2021 LTER Synthesis Awards: Reproduction and Resilience
Two new synthesis working groups, awarded in 2021, capitalize on the intensive and extended record of observation at LTER sites to shed light on thorny ecological questions.
Thinking about long-term futures to make better decisions today
Credit: CAP-LTER. CC BY-SA 4.0 Anticipating the needs of cities in the future is a key aspect of urban sustainability. One approach to planning for sustainable cities is for researchers and practitioners to work together to develop scenarios that benefit communities as well as ecosystems. Central Arizona Phoenix LTER (CAP LTER) is taking an innovative approach… Read more »
2020 Synthesis Working Groups Announcement
The LTER Network Office announces new synthesis project awards: A global synthesis of multi-year drought effects on terrestrial ecosystems; A multi-biome synthesis investigating the controls on river Si exports; and Ecological Metagenome-derived Reference Genomes and Traits (EMERGENT).
LTER at American Geophysical Union 2019
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 »
You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone – or at least threatened
Credit: Jack Pearce via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)Species that are abundant often go ignored by conservation planning until an acute threat to their populations emerge – and by then, sometimes it’s too late. According to a new article in the journal Ecosphere, common species are often critically important as structural, dominant, or foundation species in… Read more »
AIBS Workshop: Enabling Interdisciplinary and Team Science
From the AIBS Public Policy Report: Credit: M. Downs/LTER-NCO. CC BY-SA 4.0.Reports abound from professional societies, the Academies, government agencies, and researchers calling attention to the fact that science is increasingly an interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, inter-institutional, and international endeavor. In short, science has become a “team sport.” There is a real and present need to better… Read more »
Synthesis group: metacommunity dynamics and community responses to disturbance
Plans We set out to answer the general question: How do metacommunity dynamics mediate community responses to disturbance across the ecosystems represented in the LTER network? Metacommunity theory provides a framework to predict when different types of community assembly processes should control the composition of the species pool both at local and regional scales. Thus,… Read more »
2019 Synthesis RFP webinar is available for viewing
Connecting Communities: LTER at ESA 2019
LTER presents two plenary talks, plus results from synthesis working groups.
Individual talks and posters are listed and cover topics as diverse as the ecology of segregation, connectivity in barrier island communities, and modeling complex landscapes using machine learning.
Inaugural LTER Idea Cafe Generates Innovative Pitches
The All-Scientists’ Meeting only happens every 3 years. The workshops offer an amazing smorgasbord of fresh results, new theory, tools, and opportunities to make progress on old challenges. But as the organizing committee contemplated the 2018 All Scientists’ Meeting, we also wanted to create a space for the Network to look toward the future–a way… Read more »
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LTER Photo Contest 2025
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Fall 2025 Young Voices of Science Program
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LTER at ESA, 2025
Morning in the Midnight Sun
Leveraging Generative AI: Applications for the LTER Network
Three new SPARC Synthesis Groups demonstrate the value of long-term data collected across ecosystems