|
|
|
| Posted on Friday, August 01, 2008 - 12:58 PM |
| The National Science Foundation is funding a microbial biodiversity survey and inventory that will take place across all the major aquatic (marine and freshwater) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites. Known as MIRADA (Microbial Inventory Research Across Diverse Aquatic) LTERs, the biodiversity survey and inventory will take advantage of the aquatic sampling locations that are part of the established LTER network. It will build on existing infrastructure for coordination at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA, set in place by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation-supported ocean realm project called the International Census of Marine Microbes (ICoMM).The MBL houses three of the principal investigators from a total of the 13 participating LTERs: John Hobbie (ARC), Chuck Hopkinson (PIE) and Hugh Ducklow (PAL), as well as Mitch Sogin (the lead PI) and Linda Amaral-Zettler, the Secretariat and Education and Outreach lead of ICoMM. |
| |
|
| Posted on Friday, August 01, 2008 - 12:45 PM |
A critical tool for enabling adaptive responses to climate change
Phenology is a sensitive measure of climatic variation and change, is relatively simple to record and understand, and is vital to both the scientific and public interest with or without climate change. Integration of spatially-extensive phenological data and models with both short and long-term climatic forecasts offer a powerful and necessary agent for human adaptation to ongoing climate change. However, the predictive potential of phenology requires a new data resource—a national network of integrated phenological observations and the tools to access and analyze them at multiple scales.
|
| |
|
| Posted on Friday, August 01, 2008 - 11:29 AM |
| The past year, like all odd years, was marked by mid-term site reviews: with 11 visits, this was the largest of the three Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) award cohorts. In contrast, we had six site visits in 2005 and we will have nine in ‘09. The geographic coverage was also the largest: from the Arctic tundra (ARC) in northern Alaska, to the first review of the Moorea Coral Reef (MCR) in French Polynesia, to the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MCM) in Antarctica, and up the east coast to Plum Island (PIE) in northern Massachusetts and Hubbard Brook (HBR) in northern New Hampshire. And finally, the “biome” coverage was also extensive, including marine, desert, urban, forest, tundra, and coastal sites. In the process, both Henry Gholz and Bob Waide became likely the first people to have visited all 26 LTER sites. |
| |
|
| Posted on Friday, August 01, 2008 - 11:23 AM |
| Some of society’s most important scientific questions have little to do with space travel, human disease, theoretical physics, or new math. Instead, they deal with issues such as the future of Earth’s soil. |
| |
|
| Posted on Friday, August 01, 2008 - 11:18 AM |
The LINX experience
Recently a paper appeared in Nature (Mulholland et al. 2008) covering some of the core results of the second phase of the Lotic Intersite Nitrogen Experiment, known as LINX. This large, cross-site study has been funded by NSF and includes a number of LTER sites and investigators. In this article we relate our experience with publicizing the work, which evidently has been successful.
|
| |
|
| Posted on Friday, August 01, 2008 - 11:17 AM |
| Modern science is increasingly collaborative. But while collaboration has always been a part of science, those who collaborated in the past were often collocated. Today, science needs to be able to take advantage of specialized talent available regardless of location. |
| |
|
| Posted on Friday, August 01, 2008 - 11:09 AM |
| A collaboration with the Center for Rapid Environmental Assessment and Terrain Evaluation (CREATE) at the University of New Mexico is providing near real-time satellite data for most LTER sites. The direct readout facilities at CREATE download direct broadcast MODIS data from both the Aqua and Terra satellites. |
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 05:23 PM |
| The plan for cyberinfrastructure (CI) support for future LTER research has just been released as part of the “‘Decadal Science Plan for LTER”. The CI strategic plan was commissioned as part of the overall LTER Network planning process with the express purpose of identifying CI critical to meeting LTER’s research and education objectives. As part of this process, the CI planners convened a large and diverse group of information technology (IT) professionals from science and technology centers, large IT development projects, and national observatory initiatives. |
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 05:23 PM |
| Giant kelp forests are amongst the most productive ecosystems on Earth. They provide food and shelter for a highly diverse community of fish, invertebrates and under story algae. Kelp forests are also highly dynamic ecosystems. Maximum growth rates for giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) fronds can exceed a foot a day while entire kelp forests can be wiped out by a single winter storm. |
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 05:00 PM |
| Golden foliage greeted a dozen writers and a handful of scientists at the Bonanza Creek (BNZ) LTER site outside of Fairbanks on a recent Sunday in September. The focus of their interest was the 2004 Bondary Fire, one of the largest fires of that record fire season, which scorched 6.7 million acres. Together we looked at the ecological consequences and remembered the year that it occurred. Was the ecosystem devastated or was this part of natural rhythms of boreal forests? How did that summer’s smoke color the perceptions of Fairbanks residents about boreal wildfires, which had robbed them of that scarce resource called summer? |
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 03:50 PM |
The 11 LTER projects reviewed in 2007 comprise the largest cohort for a site review year. These sites reach almost to both poles and range from the open ocean to mountaintops, representing a scientifically and geographically diverse and logistically challenging combination. Consequently, NSF staff from across the Foundation facilitated particular reviews or came along as observers, in addition to the two LTER Program Directors in the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) in the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO), Henry Gholz and Martyn Caldwell.
|
| |
|
| Posted on Monday, November 05, 2007 - 02:18 PM |
| The LTER network will reach an important milestone with regard to data documentation this summer: All LTER sites will be contributing metadata standardized in Ecological Metadata Language (EML) to the LTER Network Data Catalog. Standardization of data documentation is a critical step in the development of information systems to support ecological synthesis. Currently the LTER Data catalog hosts over 5,500 documents searchable at http://metacat.lternet.edu.The latest contributors to the catalog are the newer LTER sites–Moorea Coral Reef (MCR) and the California Current Ecosystem (CCE). |
| |
|
| Posted on Monday, November 05, 2007 - 02:18 PM |
FCE study on carbon sequestration by mangrove forests in the southwest Florida Everglades
In October 2005, hurricane Wilma severely disrupted the Florida Everglades ecosystem. Fringing mangrove forests exposed to hurricane-level winds were effectively destroyed, while more sheltered forests were severely damaged. At the FCE-LTER flux tower site (SRS-6), about a third of the trees were destroyed and roughly 3 cm of carbonate mud added on the mangrove forest floor. All instruments on the flux tower were also destroyed (Figure 1) and the tower itself damaged beyond repair and had to be replaced. The boardwalks and supporting structures also had to be re-built. |
| |
|
| Posted on Thursday, December 14, 2006 - 03:08 PM |
| Most ecologists will agree on the necessity and importance of synthesis to address new ecological questions, yet synthesizing desired data products from a diverse array of complex datasets in a robust and reproducible way is a challenging task. Now, teams of researchers from the Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research site (HFR) and the LTER Network Office (LNO) have advanced the knowledge of designing and building scientifically rigorous on-line information systems that will directly and significantly enhance ecological synthesis. |
| |
|
| Posted on Thursday, December 14, 2006 - 01:39 PM |
|
| |
|
| Posted on Thursday, December 14, 2006 - 01:11 PM |
| An update |
| |
|
| Posted on Friday, May 05, 2006 - 10:51 AM |
| The LTER Network Office (LNO) is coordinating access by LTER sites to historical and recent satellite reconnaissance data, as well as MODIS time series subsets and imagery from the International Space Station. This effort is to provide access for LTER sites to data that are acquired and archived by collaborating partners, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Information on these and other LTER Network remote sensing data is available on the LTER remote sensing and GIS information page at www.lternet.edu/technology/ltergis/. |
| |
|
| Posted on Thursday, May 04, 2006 - 04:37 PM |
| Each spring a community of LTER scientists and educators gathers in Washington to share with federal agency peers and policy makers the status and future of long-term ecological research through a mini-symposium of exciting presentations about research and synthesis activities. |
| |
|
| Posted on Thursday, May 04, 2006 - 02:33 PM |
| The current and future role of the social sciences in the LTER Network was the focus of a two-and-a-half-day workshop held in Athens, GA, on 3-5 August, 2005. All but three LTER sites sent a social science representative to the workshop and 19 sites also responded to a 10-question survey. This article contains selective results from both the workshop and the survey. |
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 02:55 PM |
| Accessibility improved through metadata standardization. |
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 02:45 PM |
| Grid Pilot Study focuses on emerging technology. |
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 02:35 PM |
| Resource Discovery for Field Stations prepares for its final year. |
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 04:12 PM |
| Interoperability Strategies for Scientific Cyberinfrastructure: A Comparative Study
|
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 04:05 PM |
| SEEK usability engineer works to make technology work for you. |
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 04:02 PM |
| SEEK project works to create cyberinfrastructure prototype using LTER grassland biodiversity and production data. |
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 03:45 PM |
| Information technology training and usability lab begins hosting workshops at LNO. |
| |
|
| Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 03:18 PM |
| Updates on some important developments from the Network Information System Advisory Committee (NISAC) and the progress of the Informatics Training and Software Usability Testing Lab at LNO. |
| |
|
|
