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 »
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.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced ten new awards for its Critical Zone Collaborative Network (CZCN), and LTER sites will play a prominent role in four of them. The awards fund a wide range of investigations to better understand the ‘critical zone’, the area of our planet where water, air, soil, rock and living… Read more »
The frequency of large coastal storms and hurricanes is on the rise, impacting the biological services that wetlands and marshes provide. Modeling makes it possible to predict how future storms may affect these ecosystems, but accurately modeling widespread impacts of large storms like Hurricane Sandy, which bombarded much of the U.S. eastern shoreline, requires significant… Read more »
As anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase, scientists have now recognized seagrass meadows—which typically have high rates of carbon storage—as important ‘blue carbon’ sinks. However, rising ocean temperatures threaten seagrass meadows, along with their ability to retain carbon. This underlines the need for precise ecosystem data on the vulnerability and resilience of these meadows… Read more »
Exploring the Estuary The waters lapping against the shoreline marshes reflected bright blue sky above. I sat in the front of the Virginia Coast Reserve Long Term Ecological Research (VCR LTER) site’s boat, exploring the estuary with VCR LTER’s dedicated staff. The tall Spartina alternifora grasses waved in the breeze a foot or two above… Read more »
Islands on the Move I stood on a windy barrier island, hair whipping around my face as my boots crunched across beach seashells. The waves crashed into the sand, here and there stirring up food for one of the many gulls seeking rest or prey on this island. Before me stretched the Atlantic Ocean, as… Read more »
A Long Legacy Victoria Long has a deep connection to the land here in Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Her family has farmed this land for generations—since 1652 to be exact. She grew up a few miles from the Virginia Coast Reserve Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, attended the local high school and began to work… Read more »
Martin Volaric (UVA Environmental Sciences) & Eli Stine (Music) Researchers studying intertidal oyster reefs are using sound recordings as a proxy for reef activity. During Summer 2018, researchers at the VCR-LTER made a series of recordings with two goals in mind:Credit: Cora Ann Johnston1) Pair sound with environmental measurements to study how reefs respond to… Read more »
Each year, art and science teachers are invited to Art and Ecology workshops that link Plein Aire landscape painting and observational drawing to salt marsh ecology and climate change impacts on coastal ecosystems. Nearly 30 teachers per year participate in these professional development opportunities, and over half return for a 2nd workshop. Workshops focus on… Read more »
