Purpose:

Outline the information and considerations required to design a monitoring survey. The objectives are to ensure that:

• Appropriate and repeatable methods are used.
• Robust datasets are produced.
• Data is appropriate for analyses and to answer your monitoring question.
• Your findings can be used in adaptive management and decision making.

! Make sure you have a good monitoring question and monitoring method before you start survey design.

Spatial Design

Deciding where to place your monitoring sites and how many to use.

What is a site?

Depending on your monitoring method, a "site" can mean different things:

1. Site as a specific location, for example:
• Camera trap site = one camera location
• Elliott trap site = one trap location
• Acoustic recorder site = one acoustic recorder location
2. Site as a general area containing multiple sampling locations:
• Bird survey site = an area containing multiple point counts or transects
• Vegetation site = an area containing multiple quadrats or plots
• Small mammal site = an area with a grid of multiple traps

The key is to be consistent: Whatever you call a "site" for your method, make sure you define it the same way every time and can relocate it for repeat surveys.

How to choose where to survey:

Your site locations depend on your monitoring question and what you want to measure.

Species-focused monitoring

If you're targeting a specific species or group:

• Choose sites in habitats where your target species occur
• Consider where they're most likely to be detected (feeding areas, nesting sites, travel routes)

Biodiversity monitoring

If you want to know about all species in an area:

• Include sites across all the different habitat types in your area
• Different habitats support different species, so you need to sample them all

Management monitoring

If you're testing whether management is working:

• Treatment sites: Place sites in areas where you're doing management (revegetation, burning, fencing, etc.)
• Control/reference sites: Place the same number of sites in similar areas where you're NOT doing management
• Make sure control and treatment sites are in the same habitat type and there are as few differences between sites as possible
• Use the same survey effort at all sites

Before/After monitoring

If you want to track changes over time:

• Choose sites where you expect change to occur, such as a management or disturbance activities
• Survey before the activity starts, then repeat at the same sites after the activity
• Use the same survey effort at all sites

How many sites:

More sites usually give you better, more reliable results. But you need to balance the number of sites with your staff capacity, time, equipment and budget.

Why more sites help:

• Better representation: Captures more of the variation across your area
• Replication: Reduces the chance that one unusual site skews your results
• Statistical power: Makes it easier to detect real changes or differences

Key things to consider:

• How variable your system is: More variable areas need more sites
• Your resources: Time, equipment, and budget constraints
• Comparing areas: Need multiple sites in each area you're comparing

Finding the right balance:

• Consider the trade-off between the number of sites you survey and how much effort you put into each site - sometimes fewer sites with longer or more thorough surveys are better than many sites with minimal effort
• Start with what you can manage consistently, then expand if possible

Distance between sites

How far apart you place your sites depends on what you're monitoring and the scale at which changes occur.

Why distance matters:

• Too close: You might count the same individuals multiple times or sample the same area of effect
• Too far apart: You might miss important areas or patterns
• Just right: Each site samples independently while covering your area well

Key considerations:

For fauna monitoring:

• Research your target species' home ranges and movement patterns
• Consider daily and seasonal movements
• Target landscape features they use (water points, nesting sites, travel corridors)

For vegetation monitoring:

• Consider seed dispersal and recruitment distances and patterns
• Account for the area of influence of management actions (e.g., how far does revegetation spread naturally?)
• Think about environmental conditions (soil, water, topography)

For management effectiveness:

• Match your site spacing to the scale of your management actions
• Consider edge effects and areas of influence around management sites, account for how management effects might spread (e.g., prescribed burns, grazing exclusion)

Practical constraints:

• Accessibility: How far can you realistically travel between sites?
• Management boundaries: Ensure sites clearly represent treated/untreated areas
• Your monitoring question: Do you need broad coverage or detailed sampling?

Check species and management information pages for guidance on relevant scales and distances.

Temporal Design

Deciding when and how often to conduct your surveys

Key timing considerations:

When to survey:

• Season: When are your target species most active/detectable? For example, when are the plants flowering, or when are animals more likely to intercept a trap?
• Time of day: Are they active during day, night, or dawn/dusk?
• Weather: Avoid extreme conditions that affect your ability to work
• Breeding/migration cycles: Time surveys to match species behaviour
• Welfare considerations: Avoid sensitive times that might impact species reproduction or survival (e.g., nesting seasons, drought periods)

How long to survey:

• Longer surveys detect more species but require more resources
• Consider your monitoring method - some are more labour intensive or more intrusive than others
• Consider detection time for your target species, or for all species present in an area
• Welfare considerations: Avoid trapping or interfering with the same individuals too many times, as it stops them from doing important things like eating, sleeping or breeding

How often to repeat:

• Before/after monitoring: Survey before management, then repeat after
• Annual monitoring: Same time each year for trend detection, surveys may be conducted annually, every two years, five years, or even longer intervals between surveys
• Long-term monitoring: Depending on your monitoring question and the rate of change you expect, it may take many years to detect a change
• Seasonal monitoring: Multiple times per year if species/conditions change seasonally

Pilot trials and testing:

Sometimes you won't have enough information to make these timing decisions without testing first. Consider running pilot trials to:

• Determine optimal survey timing when species behaviour or detectability is unknown
• Test whether your planned survey duration and frequency will generate enough data for your intended analyses
• Understand species-specific responses to your monitoring method in your particular context
• Refine your approach before committing to a full monitoring program

Keep it consistent:

Make it comparable:

• Monitor the same sites and at the same time of year for all repeat surveys
• Use the same survey duration at all sites
• Ensure monitoring tools and methods are the same for each deployment across all sites and if the survey is repeated in subsequent years, for example:
• Use the same bait, prepared the same way
• Measurements and settings are the same e.g.:
• Camera traps set up at same height from ground and settings are the same
• BRUVS frames are all the same size and cameras at the same height from the bottom
• Account for seasonal variation in detection rates