Alignment of ordinal and quantitative species abundance and size indices for the detection of shifting baseline syndrome
Data associated with the publication Lyver, P.O'B. Timoti, P., Richardson, S.J. and Gormley, A.M. (2021). Alignment of ordinal and quantitative species abundance and size indices for the detection of shifting baseline syndrome. Ecological Applications.
The goals of this study were (i) to determine relationships between ordinal scores (e.g. few, many) and quantitative measures (e.g. estimates of population size) used by members of a Maori community in New Zealand to score indicators for understanding the abundance of forest resources; and (ii) to then analyse these relationships according to people's age to detect the effects of shifting baseline syndrome and the rate that this shift was occurring for each indicator.
We detected consistent relationships between the ordinal scores and quantitative measures for six forest indicators provided by community members. However, there was only a high degree of confidence about the direction of the age effect for three abundance indicators [kereru, NZ pigeon, Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae, 15% increase (CI = 5.1 to 27.1%) in flock size for any given ordinal category for each decade increase in age; long-finned eel, Anguilla dieffenbachia, 30% decrease (CI = -45.1 to -11.3%) in the distance (m) walked along a riverbank between observations of an eel for any given ordinal category for each decade increase in age; and Australian brush-tailed possum, Trichosurus vulpecula, 27% decrease (CI = -38.9 to -13.9%) in the distance (m) walked through forest between observations of possum sign for any given ordinal category for each decade increase in age), but the effect was statistically strong for all three.
A description of the data fields is linked below. The full dataset may be requested by emailing Phil Lyver.