LTER Network News | February 2020

February 2020

LTER Network News is a forum for sharing news and activities from across the LTER Network. This is our water cooler. If you have personnel changes, new grants, or cross-Network activities that might interest your LTER colleagues, please send them along to weiss@nceas.ucsb.edu.

Openings for EDI Soil Harmonization Workshop (14-16 April, 2020): Environmental Data Initiative (EDI) is planning a thematic data harmonization workshop in Santa Barbara, CA focused on soil data and their use in synthesis. There are still a few openings for participants, who may be producers or consumers of soil data. Please contact Margaret O’Brien (margaret.obrien@ucsb.edu) for more information on what’s involved.

Upcoming EDI Webinars: February 25, 2020 at 2PM ET “Annotation in EML 2.2”, and April 7, 2020 at 2PM ET: EDI Q&A  — Join EDI team members for this webinar with your questions and feedback on everything EDI.

SACNAS is hosting a Grant Writing and Peer Review Workshop May 1-3, 2020 to equip early career STEM professionals, in either biology or STEM education, to write a successful grant proposal for NSF funding. Apply by Feb 21. 

The Japan LTER Network will host two International summer courses for grad students on Marine Biology and Ecology (Level 2 and Level 3) at Akkeshi JaLTER-Site in Hokkaido, Japan in July 2020. Applications due Feb 21 and April 3, respectively.

LTER Committee Meetings and LTER-related events are available for your reference at any time on the LTER Network Calendar.

LTER Science Council 2020 — Hosted by The Central-Arizona Phoenix LTER Site
May 4:  Executive Board and one Executive Board Liaison each from the Information Management, Education and Outreach, and Diversity Committees.
May 5 & 6: All the above, plus one Lead PI and one designee per site May 7 (morning): Lead PIs only
More info to come soon!

Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, August 2-7, 2020 in Salt Lake City. LTER will be well represented at ESA this year with multiple LTER-focused with symposia and talks, as well as an evening mixer to celebrate 40 years of the LTER network. The LNO staff will be on site and hope to see you there! More details to come.

The LTER LNO welcomes three graduate students from across the network to our science writing team this month: Erin Winslow of Moorea Coral Reef LTER, Tasha Griffin of Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER and McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER, and Haley Dunleavy of Bonanza Creek LTER. Erin, Tasha, and Haley will contribute stories for the LTER Road Trip story map and website over the next year.

Congratulations to Monica G. Turner of North Temperate Lakes LTER for receiving the Benjamin Franklin medal and becoming a Franklin Institute Laureate for 2020. She received the honor for her contributions to our understanding of how changes in large-scale patterns associated with natural processes can affect not only ecological systems but also the social and economic well-being of society.

Congratulations to Dr. Eve Hinckley of Niwot Ridge LTER for receiving the NSF CAREER award for her research on the consequences of high sulfur inputs into soils.

Kellogg Biological Station’s first ever artist in residence, Erin Schneider, recently completed a set of poems based on her experience visiting the site and interacting with KBS researchers last summer.

Luquillo LTER has a new research manager. Monique Picon, a graduate student with Jess Zimmerman, has taken on the role. Congratulations and welcome, Monique.

From the National Science Foundation

• Giant kelp gives Southern California marine ecosystems a strong foundation
• Everglades ‘remembers’ severe weather

Other media

• The Big (yet Hidden) Consequences of Antarctica’s Record Heat | Wired
• Why is this Antarctic Glacier “Bleeding?” | PBS Nova
• Hurricanes fertilize mangrove forests, shape coastal landscape of the Florida Everglades | FIU News
• The chemists policing Earth’s atmosphere for rogue pollution | Nature 
• Protecting redundancy in the food web helps ensure ecological resilience | Science Daily
• Bison on the Savanna | PBS
• In Their Own Words: Diana Wall | Bioscience

The most recent LTER-related papers are available on the LTER Network web site and the full Network bibliography is available at the LTER Network Zotero Group Library. Listed here is just a small sampling of the 30-40 LTER related papers that are published each month.

• Scaling‐up biodiversity‐ecosystem functioning research  |  Ecology Letters
• Long-Term Ecological Research and Evolving Frameworks of Disturbance Ecology |  BioScience
• Nutrient addition increases grassland sensitivity to droughts | Ecology
• Compounding the Disturbance: Family Forest Owner Reactions to Invasive Forest Insects | Ecological Economics 
• Effects of 10 yr of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization on carbon and nutrient cycling in a tidal freshwater marsh | Limnology And Oceanography
• Know your watershed and know your neighbor: Paths to supporting urban watershed conservation and restoration in Baltimore, MD and Phoenix, AZ | Landscape And Urban Planning
• Foundation species promote community stability by increasing diversity in a giant kelp forest | Ecology

• Dear Colleague Letter: Developing New Research Collaborations Between Evolutionary Biologists and LTER Scientists. The NSF Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) aims to catalyze new collaborations that foster eco-evo research involving Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites by soliciting proposals for conferences and workshops that lead to new research and collaborations between evolutionary biologists and current LTER scientists. Conference proposals can be submitted any time before April 1, 2021. 
• Dear Colleague Letter: IMAGiNE 2020: Organisms in a Dynamic Environment. The Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) in the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) encourages submission of proposals to core programs focused on integrated studies that will investigate how genomes, phenomes, and the environment interact to influence the development, expression and evolution of complex traits.
• SESYNC Propose A Pursuit. The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) invites proposals for collaborative team-based synthesis research (Pursuits) around emerging socio-environmental systems (SES) topics. Applications due March 30, 2020.
• NSF Signals in the Soil (SitS) RFP: The SitS program encourages convergent research that transforms existing capabilities in understanding dynamic soil processes, including soil formation, through advances in sensor systems and modeling. Full proposal due May 30, 2020.

• Research Associate In Quantitative Ecology Of Kelp Forest Ecosystems  | University of Virginia in collaboration with Santa Barbara Coastal LTER
• Marine/Coastal Ecologist at The Ecosystems Center | Plum Island Ecosystems LTER, Marine Biological Laboratory
• Lead/Asst. Lead Research Technicians and Research Technicians wanted – Old-growth forest dynamics | H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest LTER
• Summer Field Assistants | Arctic LTER, Marine Biological Laboratory
• UREx SRN – Latin American International Research Experience (for undergrad and grad students) in Bogotá, Colombia | Arizona State University

Featured Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs)

• The Future of Urban Ecosystem Services undergraduate research opportunity (UREx SRN)
• Luquillo Tropical Ecology REUs
• Arctic LTER REUs
• Hubbard Brook LTER REUs
• Plum Island Ecosystems LTER REUs
• Kellogg Biological Station REUs
• Cedar Creek LTER – Summer and Fall Plant Community Ecology Internships

Promoting summer REU fellowships? Please capitalize on our video from the 2018 All Scientists’ Meeting: “How Undergrads Can Get Involved in LTER Research”