LTER at ESA, 2026

The LTER Network always puts in a strong showing at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting and 2026 is no exception. Please use and share our day-by-day list of LTER and related events to find your footing at this fun and approachable meeting. If you don’t see your talk or session listed below, please share it with us so we can let your colleagues know. In these uncertain times, it’s especially great to be part of the big LTER family.

All week

Visit the the LTER Network/Environmental Data Initiative exhibit booth (#218) to pick materials, learn about our synthesis work and just say hi!

Saturday & Sunday, July 25 & 26

• Wilderness First Aid Certification (advance registration required)

Monday, July 27

• 10:30-11:30 am | New Phytologist Foundation Keynote: Disturbance interactions in tropical forests: Conceptual underpinnings, emerging tools and research gaps | Dr. Maria Uriarte
• 1:30-3:00 pm | Special Session: Invisible Impacts: Society and Long Term Ecosystem Change | Suzanne Pierre, Critical Ecology Lab, Hubbard Brook Research Foundation
• 1:30-3:00 pm | Presentation (time TBD) | Climate variability, not ecosystem restoration, drives long-term secondary productivity | Max Castorani
• 1:30-3:00 pm | Workshop: Ecological Synthesis: So You Have An Idea… What Next? | Marty Downs
• 6:30-9:00 pm | Social: LTER Mixer | Marty Downs

Tuesday, July 28

• 8:00-9:30 am | Organized Oral Session: Integrative Dryland Science and the Jornada Basin Long-Term Ecological Research Program | Sasha Reed
• 3:30-5:00 pm | Presentation (time TBD): Coastal shrub encroachment potentially slowed by long term salinization of barrier island water table | Edward Long (VCR)
• 4:30 pm | Presentation: Legacies of dead foundation species influence ecological trajectories by reshaping species interactions | Kai Kopecky (AND, BNZ, FCE, GCE, HFR, KNZ, LUQ, MCR, SBC, SEV, VCR)
• 5:00 pm | Poster: Sap flow variance with climate-linked stressors in an expanding shrub | Katherine Pline (VCR)

Wednesday, July 29

• 8:00-9:30 am | Organized Oral Session: Disturbance, Nutrients, and Recovery: Above- and Belowground Insights from a Global Grassland Experiment | Lauren Sullivan
• 10:00-11:30 am | Special Session: Making Ecological Data More Open and Interoperable Across Projects and Platforms | Kate Ingenloff
• 10:00-11:30 am | Presentation (time TBD): Secondary science teachers’ participation in research experience for teachers programs: an exploration of intersectional social identity salience | Amanda Morrison
• 10:00-11:30 am (time TBD) | Presentation: SUPER: An alternative program structure for a cohort- and course-based undergraduate ecological research experience | Stacy Lynn
• 1:30-3:00 pm | Synthetic Ecology in a Time of Uncertainty | Marty Downs
• 3:30-5:00 pm (time TBD) | Presentation: Hydrologic controls on saltmarsh microbiomes: what can the contrast between creek edge and marsh interior tell us about marsh response to global change? | Sa’ad A. A. Rafie
• 3:30-5:00 pm | Presentation (time TBD) | Temporal cross-scale interactions and the production of Cyprinodontid fishes in the Florida Everglades | William K. Annis
• 3:30-5:00 pm | Workshop: Preparing the STEM Workforce of the Future: How an RET Network Can Advance and Sustain K-12 Teachers to Prepare Students for Next Generation STEM Careers | Amanda Morrison, Nick Oehm & Rita Teutonico

Thursday, July 30

• 1:30-3:00 pm | Symposium: Leveraging Network Science to Understand Ecosystem Resilience Across Complex Landscapes | Olivia Hajek
• 1:30-3:00 pm | Presentation (time TBD): Size-mediated hurricane damage reflects shared biomechanical constraints across growth strategies in secondary tropical forests of Puerto Rico | Christopher Nytch
• 5:00-6:30 pm | Poster: Integrative vegetative biomass measurements to calibrate tropical carbon sequestration estimates: applying the GEO-TREES approach in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico | Rio Baran & Pablo Arce