Institute of Bioscience
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
Peter Borgen Sørensen
Concept for science based management
Peter Borgen Sørensen, Bioscience,
Faculty of Natural Science, Aarhus University
Institute of bioscience
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
What is science-based management?
Testing hypotheses
•What is important to consider?
Quantifying relations
• What shall we do?
Institute of bioscience
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
The three critical steps
No scientific method exists for
formulating the most relevant
questions
What are the questions ?
No scientific method exists for
finding the most relevant
hypothesis to test
Which hypothesis should be tested?
No scientific method exists
to select the most relevant
models for quantification
How to quantify important relations?
Institute of bioscience
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
What are the questions
› Case from:
Society to ecosystem
Institute of bioscience
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
Ecosystem to society
Inside ecosystem
Question decomposition
How can we ensure adequate prioritization,
sufficient action and implementation?
What is the economic value of
pollination services?
81
To what extent are
local plant communities
dependent upon
pollinators?
69
80
What is the relative importance of the various
drivers of pollinator decline?
62
42
1
Why are some plant
species capable of
autonomous pollination
– and what are the
consequences on
viability?
What essential modifications in land use
management and practices are needed to halt
and reverse plant and pollinator declines?
44
59
3
50
65
How do we quantify drivers of
decline experimentally and at the
landscape scale?
What factors influence the
composition of pollinator species
at the community level?
Which pollinator taxa and
functional groups are in decline?
What is the relative
contribution of abiotic
versus biotic factors
in shaping the
evolution of flowers?
What is the relationship between
pollinator diversity and plant
diversity?
Institute of bioscience
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
What hypothesis shall be tested ?
Question decomposition:
Only a sub set of sub questions may be covered!
The set of hypotheses needs to cover all sub questions !
Institute of bioscience
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
What hypothesis shall be tested ?
Sub question ?
“How is flowering
affected by pesticides?”
Flower density per plant is higher in
hedge rows along organic fields than along
conventional farmed fields !
In lab conditions: Fluroxypyr inhibits the
flowering of red clover !
Many other hypotheses !!!
Collecting evidences !
Institute of bioscience
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
The pool of knowledge
Which evidence to pick ?
Institute of bioscience
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
How to quantify relations
› “No decision” is not possible:
› Poor quantification is better than no quantification
› Quantification can take place in many ways:
›
›
›
›
Relative/absolute assessment
Indicators (pressure/state)
Benchmarking
Modeling (scenarios)
Combinations
› But the uncertainty always needs to be assessed in the
same way !
Institute of bioscience
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
Dealing with uncertainty
› Structural uncertaintyDifficult to deal with, depends
on scientific traditions (pedigree)
› How valid is the assumption in the quantification as analogy to
and often limited by personal scientific
the “real system”
carrier planning and, thus, “marketing”
› Theoretical validity
of understanding
of the cause
of
approach
and
loosing
science
and effect chains
› The completeness of the relations included in the
quantification to cover all important aspects
› Data uncertainty
› How certain is “Easy”
the empirical
information
as input to
the
to deal with,
many mathematical
methods
quantification
Institute of bioscience
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
We need to challenge traditions and
cultures in science and management