NETGAIN Seminar: LIES of Omission: Complex Observation Processes in Ecology with Fergus Chadwick

This is a hybrid seminar. Please either note your attendance in-person to the NETGAIN team, or register to attend online.

Advances in statistics mean that it is now possible to tackle increasingly sophisticated observation processes. The intricacies and ambitious scale of modern data collection techniques mean that this is now essential. Methodological research to make inference about the biological process while accounting for the observation process has expanded dramatically, but solutions are often presented in field-specific terms, limiting our ability to identify commonalities between methods. We suggest a typology of observation processes that could improve translation between fields and aid methodological synthesis. We propose the LIES framework (defining observation processes in terms of issues of Latency, Identifiability, Effort and Scale) and illustrate its use with both simple examples and more complex case studies within the field of biodiversity net gain.

About the NETGAIN Seminar Series

This monthly seminar series is designed to support the next generation of interdisciplinary researchers by providing NETGAIN PhD students with perspectives from ecology, economics, social science, law, and environmental policy. The series introduces the diverse disciplinary lenses needed to understand and shape Net Gain frameworks and emerging nature markets.

While aimed primarily at NETGAIN PhD students, the seminars are equally valuable to academics, practitioners, policymakers, and industry partners working at the interface of nature recovery, land-use planning, carbon and biodiversity markets, and environmental governance.

The seminar series also plays a complementary role in the development of the NETGAIN eBook – a living, multidisciplinary repository that responds to rapid advances in nature-positive policy, practice, and research. The seminars contribute to this larger initiative by exposing students and attendees to foundational concepts, real-world challenges, and cutting-edge methods that are essential for developing socially equitable, ecologically robust, and economically sound Net Gain approaches.