Introduction

Ecological monitoring is undertaken over time and at different biological and spatial scales. The relevance of time to ecological monitoring is made clear throughout this book. In addition to time scales, there are biological and spatial scales that must be considered. The levels of biological organization can be considered in at least three different ways:

• ecological: individual organisms to ecosystems

• taxonomic: from species to species assemblages

• genetic: from molecules to chromosomes.

The 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (Appendix) reinforced the need to remind ourselves that biological diversity occurs at all levels of organization and that biological diversity does not mean only diversity of species. Ecological monitoring programmes have been undertaken at many different levels of biological organization as the examples in this chapter demonstrate.

Land is used for many purposes, and conflicts between different land uses are becoming more common and more intense. The greatest diversity of land uses is possibly to be found in the industrialized countries, where there is a desperate need for good information on land use and land cover as a basis for planning and resource management. Mapping and classification of land at many different spatial scales has evolved over many years to become a more highly sophisticated science (see, for example, the methods described by Bailey (2002)). There are many land-use recording and monitoring programmes (both national and regional) for many types of feature (ecological communities, land use, soil, water, land capability).