Zoning, building codes, subdivision ordinances, and neighborhood association rules are the most pervasive institutions affecting land use in the USA, yet their impact on land use change and ecosystem services and the distribution of these environmental goods and “bads” is highly variable and not well understood[1]. The purpose of this working group is to coordinate… Read more »
BACKGROUND Monitoring nutrients in precipitation inputs and other ecosystem fluxes has advanced our understanding of biogeochemical cycling. However, uncertainty due to variability or error in observations and models has rarely been reported in ecosystem studies. This makes it difficult to determine rates of change over time or compare results across multiple sites with quantitative confidence. … Read more »
Rationale: While the importance of legacy effect characterization to interpreting long-term records of ecological conditions has continued to emerge (Bain et al. in review “Legacies in Material Flux: Structural Catchment Changes Pre-date Long-term Studies” BioScience) some early structural legacies (e.g. substantial soil losses to erosion) are challenging to characterize with controlled experiments. However, the extended… Read more »
A four-day workshop will use LTER data, including data from the EcoTrends project, to bridge the gap between the relatively mature theoretical understanding of thresholds and state changes in ecological systems and the emerging empirical databases that allow us to actually test models of state changes. Many of these changes represent “tipping points” or dramatic… Read more »
We are requesting Synthesis Working Group funds to support LTER participation in StreamchemDB. StreamchemDB is focused on aquatic chemistry data, and builds on former data synthesis projects ClimDB and HydroDB, all of which have been collaborative LTER-Forest Service cross-site synthesis and cyber-infrastructure projects.
The goal of this workshop is to test hypotheses (identified in a 2010 working group) about ecological and social resilience of the water cycle to climate change and land use change in ten major river basins in the US and Canada.
The goal of this synthesis is to evaluate uncertainty in hydrologic inputs, outputs, and net hydrologic flux of major elements across small watersheds with diverse characteristics. The long-term goal of this project is to contribute to a cultural change in ecology that makes uncertainty analysis an accepted and expected practice in the construction of ecosystem… Read more »
We are requesting funds to assemble a working group of LTER scientists with extensive experience in conducting long-term experiments in the LTER Network, the skills and interest in synthetically interpreting the results of those experiments, and in using data from these studies to address new questions relevant to pressing global change issues.
Recent work has suggested that freshwater ecosystems may play a significant role in the global carbon cycle, potentially emitting 1.2 Pg C y-1 to the atmosphere [1, 2]. The majority of the CO2 that is degassed from streams and rivers comes from the decomposition of allochthonous leaf litter inputs [3, 4]. The process of decomposition… Read more »
Introduction and Goals: In the Western US mountain regions, winter temperature increases will lead to the reduction and even loss of winter snowpacks. A shift from snow to rain-dominated systems will alter seasonal patterns of streamflow, soil moisture, soil temperature, etc. affecting a myriad of ecosystem processes. This proposed work will develop a working group… Read more »
