Thawing Out Coastal Arctic Food Webs with Long-Term Biochemical Data

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In Arctic lagoons, life persists through cold and dark winters, but few people are able to study and understand the bizarre life under sea ice. With chemical biomarkers and insight from local communities, food web ecologists are beginning to uncover how these organisms thrive in the harsh winter, and how they will continue to survive in the ever changing Arctic climate.

Fire Brings New Perspectives on Disturbance at H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest

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View of the Holiday Fire burning through H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest

By Natasha Griffin, PhD candidate at Oregon State University The staff of the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest LTER site had almost no time to prepare when a massive wildfire swept through the region in early September. Stoked by dry late-summer conditions and extreme high winds, Oregon’s Holiday Farm fire began spreading rapidly as soon as… 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 »

Live from the Field Opportunity

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The Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS) is creating a series of virtual field experiences, including “Live from the Field” events, which combine three 8-minute prerecorded videos from researchers at three research sites.

LTER Road Trip: Tundra roots may hold the secret to predicting a future Arctic

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By Haley Dunleavy It’s a beautiful August day in the Arctic. The sun, now finally rising and setting after months of circling the sky, warms my face; neon yellows, pinks, reds, and greens of fall foliage speckle across the tundra, and most importantly, the previously incessant mosquitos have died off. I’m standing on a single-planked… Read more »

LTER Road Trip: Fishing for Answers in Moorea’s Coral Reefs

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Dana performing an algae assay to measure herbivory in the lagoon.

By Erin Winslow Every day, third-year Ph.D. student Dana Cook zips up her Patagonia shorty wetsuit and puts on her bucket hat for a full day out on the lagoon of Moorea’s southern tip. Boat necessities include a GPS, inner tube floaty, underwater slate and pencil, a watch, and a sleeve of Sao crackers. She… Read more »

LTER Road Trip: Rising lakes in an Antarctic desert

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By Natasha Griffin The lake ice crunches beneath my boots with each tentative step I take. Realistically, I know there’s not much danger here—I’m standing atop Lake Bonney, one of the permanently frozen lakes of Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys. The ice underfoot is at least a few meters thick, creating a sturdy barrier between me… Read more »

LTER at Ocean Sciences Meeting 2020

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In 2017, the LTER Network saw the addition of three new marine and coastal sites. The new sites—Northeast U.S. Shelf (NES), Northern Gulf of Alaska (NGA) and Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems (BLE)—are all well-represented among the 41 talks and posters presented by LTER researchers at the 2020 AGU Ocean Sciences Meeting. Presentations from these and other… Read more »

LTER at American Geophysical Union 2019

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AGU Centennial logo

Soil carbon — which constitutes nearly 80% of the terrestrial carbon stock — is getting a lot of attention at the 2019 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Ecological process ranging from microbial metabolism to homeowner landscape decisions impact the size and stability of the soil carbon pool — which in turn affects… Read more »