Photo Contest Winners
Congratulations to the winner of the 2025 LTER photo contest: Leonardo A. Rivera-Pagan, Luquillo LTER, and Rachael Brenneman, Konza Prairie.
Three new SPARC Synthesis Groups demonstrate the value of long-term data collected across ecosystems
The LTER Network Office is excited to announce that three Scientific Peers Advancing Research Collaborations (SPARC) proposals were funded this year. The three groups will meet in person at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis for one week, starting in the fall.
Ten years later: an LTER synthesis working group leads to discovery and accelerates four careers
The CoRRE Working Group continues to develop new ways to study plant community change across the globe.
Shrubs Take Over the Prairie: Cascading Changes Reshape Grassland Water Systems
by Dante Capone, PhD Student at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and the California Current Ecosystems LTER Invasion of woody shrubs into grasslands disrupts the water cycle, with cascading effects on the ecosystem and conservation. A Prairie Transformed: The Puzzle of Vanishing Water In the tallgrass prairie of Kansas’ Konza Prairie LTER, rain filters through… Read more »
Grassland birds show resilience in the face of drought
Grassland birds, by changing their nest characteristics and breeding patterns, are more resilient to drought than previously thought.
At the helm of ChANGE: driving forward a new experiment
For me, it’s essential to have some childish fun in the field. It lets me reconnect with the curiosity and delight that originally sparked my love of nature, whether that’s chasing down a cute lizard, bringing hordes of candy into the field, or driving a big cool military tanker.
Across fourteen LTERs, soil carbon is a “gatekeeper” on the nitrogen cycle
An LTER cross site synthesis effort reveals that soil carbon availability determines nitrogen mineralization and nitrification rates across a wide diversity of terrestrial ecosystems.
Spare a thought for the roots
Nutrient addition increases aboveground plant growth more than it increases belowground plant growth, suggesting that the two are not linked.
NEON and LTER: A Long-Term Partnership for Ecological Observation
The shared spaces between LTER and NEON add value for both networks and for the research community at large.
Ready-to-teach R Environmental Datasets: the lterdatasampler R package
We are excited to share with the broader R community a new collection of 8 data samples geared towards teaching environmental data science!
