From August 7 to August 12, the Ecological Society of America will hold its annual meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This year’s theme, “Novel Ecosystems in the Anthropocene,” will build on discussions initiated during last year’s centennial meeting, “Ecological Science at the Frontier.” Human influence now represents the dominant influence on ecosystems worldwide– and a… Read more »
One strength of the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network is that it reveals patterns and connections that are only apparent over years and decades. As a national network, it also offers extraordinary opportunities to make comparisons among ecosystems. The Network Communications Office announces the funding of three LTER synthesis proposals, which combine existing data to yield… Read more »
In 2010, when Cyclone Oli hit the reef, Han wondered which way the scale would tip: could the coral recover from both these impacts? Or would macroalgae move in and dominate?
For nearly half a century, ecologists have struggled to explain the relationship between ecosystem productivity and species richness. In a recent paper in Nature, USGS Ecologist James Grace and colleagues have managed to account for the many variables and confirm the long-suspected connection. To do so, they used a causal network model to incorporate data… Read more »
Ice storms are powerfully disruptive to northeastern forests, but truly understanding their dynamics has proved challenging because they strike with little warning. Hubbard Brook LTER scientists took the matter into their own hands by creating an ice storm of their own making. The experiment, which was covered by NSF360 and Science Now, is allowing them… Read more »
The LTER Network Communications Office (NCO) announces a call for Synthesis Working Group proposals to promote analysis and synthesis of LTER data. Proposals must be submitted by the end of the day Wednesday, March 23, 2016, with research to begin before October 2016.
In August 2015, UCSB’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) was selected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as the site of the first Network Communications Office (NCO) for the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) network. Martha “Marty” Downs has been appointed as the Communications Officer of the NCO and brings a background in both ecological research and science communications.
Early this year the annual Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Mini-Symposium scheduled for Thursday, March 5, 2015, had to be postponed when inclement weather forced the closure of the National Science Foundation (NSF) (see http://bit.ly/1NkuT9Q). At the time we reported that webcasts of the talks would be presented in blocks of two or three at… Read more »
Long term studies by a number of Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites were the basis for some of the 14 papers in a special issue of the journal Biogeochemistry entitled “Tracking evolution of urban biogeochemical cycles: past, present, and future.” The issue encompasses work by urban ecologists in different cities across the U.S. including… Read more »
Important findings reveal promise and peril of land-use decisions Petersham, MA – A groundbreaking study by Harvard University’s Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program and the Smithsonian Institution reveals that, if left unchecked, recent trends in the loss of forests to development will undermine significant land conservation gains in Massachusetts, jeopardize water quality,… Read more »
