Spatially-Balanced Survey Designs Incorporating Legacy Sites for Marine Biodiversity

A method for integrating existing monitoring sites into new ecological surveys to improve spatial balance and reduce uncertainty. The approach is illustrated using a proposed survey of a large marine reserve in South-Eastern Australia. An R-package called MBHdesign implements the method and is available from CRAN.

Use Cases

• Designing efficient ecological monitoring programs based on the described method for integrating legacy sites.
• Reducing uncertainty in biodiversity estimates based on the simulation results showing smaller standard errors.
• Aiding integrated monitoring programs based on the tool's ability to provide efficient survey designs around established ones.

Strengths

• Method is formally described and published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution (2017).
• Includes a practical illustration for a marine reserve in South-Eastern Australia.
• An R-package (MBHdesign) is available for implementation.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Describes a statistical methodology for survey design, illustrated with a case study.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 03:56:49.765192; freshness should be verified.

Geography

South-Eastern Australia (illustrative case study)