Small sample sizes, the first symptom of trivialization
This decoupling between the information generated and the achieved scientific knowledge could be partly due to the increasing accessibility of biologgers, which facilitated its use by non-research organizations like NGOs, administrations, foundations, or private companies. The objectives of such organizations are often non-scientific, which means that the experimental design rarely responds to scientific criteria and goals. For these reasons, sometimes these organizations promote studies with small sample sizes and random device settings which in the end hinders the standardization and sharing of information (Williams et al. 2020). However, these problems are not exclusive to non-research organizations as researchers also incur on them, especially when the tagging of individuals is done in an exploratory way and with no prior background or without a solid proposal for future development. Of course, sample size per se may not always be an appropriate metric to assess scientific quality because a few individuals might suffice to answer some pressing questions (Sequeira et al. 2019). This could be the case of species whose ecology impedes other techniques or species to which little scientific attention has been paid to date. Nevertheless, small sample sizes constrain examining in depth fundamental ecology and conservation biology questions such as the response to different threats of different age classes and sexes or whether there are differences in the use of space between different populations or species.
In this context, the current increase in the proportion of projects with a few tagged individuals (Figure 1) might be considered as a symptom of the trivialization of equipping wild animals with biologgers without considering their potentially adverse consequences.