Ecological indicators play an important role in evaluating policy regarding the environment.

Due to this variety, the development and selection of ecological indicators is a complex process.

The terms ecological indicator and environmental indicator are often used interchangeably.

However, ecological indicators are actually a sub-set of environmental indicators.

It is an ecological indicator of a well-preserved or recovering area with little human intrusion.

Many research groups use penguins, one of the top predators in the Southern Oceans, as ecological indicators.

With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are often considered to be ecological indicators.

Using ecological indicators is a pragmatic approach since direct documentation of changes in ecosystems as related to management measures, is cost and time intensive.

Ecological indicators refer only to ecological processes.

Amphibians are ecological indicators, and in recent decades there has been a dramatic decline in amphibian populations around the globe.

Ecological indicator of ecosystem health (ecological processes)

Field monitoring done in 2003, using intertidal algae and mussels as ecological indicators, showed that the recovery of coastal biological communities was actually minimal.

The focus of the division's research is the development of ecological indicators, primarily biological, for assessing aquatic environments at different spatial and temporal scales.

Ecological indicators in Dutch nature conservation: science and policy intertwined in the classification and evaluation of nature.

Ecological indicators are used to communicate information about ecosystems and the impact human activity has on ecosystems to groups such as the public or government policy makers.

Ecosystems are complex and ecological indicators can help describe them in simpler terms that can be understood and used by non-scientists to make management decisions.

The other day, the OECD, which is not, of course, an environmental organisation, pronounced that 'All major global ecological indicators are negative'.

Defining indicators Ecological indicators are useful for tracking or monitoring an ecosystem's status and can provide feedback on management progress (Slocombe 1998a).

We therefore urge the Commission to bring pressure to bear in Johannesburg so that new social and ecological indicators are adopted to calculate a country's well-being in future.

Species which are particularly characteristic of ancient woodland sites are called ancient woodland indicator (AWI) species, representing a type of ecological indicator.

Ecological indicators EPA and others rely on the study of ecological indicators as a means of understanding when our environmental health or that of our surroundings may be in jeopardy.

A study of all catch share programs in the US found that the health of a fishery goes unchanged after the implementation of catch shares and that the mean levels of most ecological indicators are unaffected.

One subset of environmental indicators is the collection of ecological indicators which can include physical, biological and chemical measures such as atmospheric temperature, the concentration of ozone in the stratosphere or the number of breeding bird pairs in an area.