Natural ecosystems experience constant change, and the consequences of this change are often revealed gradually over long periods of time. Twenty-five active Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) projects collect the long-term data necessary to identify these consequences and their effects on the ecosystem services, such as provision of clean water, that are critical for society. The LTER Network Office provides information management, communication, and logistic services to advance LTER research. This project will continue these services for one year while a new National Office is selected and becomes operational. The project will advance the field of ecosystem ecology by organizing multidisciplinary meetings and by providing the information management services needed to ensure public access to LTER data. Activities over the coming year will increase the amount and diversity of ecological data available to the scientific community, policy makers, resource managers, and the public, and will facilitate understanding of the nature and pace of ecological change.
The researchers will organize people, tools, and ideas to promote understanding of ecological systems from local to global scales. The Science Council meeting will initiate network-level syntheses leading to scientific publications and presentations, lay the groundwork for broad community-wide participation in a triennial All Scientists Meeting, and address issues critical to the long-term stability and success of the LTER Network. Outcomes from the All Scientists Meeting will include the formation of new collaborations with programs outside of the LTER community, the development of new LTER science themes, and better integration of graduate students and early-career scientists into the LTER community. Continued support of the LTER Network Information System will increase the amount and diversity of ecological data available to the scientific community and observation networks such as the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) for comparison and synthesis. The researchers will provide leadership in the important areas of data sharing, data standards, connectivity, and the acquisition and implementation of new technologies through relationships with other distributed networks and research programs.
