Two new synthesis working groups, awarded in 2021, capitalize on the intensive and extended record of observation at LTER sites to shed light on thorny ecological questions.
2021 LTER Synthesis Awards: Reproduction and Resilience
Identifying environmental drivers of plant reproduction across LTER sites
Reproduction is a key component of plant life cycles and is crucial for dispersal, however it has a surprisingly poorly understood relationship to environmental drivers. This is particularly true for plant species with highly variable reproduction over time, known as ‘mast seeding’. While mast-seeding patterns have been linked to weather (temperature, precipitation), describing past patterns… Read more »
From Breeding to Feeding – blue whales are spending more time in Southern California
Every year, the Eastern North Pacific population of blue whales migrates between their winter calving grounds off the coast of Mexico and their summer feeding grounds in the California coastal region. Scientists know that they time their migration to coincide with peak prey abundances, but the cues they use for this have been unknown—until now…. Read more »
Started from the Benthos, Now We’re Here—a Holistic Approach to Lake Ecology
In 2018, M. Jake Vander Zanden and Yvonne Vadeboncoeur were invited to give a plenary lecture at the International Society for Limnology (SIL) meeting in Nanjing, China. They spoke about their efforts to synthesize a more holistic understanding of the role of benthic productivity and food web pathways in lakes. The two began their journey… Read more »
LTER at Ocean Sciences Meeting 2020
In 2017, the LTER Network saw the addition of three new marine and coastal sites. The new sites—Northeast U.S. Shelf (NES), Northern Gulf of Alaska (NGA) and Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems (BLE)—are all well-represented among the 41 talks and posters presented by LTER researchers at the 2020 AGU Ocean Sciences Meeting. Presentations from these and other… Read more »
Sixteen years of Syn: new insight into longterm ocean microbe dynamics
A 16-year time series of the cyanobacterium Synechococcus at Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory at the Northeast U.S. Shelf LTER illustrates a regular seasonal pattern of Syn as well as daily dynamics.
You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone – or at least threatened
Credit: Jack Pearce via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)Species that are abundant often go ignored by conservation planning until an acute threat to their populations emerge – and by then, sometimes it’s too late. According to a new article in the journal Ecosphere, common species are often critically important as structural, dominant, or foundation species in… Read more »
Diverse soil improves plant diversity after all!
It stands to reason that variable environmental conditions would support greater plant diversity, but few experiments have offered concrete support for the “environmental heterogeneity hypothesis.” In re-establishing tallgrass prairie, the correlation took over 15 years to emerge.
Can corals ride the tide of climate change?
Researchers at Mo’orea LTER did not observe evidence that corals acclimatize to ocean acidification, but they did observe that some are more sensitive to it than others.
Loner Lizards Stress in Shared Shade
Human introverts aren’t the only ones who get stressed in shared social environments. Lizards like patchy and spread out shaded spaces where they can avoid interactions with other lizards.
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