- The Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network is a collaborative
effort involving more than 1800 scientists and students investigating
ecological processes over long temporal and broad spatial
scales.
- The Network promotes synthesis and comparative research
across sites and ecosystems and among other related national
and international research programs.
- The National Science Foundation established the LTER program
in 1980 to support research on long-term ecological phenomena
in the United States.
- The 26 LTER Sites represent diverse ecosystems and research
emphases
- The LTER Network Office coordinates communication, network
publications, and research-planning activities.
Featured Site Homepage: http://ecosystems.mbl.edu/ARC/
LTER Site Profile: http://www.lternet.edu/sites/arc/
The Arctic LTER site is situated at Toolik Lake on the North Slope of Alaska, 130 miles south of the Arctic Ocean and Prudhoe Bay. Anthropogenic impacts are minimal and limited to the effects of human activities from one road, the Dalton Highway; a 100-person research camp, the Toolik Field Station (http://www.uaf.edu/toolik ) of the University of Alaska Fairbanks; and the oil pipeline, the Trans Alaska Pipeline, which has three pumping stations over 130 miles. There are no villages or houses in the region. Caribou, wolves, and grizzly bears are common sights. The rolling hills of the Arctic LTER site, situated in the northern foothills of the Brooks Range, Alaska, are covered with the grasses, sedges, and dwarf shrubs of the tundra. Below a depth of 0.5 m depth, the soils are permanently frozen. Although snow covers the ground from late September until late May, lakes are ice-free and streams flow during the brief summer.
Research includes the study of lakes, streams, and tundra with the overall goal of predicting the future state of these ecosystems. Observations of climate are made year-round. Stream and lake measurements are carried out mainly during the summer months while the tundra measurements are mostly limited to the growing season of June, July, and August (http://ecosystems.mbl.edu/arc/arc_gen.html).
This region of the Arctic has warmed 2°C over the past 30 years. Field observation data sets dating from the 1970s and the results of long-term experiments allow simulation modeling that predicts primary productivity at Arctic LTER over the next century as the climate warms and the rate of cardon dioxide emissions doubles. In addition, the model has been scaled up to predict the productivity of the entire Kuparuk River Basin of 9,000 square km.
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