Monitoring Plant and Animal Populations offers an overview of population monitoring issues that is accessible to the typical field biologist and land managers with a modest statistical background. The text includes concrete guidelines for ecologists to follow to design a statistically defensible monitoring program. * User--friendly, practical guide, written in a highly readable format. * The authors provide an interdisciplinary scope to address the current, widespread interest in monitoring in many environmental fields, including pure and applied ecology, conservation biology, and wildlife management. * Emphasizes the role of monitoring in adaptive management. * Defines important terminology and contrasts monitoring with other data--collection activities. Covers the applicable principles of sampling and shows how to design a monitoring project. * Provides a step--by--step overview of the monitoring process, illustrated by flow charts and references. The authors also offer guidelines for analyzing and interpreting monitoring data. * Illustrates the foundation of management objectives and describes their components, types, and development. * Describes common field techniques for measuring important attributes of animal and plant populations. * Reviews different methods for recording monitoring data in the field, managing the data, and communicating data to policy makers.