In 2016 and 2017, blogger and photographer Erika Zambello launched a road trip to visit as many LTER sites as possible. Follow her travels through the LTER Road Trip StoryMap or peruse the stories below.

See more of Erika’s work at E. Zambello Writing and Photography.

LTER Road Trip: A Hot Time in the Forest

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To evaluate the effects of soil warming, scientists have measured soil gases including methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide as well as nitrogen fluxes every month since 1991, comparing the heated plots to control plots nearby. One of the most interesting results they have documented comes from the forest’s tiniest organisms – the microbes that digest downed leaves and branches (also known as the ecosystem’s detritus). At first, the microbes worked overtime in the heated plots, releasing more carbon dioxide through their respiration.

LTER Road Trip: Hemlock Hospice

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The hemlock is a native tree species that was once common from northern Alabama to Nova Scotia. Stretching tall with thick needles, the hemlock creates an entire ecosystem beneath its large branches. In the Smoky Mountains, its shade used to cool streams just enough to allow the eastern brook trout to thrive. Unfortunately, these hemlocks are in dramatic decline.

LTER Road trip: Wildlife-Equipment Interactions in the Jungle

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The boat whizzed past the mangrove trees in Everglades National Park, creating a blur of blue water and green leaves. Rafael Travieso, our captain and lead technician for Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE) LTER, expertly guided us through Shark Slough to a partially hidden wooden dock. Slowing down, we glided forward until the tip of the boat barely tapped the wooden structure, which created a platform for a solar panel and what looks like a barrel.

LTER Road Trip: How Tiny Algae Could Predict Changes in the Everglades

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Coastal mangroves in Everglades National park

Viviana Mazzei studies organisms that cannot be seen with the naked eye. When I toured the Florida Coastal Everglades LTER research sites in Everglades National Park, my eyes were drawn to the mangrove trees, the dolphins, the birds. But when Mazzei, a Ph.D. student at Florida International University, wades through these ecosystems, she is on the look-out for something much smaller: diatoms, a type of single-cell algae, that thrive in this aquatic environment.

LTER Road Trip: Slip-Sliding through the Decades

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A tagged tree on transect #327 in Coweeta Experimental Forest.

I paused at the top of Coweeta Hydrologic Lab’s transect #327, peering down, down, down at the slope beneath me. Katie Bower, a research technician at Coweeta, and two summer interns had already started down the narrow pathway, accustomed to its slippery leaf layer and sharp contours.

LTER Road Trip: The Georgia Coastal Ecosystem Schoolyard Program

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Research Technician Tim Montgomery records water quality data with a teacher during the GCE schoolyard summer workshop.

During their week out at the University of Georgia Marine Institute on Sapelo Island, teachers divide their time between assisting with research in outdoor settings alongside GCE scientists and graduate students and discussing the implementation of the information and experiences into their own teaching settings.

LTER Road Trip: Exploring the Everglades

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When most people think of the Florida Everglades, they picture alligators hiding amongst labyrinths of marsh grass, the famous boardwalks of the Anhinga Trail, or the tightly clustered mangrove trees that border both the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Yet, few are aware that Everglades National Park also hosts critically important ecological research sites, where scientists from the Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) station learn about the inner workings of this incredible ecosystem, as well as how it’s responding to human activities.

LTER Road Trip: Kelp Forests link land and sea

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Close up of kelp fronds

The path to the beach was steep, partially eroded by the wind and rain on this Pacific Ocean-facing cliff in Santa Barbara. Carefully holding my camera, I scampered down as gracefully as I could after Kyle Emery and Nick Schooler, two PhD students at the University of Santa Barbara. From the top of the cliff,… Read more »

LTER Road Trip: Beach Hoppers Illustrate Coastal Resilience in Santa Barbara

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Closeup of a beach hopper (aka sand flea)

Two undergraduate students bent over shiny metal trays loaded with wrack from the nearby beaches at the Santa Barbara Coastal Long Term Ecological Research site (SBC LTER). Bright lights lit up their tweezers as they sifted through vegetation and detritus, searching for specific creatures: beach hoppers, beetles, flies, and isopods, as well as different species… Read more »

LTER Road Trip: Decomposing Cactus in the Arizona Desert

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decomposition plot with a piece of cactus.

Flowers bloomed in the mountain desert outside of Phoenix, Arizona, and I leapt out of the car near the Central-Arizona Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) site’s research plots. At first, it was the saguaro cacti that completely arrested my attention. Tall and thick, the giant cacti reached to the sky like hands; the… Read more »

LTER Road Trip: A Hidden Carbon-Storing Oasis in Phoenix

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Chris Sanchez shows off some plant matter buried in the marsh mud

When you think of Phoenix, Arizona, a lush wetland is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. If you’re like me, you imagine soaring desert mountains dotted with saguaro cactus, a hot valley in colors of stone, now glittering with lights from downtown. Yet, there I was, knee deep in mud in the… Read more »