Table 1:
A conceptual framework for considering issues related to scale in conservation physiology
| Scale/issue/factor | ‘Type A’: solutions for today | ‘Type B’: solutions for tomorrow |
|---|---|---|
| Specificity of question | Quite specific, e.g. a point-source disturbance/pollutant, a bycatch issue with a specific fishery | General; broad-scale environmental change phenomena where it is difficult to determine ‘who done it’ |
| Decision makers | State/provincial/regional/sometimes national; several people, often fisheries managers, make decisions on a local level | Regional fisheries management organizations and bodies—multinational (e.g. United Nations, Committee on Fisheries, European Inland Fisheries Advisory Committee, International Council for the Exploration of the Sea)—high-level politicians |
| Potential for application of conservation physiology knowledge | Direct; specific studies can inform a discrete issue | Indirect; information incorporated into models and decision-support tools |
| Level of stakeholder engagement by researcher | Lots; including potential for citizen science, giving rapid generation of findings and ability to mobilize knowledge and act upon it | Less; not a specific stakeholder group or easy way to engage them; if stakeholders can be engaged, it is difficult to maintain interest over a long time scale |
| Information on which decisions are based | Potentially one or two papers/studies (may not even need to be published); may involve voluntary changes in behaviour rather than regulations or, if regulated, it is at a local scale | Burden of proof—large body of knowledge needed—likely to result in regulatory changes, but a slow process |
| Research time scale in terms of making significant advances towards solving a problem | Grant/thesis duration | Career(s) |
| Temporal scale (for making management decisions) | Short term; months to years | Long term; years to decades |
| Basic–applied gradient | Applied | Basic; with eventual application |
| Temporal scale (of biotic processes) | Days to months; often focused on scales relevant to stress and short-term mortality/behavioural impairments | Milliseconds to generations; various biotic processes |
| Spatial scale | Local/regional (e.g. an estuary) impacts of renewable energy and hydropower installations | National/international (e.g. the North Sea for cod and plaice, North Atlantic and Mediterranean for tuna) |
It should be noted that for almost all of these issues, there is a gradient between ‘type A’ and ‘type B’ rather than two distinct categories. We submit that for conservation physiology to become a trusted source of information, it needs simultaneously to be generating success stores that result in ‘solutions for today’ (type A) and ‘solutions for tomorrow’ (type B).