The text includes concrete guidelines for ecologists to follow to design a statistically defensible monitoring program.

• User-friendly, practical guide, written in a highly readable format.
• The authors provide an interdisciplinary scope to address the current, widespread interest in monitoring in many environmental fields, including pure and applied ecology, conservation biology, and wildlife management.
• Emphasizes the role of monitoring in adaptive management.
• Defines important terminology and contrasts monitoring with other data-collection activities. Covers the applicable principles of sampling and shows how to design a monitoring project.
• Provides a step-by-step overview of the monitoring process, illustrated by flow charts and references. The authors also offer guidelines for analyzing and interpreting monitoring data.
• Illustrates the foundation of management objectives and describes their components, types, and development.
• Describes common field techniques for measuring important attributes of animal and plant populations.
• Reviews different methods for recording monitoring data in the field, managing the data, and communicating data to policy makers.