The central US grasslands can serve as a test-bed that will allow us to build on a legacy of past LTER research while testing basic ecological theory that can facilitate the identification of mechanisms explaining differences in the sensitivity of ecosystems to climate change. Results and understanding from this study should be valuable for making… Read more »
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State Changes and Threshold Dynamics
A four-day workshop will use LTER data, including data from the EcoTrends project, to bridge the gap between the relatively mature theoretical understanding of thresholds and state changes in ecological systems and the emerging empirical databases that allow us to actually test models of state changes. Many of these changes represent “tipping points” or dramatic… Read more »
Development of a hydrochemical database – StreamchemDB
We are requesting Synthesis Working Group funds to support LTER participation in StreamchemDB. StreamchemDB is focused on aquatic chemistry data, and builds on former data synthesis projects ClimDB and HydroDB, all of which have been collaborative LTER-Forest Service cross-site synthesis and cyber-infrastructure projects.
Synthesis and Establishment of Guidelines Toward the Management of Next-Generation Sequence Data
Long-term ecological studies have expanded our view of microbial biology with the incorporation of long-term monitoring programs of diversity, plant and animal ecology, and decomposition processes in the context of global climate change. The full integration of meaningful cross-site ecological-genomic studies into LTER research will require either substantial new infrastructure or access to existing infrastructure… Read more »
Social and Ecological Responses to Climate Change and Land-use Effects on Water Availability: Contrasting Resilience Among Major River Basins of the US and Canada
The goal of this workshop is to test hypotheses (identified in a 2010 working group) about ecological and social resilience of the water cycle to climate change and land use change in ten major river basins in the US and Canada.
Quantifying Uncertainty in Ecosystem Studies
The goal of this synthesis is to evaluate uncertainty in hydrologic inputs, outputs, and net hydrologic flux of major elements across small watersheds with diverse characteristics. The long-term goal of this project is to contribute to a cultural change in ecology that makes uncertainty analysis an accepted and expected practice in the construction of ecosystem… Read more »
Long-term Experiments in the LTER Network: Synthesis and Hypothesis Testing
We are requesting funds to assemble a working group of LTER scientists with extensive experience in conducting long-term experiments in the LTER Network, the skills and interest in synthetically interpreting the results of those experiments, and in using data from these studies to address new questions relevant to pressing global change issues.
Forecasting Rates of Riverine Leaf Litter Decomposition in Response to Inland Climate Change
Recent work has suggested that freshwater ecosystems may play a significant role in the global carbon cycle, potentially emitting 1.2 Pg C y-1 to the atmosphere [1, 2]. The majority of the CO2 that is degassed from streams and rivers comes from the decomposition of allochthonous leaf litter inputs [3, 4]. The process of decomposition… Read more »
A Data Synthesis Working Group: Disappearing Snow in the Western US: Ecosystem Implications for the Rain-Snow Transition Zone
Introduction and Goals: In the Western US mountain regions, winter temperature increases will lead to the reduction and even loss of winter snowpacks. A shift from snow to rain-dominated systems will alter seasonal patterns of streamflow, soil moisture, soil temperature, etc. affecting a myriad of ecosystem processes. This proposed work will develop a working group… Read more »
Understanding Interactions within the LTER Network for Improved Collaboration
This proposed effort will “stimulate cross-site and Network-level synthesis” by addressing issues of collaboration within the LTER network. Scientific synthesis should be promoted as we better understand the nature of that collaboration. The concept that the LTER program works as a network of interacting sites and scientists is grounded in the earliest documents of the… Read more »
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