Designing an improved network of long-term monitoring sites for arctic vertebrates

TAMANI?s objectives were to assess the needs of stakeholders in pan-arctic monitoring of seabirds and terrestrial vertebrates, and suggest ways to improve existing monitoring programs. We first used semi-structured stakeholder interviews to ascertain the priorities of stakeholders for arctic monitoring. We published two papers based on these interviews, one on triage ? diverting resources away from species very likely to go extinct in favor of species where monitoring can contribute most ? and one on the integration of monitoring outcomes. In the first paper, we showed that most participants were opposed to triage, that triage conflicted with their system-based view of the Arctic environment, and that scenarios of possible trajectories may represent an effective means of identifying monitoring needs. In the second paper, we showed that there was little integration of monitoring outcomes linked to the monitoring process itself (such as education or dissemination) and the objectives of monitoring (such as detecting changes and making decisions). A better integration of monitoring stakeholders will help connect these outcomes for effective ecosystem stewardship. The project also used spatial analysis of current monitoring locations across the arctic to identify gaps in monitoring and how well drivers are change and ecological conditions are represented across current monitoring networks. Our long-term objective is to use this information to make recommendations concerning future pan-arctic monitoring to meet multiple stakeholder needs. These results would then be then disseminated both to the scientific community and to a wide variety of stakeholders. For this goal, we have compared the environmental characteristics of monitoring sites of seabirds to a circumpolar list of known seabird colonies. Our analysis shows large gaps in some Arctic regions (e.g. the cold Russian Arctic), whereas others such as the mild NE Atlantic are well covered. Such results are not surprising, but by adding variables such as primary sea productivity, we were able to refine a monitoring design that would be more representative of environmental conditions experienced by Arctic seabirds. ?

The arctic environment is changing at an alarming rate and it is essential to understand the consequences of such changes on arctic biodiversity. Long-term monitoring programmes of key arctic species are the backbone of scientific research aiming at studying these ecological consequences. The Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program of the Arctic Council recommends that such monitoring should be conducted and coordinated at a pan-arctic scale, and should involve indigenous participants. However, these monitoring programmes are still mainly operated by national research institutions, with a very uneven distribution of study sites across the Arctic and little involvement of local communities. In this context our project will handle the following key questions: What is the best, most efficient survey design for pan-arctic monitoring? Are monitoring plans adequate, and how can they be improved? How can participatory citizen science best contribute to pan-Arctic long-term monitoring? What are the current participatory initiatives, and how can they be improved? We will focus on land vertebrates and seabirds which are acknowledged indicator species of arctic change and emblematic species for local communities. Using interviews of representatives of institutions funding arctic research and of representatives of arctic communities, we will assess their perceptions and expectations of pan-arctic, long-term participatory research activities on land vertebrates and seabirds. Further, we will use pan-arctic data on existing monitoring programmes of land vertebrates and seabirds, to test the hypothesis that this network of monitoring sites is unevenly distributed relative to environmental gradients. These analyses will allow us to propose a revised, ecologically sound network of key monitoring sites for land vertebrates and seabirds, that allows the most efficient study of these key species on a pan-arctic scale while involving local communities in participatory programmes