International Long Term Ecological Research An Overview

1
International Long Term Ecological Research An
Overview

• Hen-Biau King
• Colima, Mexico
• October 27, 2005
• http//www.ilternet.edu

2
Contents

• The Earth System
• The US-LTER Network (1980)
• -To study broad spatial and temporal scale
  environmental phenomena
• The ILTER Network (1994)
• -To broaden scientific collaboration and
  communication around the world
• Major Activities of Immediate Future
• -To link member networks to be a Network

3
The earth system

• Many natural processes are not limited to local
  scale.
• To understand their complexity requires
  collaborations which must be integrated,
  multi-disciplinary, and with long term and broad
  spatial concerns.
• We need collaborations in order to learn about
  the effects of large-scale ecological processes,
  Such as effects of catastrophic disturbances
  (fires, typhoons, hurricanes, El Nino,
  earthquakes, tsunamis, plate tectonics, bird flu,
  bio-invasion, etc.)

4
Modern ecological science recognizes that the
environment

• Complex - many interacting factors of the
  environment are involved in ecological processes
• Dynamic - it changes over time in complex ways
• Spatially variable - it exhibits different
  patterns in different scales
• Biologically diverse it contains complex
  assemblages of thousands of species
• Interdisciplinary Research is Essential

5
LTER is about

• integrating efforts to achieve what we cannot do
  independently, and
• developing and networking environmental
  observatories for a comprehensive understanding
  of the environment.

6
Analysis of ecological literature demonstrates
that

• Over 2/3 of the studies are based on data
  covering only 1 or 2 years!
• The literature and knowledge base are biased
  toward short term results!
• Short term studies may provide results that are
  very misleading.
• Longer temporal generalizations from short-term
  data are often inaccurate.

7
The LTER Network is a site based network

• Long tern research accomplishes more than
  generating long-term data.
• The longer a site is studied, the more
  information we generate about biodiversity and
  its relationship to ecosystem functions and
  services!!

8
An LTER site becomes A research platform

• LTER increases our understanding of the
  complexity of species assemblages and their
  interactions.
• Long-term research sites offer opportunities for
  intensive activities by many individuals from
  many disciplines working on common areas that
  facilitate integration of information.

9
LTER science involves

• comprehensive site research that integrates many
  temporal scales, single spatial scale, complex
  species assemblages, and archives the data for
  future users (Managers/Scientists)!!

10
Development of LTER

• The US-NSF established the LTER Network to
  conduct research on long term environmental
  phenomena in the U.S.A.
• The US-LTER Network was, then, set up in 1980
  with an initial 6 sites.
• Currently there are 26 sites, representing a wide
  variety of ecosystems.
• Sponsors are NSF, USDA, and NASA

11
The ILTER Network

• It was established in 1994 in response to the
  10-year US-LTER review report
• the LTER sites should include more research at
  other levels of ecological organization (e.g.,
  landscape, global),
• to study the complexity and dynamic nature of the
  environment requires not only long term but also
  broad spatial research

12
ILTER Network focuses

• on promoting scientific collaboration and
  communication around the world.
• on ecosystem studies with interdisciplinary, long
  term, broad spatial, and integrated approaches.

13

• The power of the network approach of the LTER
  program rests in the ability to compare similar
  processes in different ecological conditions.
• As a result, LTER scientists should be able to
  understand how fundamental ecological processes
  operate at different rates and in different ways
  in different environmental conditions.

14
Current development of the ILTER Network

• Thirty member networks are currently involved in
  this Network.
• Many international collaborative research
  projects are conducted to broaden spatial scales.
  
• There are 6 regional LTER Networks
  Central/Eastern Europe, Central/South America,
  East Asia-Pacific, North America, Southern
  Africa, Western Europe,

15
The purposes of regional networks

• Focus on environmental issues common to
  neighboring localities,
• Facilitate exchanges of scientists and students,
• Establish scales of research appropriate to the
  region.

16
Major Activities of Immediate Future

• To link member networks to be a Network

17
A priority for the ILTER Network

• To establish an Information Management System
  (IMS) for ILTER Network sites
• For data to be shared, exchanged, and synthesized
  efficiently and effectively among individual
  scientists as well as member networks, a common
  IMS is a requisite.
• In other words, the IMS of all member networks
  should be compatible.

18
An example

• concerning a series of workshops for LTER
  scientists and data managers of the East
  Asia/Pacific Regional LTER network to attain this
  aim.

19
The goals these workshops try to achieve are

• To identify the requirements of the region.
• To build member networks capacity, enabling them
  to construct IMS and develop database to share
  and synthesize data.
• To initiate a regional science project to test
  developed IMS(s).

20
A Coordination Workshop

• hosted by CERN in the summer of 2005 in Beijing.
  It was the first of the series of IM workshops.
• The Beijing workshop focused on enabling the
  regional IM to share information about the
  systems they use and to learn about one anothers
  system.

21
An implementing workshop (1/2)

• will be hosted by the TERN (Spring/2006)
• focuses on introducing new information tools
  based on EML to regional site Information
  Managers (IM) and users (scientists.).
• The Information managers should be able to know
  how to build an IMS and how to feed data to and
  use an IMS.

22
An implementing workshop (2/2)

• They will be able to develop their own site IMS
  after completing this workshop.
• The IM of each member network will work together
  with their local scientists (users) to develop an
  IMS after returning home.
• The developed IMSs should be mutually compatible.

23
An Execution workshop

• will be hosted by JERN (Fall,2006), and
• will be a regional research collaboration to
  implement the newly developed regional IMS.
• This will set the stage for the integration of
  science into the newly developed IMS.
• A database for this regional project will be
  developed based on EML and data generated from
  each participating site, and will be stored in
  the new IMS.
• Participants will agree on protocols, which will
  be followed by collaborators.

24
A larger Picture

• We must keep sight of the larger picture of a
  real network of LTER data, which should be
  accessible to all in the international network.
• Any Information Management System should be
  compatible with others of the ILTER communities
  (ALTER and US-LTER Networks), and beyond (GTOS,
  and its GT-Net).

25

• gracias

26
(No Transcript)