numbers game or counting- Forgot something

Lynn Scott lynnscott at heiconsulting.com
Wed May 1 18:51:06 EDT 2002


I've been following this thread about counts with a kind of horrid 
fascination, and trying to imagine what I would be able to count if we had 
a one-night moth count in my area of Ottawa, Canada if I were the only 
person participating.  Answer is, anywhere from 0 to about 20 species at my 
location, in quantities anywhere from 0 to 25 or so, depending on the date, 
the weather, and how many times I actually looked to see what was 
there.  In actual fact, over 2000 species of lepidoptera have been recorded 
from the Ottawa area, and in just over two years within 25 feet of my own 
front door I have photographed at least 500 species, many of which I have 
yet to identify (and when I started taking pictures, I was naively 
expecting that there might be 50 or 100 different kinds of moth around 
here).  The problem is that many of these moths are very seasonal, and if 
you're not looking when they're flying, you simply won't know if they're 
flying in your area at all.  I assume the same would be true of many 
butterflies.

So I guess my question is whether the purpose of these counts is to 
ascertain how many of "something" happen to be around at a particular time, 
or whether the purpose is to find out how many kinds of "something" happen 
to be around at all, or both?  And then there's also the question of 
whether a specific "something" is present at a time because it normally 
would be around at that time, or whether it is there because of some freak 
of wind and weather conditions.  Whatever the purpose of counting, it seems 
to me that a common understanding of that purpose and broadly consistent 
practices are needed, or the data accumulated in the count(s) may have 
rather limited use.

My apologies if I sound as though I'm being deliberately obtuse.

Lynn Scott



At 03:30 PM 5/1/2002, Barb Beck wrote:
>Michael,
><snip>
>I feel some picture is much better than
>none at all.
<snip>
>If I could not see that we are finding at least some useful information with
>these counts I would not be busting my tail to get a bunch of them off the
>ground nor would I be spending my time trying to assure that things are
>reported correctly.  <snip>
>Barb Beck
>Edmonton
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Gochfeld [mailto:gochfeld at eohsi.rutgers.edu]
>Sent: May 1, 2002 4:58 AM
>To: Barb Beck
>Cc: cmbb at sk.sympatico.ca; Lepslist; TILS-leps-talk at yahoogroups. com
>Subject: Re: numbers game or counting- Forgot something
>
>
>I certainly agree that a single count in early summer can't represent a
>butterfly fauna in a meaningful way.  In our club I've tried to
>encourage people to select a particular place (park, powerline cut, etc,
>to census every 2-4 weeks throughout the season.  I do this behind our
>house.
>
>But it lacks the party atmosphere of an annual count.  MIKE GOCHFELD
>
>Barb Beck wrote:
> >
> > Martin pointed out something I left off.
> >> The fact that we have only one butterfly count per summer is a real flaw
>in
> > the setup.  There should be several to correspond to our various butterfly
> > seasons.  Hopefully as we get more people involved we will be able to do
> > more than that.  Right now we are just getting snapshots at one time of
>the
> > year per circle.  In some areas like around Edmonton we have many counts
>and
> > run some of them early and others late but in the rest of the province we
> > just do not have the manpower. We are getting snapshots around the
>province
> > on a variety of consistent dates since it is not convenient to hold them
>on
> > the 4th of July Date.  Our routes that are associated with BBS route and
>the
> > Cold Lake Count which is held in conjunction with a University field trip
> > are end of May - early June each year.  These counts must be held then
> > because it is the only time the people are in that  area on a consistent
> > basis.  Our mountain counts are late and we have a few counts near
>Edmonton
> > which are held late each year.  In other words we are getting snapshots
> > under the current rules of butterflies at various seasons but
>unfortunately
> > not multiple snapshots per season at one place.
> >> It would be nice if the rules were amended for multiple counts in one
>circle
> > BUT right now I would just like to see the species we have properly
>recorded
> > and not have our data lost by the practice of "conservative taxonomy".
> >> Barb Beck
> > Edmonton, Alberta
>
>
>
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