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The events that shape and reshape ecosystems can be infrequent and often unpredictable. Conditions from past decades can profoundly affect the ways that today’s forests, fields, and oceans function.

The 28 sites of the NSF-funded Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network employ experiments, observation and modeling to understand ecological processes that play out over long times scales.

At the 2017 AGU Fall Meeting, held at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, from December 11-15, 2017, dozens of LTER researchers will present new results on a range of topics, from how ecosystems recover from droughts and hurricanes to what manufactured ice storms can reveal about how to prepare for winter’s worst.

Highlights of LTER research being presented at the AGU Fall Meeting include:

  • an all-day bonanza of research on Arctic ecosystems on Monday;
  • studies on when and how ecosystems move across the landscape;
  • results of artificial ice storm, drought, and hurricane experiments;
  • novel uses of remote sensing to detect vegetation structure and below-ground processes;
  • sessions on integrating indigenous and western science, observations, and perspectives.

Find a list of LTER science-related sessions, talks, and posters by day below. Oral presentations are listed in bold font.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Session B11J: The Resilience and Vulnerability of Arctic and Boreal Ecosystems to Climate Change I
8:00-10:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 356-357

IN11F-07: The Environmental Data Initiative data repository: Trustworthy practices that foster preservation, fitness, and reuse for environmental and ecological data
9:05-9:15 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 231-232

GC12B-01: Utilizing Landsat 8 to measure kelp physiological health in the Santa Barbara Channel
10:20-10:35 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 265-266

Session B12C: The Resilience and Vulnerability of Arctic and Boreal Ecosystems to Climate Change II
10:20-12:20 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 356-358

  • B12C-01: Assessing Effects of Climate Change on Access to Ecosystem Services in Rural Alaska: Enhancing the Science through Community Engagement (Invited)
    10:20-10:35 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 356-357

IN12B-04: The Environmental Data Initiative: A broad-use data repository for environmental and ecological data that strives to balance data quality and ease of submission
11:05-11:20 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 231-232

GC12B-07: Ghost forest creation and the conversion of uplands to wetlands (Invited)
11:50-12:05 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 265-266

Session B13J: The Resilience and Vulnerability of Arctic and Boreal Ecosystems to Climate Change III
13:40-15:40 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 356-357

  • B13J-04: Impacts of climate and insect defoliators on productivity and function of trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) in Alaskan boreal forests
    14:16-14:28 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 356-357

Session B14A: The Resilience and Vulnerability of Arctic and Boreal Ecosystems to Climate Change IV
16:00-18:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 356-357

  • B14A-01: The Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) 2017 Airborne Campaign
    16:00-16:15 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 365-357

GC14B-01: Centennial-scale human alterations, unintended natural-system responses, and event-driven mitigation within a coupled fluvial-coastal system: Lessons for collective management and long-term coastal change planning
16:00-16:15 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 265-266

GC14C-01: Solute-specific patterns and drivers of urban stream chemistry revealed by long-term monitoring in Baltimore, Maryland (Invited)
16:00-16:15 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 267-268

H14A-03: The effects of drought-induced mortality on the response of surviving trees in pinon-juniper woodlands
16:30-16:45 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 295-296

B14C-02: Understanding Tropical Forest Abiotic Responses to Canopy Loss and Biomass Deposition from an Experimental Hurricane Manipulation
16:15-16:30 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 383-385

Morning Poster Session
08:00-12:20 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – Poster Hall D-F​

GC11C-0750: Assessing diversity of prairie plants using remote sensing

Afternoon Poster Session
13:40-18:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – Poster Hall D-F

B13H-1852: Representation of physiological drought at ecosystem level based on model and eddy covariance measurements

B13F-1819: Microbial C:P stoichiometry is shaped by redox conditions along an elevation gradient in humid tropical rainforests

B13G-1824: Century-scale Variations in Plant and Soil Nitrogen Pools and Isotopic Composition in Northern Hardwood Forests

Tuesday, December 12th, 2017

H21R-01: Integrating terrestrial through aquatic processing of water, carbon and nitrogen over hot, cold and lukewarm moments in mixed land use catchments (Invited)
8:00-8:15 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 278-279

H21M-02: Soil Surface Sealing Reverse or Promote Desertification?
8:15-8:30 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 295-296

H21M-08: Deep Percolation in Arid Piedmont Slopes: Multiple Lines of Evidence Show How Land Use Change and Ecohydrological Properties Affect Groundwater Recharge
9:45-10:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 295-296

B22C-04: Cross-Network Canopy structural complexity predicts forest canopy light absorption continental scales
11:05-11:20 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 383-385

EP22B-06: Assessing the Potential for Inland Migration of a Northeastern Salt Marsh
11:35-11:50 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 353-355

U24B-07: Observations and simulations of snowpack cold content and its relationship to snowmelt timing and rate
14:21-14:24 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – eLightning Area

B23G-04: Detecting Below-Ground Processes, Diversity, and Ecosystem Function in a Savanna Ecosystem Using Spectroscopy Across Different Vegetation Layers
14:25-14:40 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 383-385

B23G-05: Remote Sensing of a Manipulated Prairie Grassland Experiment to Predict Belowground Processes
14:40-14:55 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 383-385

GC24B-01: How will wind and water erosion change in drylands in the future?
16:00-16:30 New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center 298-299

B24D-03: Variation in salt marsh CO2 fluxes across a latitudinal gradient along the US Atlantic coast
16:30-16:45 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 356-357

Morning Poster Session
08:00-12:20 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – Poster Hall D-F

B21D-1981: Fostering Collaboration Across the U.S. Critical Zone Observatories Network

Session B21F: The Resilience and Vulnerability of Arctic and Boreal Ecosystems to Climate Change V: Posters

  • B21F-2019: Vertebrate Herbivore Browsing on Neighboring Forage Species Increases the Growth and Dominance of Siberian Alder Across a Latitudinal Transect in Northern Alaska

GC21F-1004: Combining multiple approaches and optimized data resolution for an improved understanding of stream temperature dynamics of a forested headwater basin in the Southern Appalachians

GC21H-1034: Episodic Salinization of Urban Rivers: Potential Impacts on Carbon, Cation, and Nutrient Fluxes

Afternoon Poster Session
13:40-18:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – Poster Hall D-F

B23A-2055: Aerosolization of cyanobacterial cells across ecosystem boundaries in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica

B23A-2057: A Process-Based Transport-Distance Model of Aeolian Transport

B23C-2073: Spatially Resolved Carbon Isotope and Elemental Analyses of the Root-Rhizosphere-Soil System to Understand Below-ground Nutrient Interactions

C23C-1228: Groundwater and Thaw Legacy of a Large Paleolake in Taylor Valley, East Antarctica as Evidenced by Airborne Electromagnetic and Sedimentological Techniques

C23C-1229: Thin, Conductive Permafrost Surrounding Lake Fryxell Indicates Salts From Past Lakes, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica

C23C-1233: Partitioning of sublimation and evaporation from Lake Bonney using water vapor isotope and latent heat fluxes

C23C-1234 MCM Moat Development and Evolution on a Perennialy Ice-Covered Lake in East Antarctica

GC23B-1061: Spatial and temporal trends in water temperature in the Virginia coastal bays

H23E-1728: Determination of Tree and Understory Water Sources and Residence Times Using Stable Isotopes in a Southern Appalachian Forest

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

B31H-01: Using the Critical Zone Observatory Network to Put Geology into Environmental Science
8:00-8:05 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center- 383-385

ED32B-02: Articles of Data Confederation: DataONE, the KNB, and a multitude of Metacats– scaling interoperable data discovery and preservation from the lab to the Internet
10:35-10:50 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 242

OS32A-04: Tidal Wetlands and Coastal Ocean Carbon Dynamics
11:06-11:18 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 275-277

B32D-06: Wildfire, legacy carbon combustion, and the centennial carbon balance of permafrost ecosystems
11:35-11:50 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 386-387

Session H33O: Water, Energy, and Society in Urban Systems I
13:40-15:40 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 293-294

Session H34H: Water, Energy, and Society in Urban Systems II
16:00-18:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 293-294

Morning Poster Session
08:00-12:20 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – Poster Hall D-F

B31D-2030: Evaluating productivity-biodiversity relationship and spectral diversity in prairie grasslands under different fire management treatments using in-situ and remote sensing hyperspectral data morning –

B31F-2050: Multi-Scale Analysis of Trends in Northeastern Temperate Forest Springtime Phenology

EP31D-1895: Remote Sensing of Colville River Navigability to Aid Subsistence Travel, Nuiqsut AK

Session H31I: Water, Energy, and Society in Urban Systems III Posters

  • H31I-1626: Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Suspended Sediment Yields in Nested Urban Catchments
  • H31I-1629: Monitoring Urban Stream Restoration Efforts in Relation to Flood Behavior Along Minebank Run, Towson, MD
  • H31I-1630 Mitigation of Flood Hazards through Modification of Urban Channels and Floodplains

NH31A-0209: Evaluation of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) to Monitor Forest Health Conditions in Alaska

Afternoon Poster Session
13:40-18:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – Poster Hall D-F

B33C-2093: Dryland ecosystem responses to precipitation extremes and wildfire at a long-term rainfall manipulation experiment

B33C-2099: Investigating and Modeling Ecosystem Response to an Experimental and a Natural Ice Storm

B33C-2100: A Novel Ice Storm Experiment for Evaluating the Ecological Impacts of These Extreme Weather Events

B33D-2101: Snapshot science: new research possibilities facilitated by spatially dense data sets in limnology

B33D-2103: Integrating time-series and spatial surveys to assess annual, lake-wide emissions of carbon dioxide and methane from a eutrophic lake

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Session ED41C: Climate Literacy: Successes and Strategies in Youth Engagement in Building Resilience to Climate Change Impacts in Vulnerable Communities with Citizen Science Il
8:00 – 10:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 242

B21K-03: Environmental controls of daytime leaf carbon exchange: Implications for estimates of ecosystem fluxes in a deciduous forest
8:30-8:45 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 383-385

B41L-03: Expanding dryland ecosystem flux datasets enable novel quantification of water availability and carbon exchange in Southwestern North America (Invited)
8:30-8:45 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 388-390

A42D-02: A High Resolution Land Cover Data Product to Remove Urban Density Over-Estimation Bias for Coupled Urban-Vegetation-Atmosphere Interaction Studies
10:35-10:50 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 398-399

PA42A-09: Dirt: Integrating Scientific and Local Knowledge to Support Global Land Management 11:00-11:05 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 255-257

PA42A-12: My geoscience research and how it matters to you: Corn, climate, and classrooms
11:15-11:20 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 255-257

H42F-07: Variability in isotopic composition of baseflow in two headwater streams of the southern Appalachians (Invited)
11:22-11:32 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 280-282

Session B43J: Drivers of Vegetation Change and Impacts on Biogeochemical and Biogeophysical Processes in Arctic Tundra Ecosystems II
13:40-15:40 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 386-387

  • B43J-08: The role of deep nitrogen and dynamic rooting profiles on vegetation dynamics and productivity in response to permafrost thaw and climate change in Arctic tundra
    15:25-15:40 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 386-387

H43O-05: Long-term stream discharge and chemistry observations reveal unexpected ecosystem dynamics: Coweeta Watershed 7 clearcut manipulation
​14:40-14:55 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – La Nouvelle C

B44B-04: Using NEON Data to Test and Refine Conceptual and Numerical Models of Soil Biogeochemical and Microbial Dynamics
16:45-17:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 386-387

B44C-08: Evidence of a robust relationship between solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence and gross primary productivity across dryland ecosystems of southwestern North America
17:45-18:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 383-385

Morning Poster Session
08:00-12:20 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – Poster Hall D-F

A41A-2244: Near-Simultaneous Measurement of Ground Level Carbon Dioxide and Methane Concentrations with an Open-Path Tunable Diode Laser Sensor at the Bonanza Creek Long Term Ecological Research site near Fairbanks, Alaska

B41D-1971: Soil Organic Matter Stabilization via Mineral Interactions in Forest Soils with Varying Saturation Frequency

Session B41A: Drivers of Vegetation Change and Impacts on Biogeochemical and Biogeophysical Processes in Arctic Tundra Ecosystems I Posters

  • B41A-1936: Long term fertilization, but not warming, shifts rates of ectomycorrhizal nutrient cycling in Arctic tussock tundra
  • B41A-1937: Plant, Microbiome, and Biogeochemistry: Quantifying moss-associated N fixation in Alaska

B41C-1962: What Do the Numbers Say? Clarifying Our Interpretation of Carbon Use Efficiency Data from Soil

B41C-1969: Different Mechanisms of Soil Microbial Response to Global Change Result in Different Outcomes in the MIMICS-CN Model

H41C-1454: Analysis of streamflow distribution of non-point source nitrogen export from long-term urban-rural catchments to guide watershed management in the Chesapeake Bay watershed

H41D-1470: Improving Understanding of Spatial Heterogeneity in Mountain Ecohydrology with Multispectral Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)

IN41A-0029: Quantifying vegetation distribution and structure using high resolution drone-based structure-from-motion photogrammetry

Afternoon Poster Session
13:40-18:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – Poster Hall D-F

A43E-2505: Time Dependence of Aerosol Light Scattering Downwind of Forest Fires

B43C-2145: Stochastic spatio-temporal model of coral cover as a function of herbivorous grazers, water quality, and coral demographics

EP43A-1867: Characterizing Process-Based River and Floodplain Restoration Projects on Federal Lands in Oregon, and Assessing Catalysts and Barriers to Implementation

H34F-1716: Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Carbon Fluxes in Glacial Meltwater Streams, Antarctica

Friday, December 15, 2017

Session U51A-06: Linking Research, Education, and Public Engagement in Geoscience: Leadership and Strategic Partnerships
​8:00 – 10:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – E2

Session B51K: Asymmetric Responses of Ecosystems to Changing Precipitation Regimes: Theory, Experiments, and Modeling Approaches I
8:00-10:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 356-357

  • B51K-01: Asymmetry in ecosystem responses to precipitation: Theory, observation and experimentation
    8:00-8:15 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 356-357
  • B51K-08: Asymmetric Responses of Primary Productivity to Altered Precipitation Simulated by Land Surface Models across Three Long-term Grassland Sites
    9:45-10:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 356-357

B51L-01: Fire Frequency and Vegetation Composition Influence Soil Nitrogen Cycling and Base Cations in an Oak Savanna Ecosystem (Invited)
8:00-8:15 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 245

B51N-03: Estimating patterns in Spartina alterniflora belowground biomass within salt marshes 8:30-8:45 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 386-387

B51L-06 Soil Biogeochemical and Biophysical Footprint of Forest to Pasture Conversion in the Western Pyrenees Mountains, France
9:15-9:30 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 245

PA52A-02: Collaborative Projects Weaving Indigenous and Western Science, Knowledge and Perspectives in Climate Change Education (Invited)
10:34-10:50 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 255-257

B52B-02: Saltwater intrusion coupled with drought accelerates carbon loss from a brackish coastal wetland
10:35-10:50 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 386-387

B53G-02: Long-term records reveal decoupling of nitrogen and phosphorus cycles in a large, urban lake in response to an extreme rainfall event
13:55-14:10 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 365-357

B53H-02: A soil-landscape framework for understanding spatial and temporal variability in biogeochemical processes in catchments (Invited)
13:55-14:10 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 386-387

B53J-02: Subsurface soil carbon losses offset surface carbon accumulation in abandoned agricultural fields
14:20-14:25 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 383-385

B54B-08: Effects of rhododendron removal on the water use of hardwood species following eastern†hemlock mortality
17:45-18:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – 388-390 Session

Morning Poster Session
08:00-12:20 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – Poster Hall D-F

B51B-1798: Drivers of spatial heterogeneity in nitrogen processing among three alpine plant communities in the Rocky Mountains

B51F-1869: Effects of nitrogen enrichment on soil organic matter in tropical forests with different ambient nutrient status

B51G-1895: Landscape-scale soil moisture heterogeneity and its influence on surface fluxes at the Jornada LTER site: Evaluating a new model parameterization for subgrid-scale soil moisture variability

B51I-1941: A Spatial-Temporal Comparison of Lake Mendota CO2 Fluxes and Collection Methods

H51F-1343: Modeling alpine grasslands with two integrated hydrologic models: a comparison of the different process representation in CATHY and GEOtop

Afternoon Poster Session
13:40-18:00 – New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center – Poster Hall D-F

Session ED53A: Climate Literacy: Successes and Strategies in Youth Engagement in Building Resilience to Climate Change Impacts in Vulnerable Communities with Citizen Science I Posters

B53B-1952: Comparing carbon to carbon: Organic and inorganic carbon balances across nitrogen fertilization gradients in rainfed vs. irrigated Midwest US cropland

B53C-1964: Modeled Carbon Cycle Responses to Altered Precipitation Amount and Interannual Variation in Desert Grassland

B53D-1975: Modeling N Cycling during Succession after Forest Disturbance: an Analysis of N Mining and Retention Hypothesis

B53F-1999: Evaluation of forest management practices through application of a biogeochemical model, PnET-BGC

PA53A-0255: I get by with a little help from my friends: A case study in Holy Cross and Grayling using geographic, ethnographic, and biophysical data to tell the story of climate change effects in the lower-middle Yukon River region