The Edge of Agriculture: Pests and Crop Configuration

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A prairie strip growing in wheat at the KBS LTER Main Cropping Systems Experiment.

In agricultural landscapes, predatory insects provide an essential ecosystem service — valued at billions of dollars annually — by suppressing pests that damage crops. A new study that includes data from Kellogg Biological Station LTER (KBS LTER) found that natural pest suppression gains a big boost when agricultural landscapes are patchy and include a high… Read more »

Seeing the forest for the shrubs in Southern Appalachia

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Rhododendron shrubs leave no space left unfilled as its branches stretch over the forest floor and streams. Photo credit: Maura Dudley.

As ecosystems respond to human activity, what organisms will emerge as new trailblazers, shaping the diversity and resilience of these changing environments? And how can land managers identify these species early on to better prepare for the future? Forests of southern Appalachia have a history fraught with human activity. Hardy and towering, American chestnut and… Read more »

LTER Road Trip: Boreal Forest Research Legacies

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Xanthe Walker organizes tree cores while sampling in the 1987 burn near Delta Junction, Alaska.

By Haley Dunleavy, PhD Candidate at Northern Arizona University Leaving my house, I feel like a runaway. I am packed inside an economy-sized rental car with my field clothes, camping gear, and of course, face masks, heading 300 miles north to meet my advisor Michelle Mack and fellow lab members for a couple days of… Read more »

Databits: LTER Site Bytes 2020 Coastal Edition

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Each year, the LTER Information Management (IM) committee gathers updates from sites across the network related to IM system and personnel changes over the past year, compiling them into a series of ‘Site Bytes’, or site summaries. This November, the first 2020 Site Bytes that started rolling into the editors’ (virtual) office were all from… Read more »

LTER at American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2020

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Like everything else in 2020, the Fall Meeting of the America Geophysical Union (AGU) will be different this year. Talks, posters, town halls, lectures, exhibits and mixers will all be available online and the meeting timeline has been extended to encompass nearly three weeks in early December. Running from December 1-17, the 2020 meeting offers… Read more »

Presenting at an upcoming meeting?

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Will you be attending an upcoming scientific meeting? Want your colleagues to know when and where you are presenting? Please fill out the form below and the LTER Network Office will compile and share a list of all the LTER presentations at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, the American Geophysical Union Annual Fall… Read more »

Stop giving early and late Arctic seasons the ‘cold shoulder’, say LTER scientists

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Streams LTER Research Assistant Frances Iannucci (a coauthor on the study) recording dissolved oxygen in a watershed associated with the Arctic LTER.

Climate change is hitting Arctic ecosystems hard – permafrost is rapidly thawing, releasing previously-frozen organic matter into the surrounding environment. Knowing not only how, but when, dissolved organic matter (DOM) and other nutrient concentrations are changing is important for predicting effects of climate change, but the picture is currently incomplete.  A new paper from Arctic… Read more »

DataBits: Off-Site Backups to Amazon Web Services

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What would happen to your site’s data if a fire, hurricane, or ransomware tore through your campus? Veteran information manager John Porter decided that a cloud backup was a wise insurance policy.

LTER Network News | October 2020

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We love seeing the creative art and science collaborations inspired by LTER sites. This month we spotted two artistic interpretations of LTER forest sites featured on Twitter. Keep the tweets coming and be sure to tag @USLTER.