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.