study designs EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES
Location and design of the field experiment in three river catchments (IF, VJ, KO) in northern Norway (above left and right). Within each river catchment, experimental grids were set up on meadow vegetation along willow thicket edges (below left, IF n=12, VJ n =13, KO n=12). Within each experimental grid, three groups of three treatments were established; unenclosed, large meshed cages to exclude large ungulates and small meshed cages to exclude all mammalian herbivores (below middle and right).
Study design applied in
EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES
On our study design pages you will also find examples of our
QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL or OBSERVATIONAL study designs.
Are still at the landscape-scale, i.e. repeated in several
localities across the landscape, but treatments (such as
herbivore exclusion) are randomly allocated to study units by us.
Our aim is to stretch our study designs over landscapes and regions that are relevant for our predictors (such as large herbivores or climate gradients). We often find idiosyncratic responses to our predictors along these scales.
Way of choosing study units within a study design may also have consequences to the outcome of the study. We therefore advocate formal rules for choosing study units in order to at least make all choices transparent to fellow researchers and other people interested in the study outcome.
We believe knowledge covering such scales is a must when combining future research with monitoring and management.
