Development of a tool for education, decision support & monitoring for aquaponics

status: publishe