When I made my first foray into the realm of ecology, I was often frustrated by the lack of structure in performing ecological investigation. The mantra of my more experienced research partner was "it's not an exact science". Obviously, there must be accuracy and precision in ecology or it would break down as a scientific disipline. However, much of my experience with this field has led me to believe that we are often attempting to quantify the unquantifiable, we seek obtain an educated "guesstimate" of ecosystem processes. This is because relationships are by nature multifaceted and ecology, when it boils down to it, studies relationships. So we take our tape measures and our pin flags and we embark on an exercise in attempting to fit an amorphous peg into a square hole.
Before you lose all faith in ecology and ecologists, know that you can be confident in the outcomes of ecological studies. Enter Operation Styrotort and other similar projects. This week our crew checked and re-checked a desert "styrotort" course laid out to train field technicians in identifying desert tortoises. Technicians receive a grade based on their ability to correctly identify and locate a styrofoam mock-up of a desert tortoise. Armed with compasses and measuring tapes, we checked the bearing and distance of almost 300 hundred styrotorts spread along an eight kilometer system of transects. After painstakingly placing each tortoise, I am confident that this is a reputable scientific method that will enable technicians searching for tortoises to be certain of their results. There you have it, if we train properly and set uniform standards of measurement in advance, ecology can be an exact science. At least as exact as a dynamic system and human nature will allow.
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