This Special Session is the brainchild of the presidents of the four sponsoring groups, who saw the need to develop new interactions and a more collaborative approach to national, and perhaps global ecological concerns. Below are links to talks from the morning program, in which each speaker discussed the activities of their respective organizations in respect to the themes, and gave some ideas on further work and ideas for interaction between the organizations represented here.

Keynote Speakers on Session Themes Keynote Address
Jerry Melillo, Associate Director for Environment, White House

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function "Measuring and contrasting biological diversity in relation to ecosystem functions and social processes in large regional ecosystems" Jack Stanford (OBFS) Regionalization "Regional studies in ecology: The need to scale up" David Foster (LTER) Climate Dynamics and Ecological Processes "Vegetation Responses to Climate Change: Results from VMAP" Ron Neilson (AERC) Information Management "Advances in Information Management and Metadata Development" William Michener (LTSS/ESA) Related links LTER Highlights from ESA Annual Meeting