Notes from:  
Elzinga, Caryl, Salzer, Daniel, et. al. Monitoring Plant and Animal Populations . Blackwell Science Inc. 2001.

CHAPTER 7:  "Basic Principles of Sampling"
-Sampling is the act or process of selecting a part of something with the intent of showing the quality, style, or nature of the whole.  
    -Reduce the amount of work and cost associated with characterizing a population.
    -Increase accuracy of the data gathered.
-Popluation mean - sum of all values for each member of the population divided by number of populations members.

-SAMPLING ERRORS
    -standard error - to reduce the standard error, one can: 1) increase the sample size OR
                                                                                    2) decrease the standard deviation
    -Confidence Interval - interval within which a true parameter value lies with known probability.  A measure of reliability of sample estimate of parameter value.  


CHAPTER 8: "Sampling Design"
-Six basic decisions must be made in designing monitoring studies based on sampling.  
    1) What is the population of interest?
    2) What is an appropriate sampling unit?
    3) What is an appropriate sampling unit size and shape?
    4) How should sampling units be positioned?
    5) Should sampling units be permanent of temporary?
    6) How many sampling units should be sampled?

-Design is critical to any sample-based monitoring study.
    -There are four types of population: biological, target, sampled, and statistical
-rangeland monitoring - When the target popluation area becomes very large and difficult to sample
-These are the different types of sampling units: quadrat, line intercept, point intercept, etc.