6.1 Curiosity drives science
Whilst the initiation of monitoring in the Girnock catchment resulted from the need for scientific evidence to inform policy development for salmon fisheries management, much subsequent research evolved organically. The motivation for most of the research has been curiosity-driven science by individual investigators and has usually been galvanised by hypotheses arising from earlier observations at the Girnock itself, often informed by prevailing “hot” questions in the wider scientific community. The crucial importance of this motivation for discovery science is often overlooked, but as with other long-term sites (e.g. Rose, 2007; Peterken and Mountford, 2017), it is such motivation for interdisciplinary science that drives the commitment needed to procure funding, launch projects, manage research teams, analyse data and then communicate the research in the scientific literature or at national or international symposia (Burt and Thomson, 2020).