June 2019
LTER Network News is a forum for sharing news and activities from across the LTER Network. This is our water cooler. If you have personnel changes, new grants, cross-Network activities that might interest your LTER colleagues, please send them along to weiss@nceas.lternet.edu.
Announcements
The second Open Science Meeting of the International LTER Network will be September 2-6, 2019 in Leipzig Germany. This meeting is held only every three years and offers great opportunities to build connections and develop project ideas with international colleagues.
The LTER Network Office is planning to release a new call for synthesis working group proposals in August 2019. When the call is released, it will be announced through the all-lter@lternet.edu mailing list, the LTER web site and various other outlets intended to reach a broad community of ecologists.
The Summer 2019 issue of DataBits is now live, including Site Bytes, as well as plenty of information on new initiatives, such as upgrades to PASTA, Best Practices for using Zotero to manage bibliographic data, development of a core metabase for metadata management, a chance to catch up on a former colleague, and a primer on semantic annotation. Editors John Porter and Sven Bohm invite you to enjoy the issue and share it with your colleagues.
University of Colorado-Boulder’s Earth Lab will be hosting the NEON Science Summit in Boulder, Colorado on October 15-17, 2019. This meeting will convene current and prospective users of data from NEON to explore major questions that can be addressed at continental scales. If you or anyone on your team are interested in how NEON might intersect with your current work, you are encouraged to apply! Some travel funding is available through NEON.
The Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) in the Directorate for Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation is seeking a Deputy Division Director. This position is posted as SES Career (Senior Executive Service, permanent), SES Limited Term (1-3 years) or IPA. Please refer to the USAJOBS announcement for further information on the position and how to apply.
Around the Network
At the LTER Science Council Meeting in May, outgoing Chair Peter Groffman handed the gavel (or the virtual gavel, at least) to the new Chair, Diane McKnight of the McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER and the Niwot Ridge LTER. Wondering what the Executive Board and the Science Council have been up to lately? View the latest approved Executive Board meeting notes on the LTER document archive, as well as the site lightning talks from the Science Council Meeting.
Congratulations to Nick Haddad, Lead PI of Kellogg Biological Station LTER, on his newly released book “The Last Butterflies”, which documents recent butterfly declines and the hope and possibility of their conservation. The book was chosen as one of Nature’s 5 best science picks for the week.
Best wishes to Wade Sheldon, Lead Information Manager at Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER, for his retirement at the end of this month. We’d like to thank Wade for his dedication and leadership in the LTER IM Committee over the years. Adam Sapp will take Wade’s place as the new Lead IM at this site. Welcome, Adam!
Don Henshaw of the Andrews Forest LTER will also be retiring from his LTER Information Management role. Fortunately, his replacement, Suzanne Remillard, has already been on the job for quite a while. And while we’re noting information management transitions, Eda Melendez retired from the Luquillo LTER site last year and is sorely missed.
Save the Dates
LTER Committee Meetings and LTER-related events are available for your reference at any time on the LTER Network Calendar.
2019 Ecological Society of America Meeting. In 2019, ESA Meets jointly with the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics, in Louisville Kentucky. Meeting dates are August 11-16 and the meeting theme is “Bridging Communities & Ecosystems: Inclusion as an Ecological Imperative.”
Aquatic Sensors Workshop, Trout Lake Station, Wisconsin. The North Temperate Lakes LTER and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Trout Lake Station are sponsoring a four-day workshop from September 23-27, 2019 on aquatic sensors technology and implementation. This workshop is primarily aimed at graduate students and others in the environmental sciences who would like an introduction to electronics and sensors that measure physical and chemical variables in freshwater.
2019 American Geophysical Union Meeting. The 2019 AGU Meeting is back in San Francisco, December 9-13. It’s too late to submit a session or workshop, but abstract submission will be open in the summer. The theme is “Discover Science at the Speed of Life.”
Reminder: When submitting meeting abstracts, please try to include LTER or “Long Term Ecological Research” in your title, abstract, or affiliation, so that we can find and share your work.
Recent Press
From the National Science Foundation
- Native plant species may be at greater risk from climate change than non-natives
- In search of an undersea kelp forest’s missing nitrogen
- Stabilizing food production through crop diversity
Other media
- Monitoring changing world at CU Boulder’s Mountain Research Station | Daily Camera
- Seedbeds of Collaboration | Terra Magazine
- The Continental Outlier | Science Friday
- Pathogens Help Different Plant Species To Live Together, Study Suggests | Utah Public Radio
- New book delves into the lives of the world’s rarest butterflies | Michigan State University
- UCSB Researchers Find Biodiversity Stabilizes Kelp Forest Ecosystems | Santa Barbara NoozHawk
- Protecting rare species can benefit human life | Science Daily
- UGA Appalachian ecological research program is ending after 40 years of operation | The Red and Black (University of Georgia News)
Papers of Interest
The most recent LTER-related papers are available on the LTER Network web site and the full Network bibliography is available at the LTER Network Zotero Group Library.
- Populations are not declining and food webs are not collapsing at the Luquillo Experimental Forest | PNAS
- Farmers, information, and nutrient management in the US Midwest | Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
- Differing climate and landscape effects on regional dryland vegetation responses during wet periods allude to future patterns | Global Change Biology
- Tracking a Governance Transition: Identifying and Measuring Indicators of Social Forestry on the Willamette National Forest | Society and Natural Resources
Jobs and Graduate Opportunities
- Director, University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS)
- Deputy Division Director – NSF Division of Environmental Biology
- Postdoc in Scenarios and Futures at Central Arizona-Phoenix LTER
- Postdoc in Landscape Ecology or Macrosystems Ecology at the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Jornada Experimental Range. To apply: email CV, list of publications, and names and contact information of three references to Dr. Debra Peters (deb.peters@ars.usda.gov).
Funding Opportunities
Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems (CNH2)
Sept. 17, 2019: Letters of intent
Organizational Change for Gender Equity in STEM Academic Professions (ADVANCE)
Oct. 1, 2019: Preliminary proposals for Institutional Transformation
Nov 1, 2019: Letters of intent for Adaptation and Partnership competition
Opportunities for Promoting Understanding through Synthesis (OPUS)
Aug 28, 2019: Full proposals
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Symbiosis in Aquatic Systems Initiative
Earthwatch Institute accepting pre-proposals for research funding
Committees and Interest Groups
The following committees are actively seeking new members. Please reach out to the designated contact people if you have interest. The listing of active LTER committees and their membership is always available on the LTER Network web site.
Cross-site REU proposal team: A group of investigators and REU coordinators are looking at developing a proposal for a cross-site REU program. Sam Norlin(norlin@nceas.ucsb.edu) is coordinating interest.
Diversity Committee: Interested in helping develop a set of resources and best practices to apply across the Network? Alan Berkowitz (berkowitza@caryinstitute.org) co-chairs this committee.
Communications Committee: Clarisse Hart (hart3@fas.harvard.edu) and Lina DiGregorio ( lina.digregorio@oregonstate.edu) chair this committee that is building a community of practice among LTER communicators and investigators.
