Workshop-NEON: Synergies Between NEON and LTER; Estes Park, CO; August 31 -Sept. 2, 2015; and Millbrook, NY -Remainder of 2015 and Early - 2016

Cary Institute Of Ecosystem Studies, Inc., Millbrook NY

Investigators

Abstract

Long-term data provide some of the most trust-worthy answers to important ecological questions. The immediate responses that organisms, including humans, make to an environmental change are often short-lived and do not provide accurate pictures of more permanent shifts. This project will conduct a series of workshops to examine how well long-term data collected through different projects, and at different locations, can be integrated to determine how organisms respond, over longer periods, to environmental change. Many of these responses are of societal importance; examples include responses to long-term nutrient additions, disruptions caused by invasive species, and the appearance of new diseases or disease vectors. The workshops will engage early-career researchers, providing them training in the analysis and interpretation of long-term data. A working group composed of leading researchers in ecology and ecosystem science will explore synergies between the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), a new NSF-investment, and the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, a program that has been in place for over 30 years. NEON is a continental-scale observation facility for documenting ecological change over time while the LTER program consists of long-term question-driven research projects aimed at understanding ecological processes in a wide range of ecosystems. An outstanding question is the extent to which data from these two investments will be complementary. Four topics will be addressed in a sequence of two workshops: 1) how can LTER data and insights provide landscape and regional scale ecological context for NEON sites; 2) can data collected by NEON inform the five core research areas implemented by all LTER projects; 3) can the conceptual models that underlie LTER research inform data collection at NEON sites and 4) does combined analysis of LTER and NEON data improve predictions of future ecological trajectories over those obtained from either data source alone? Two workshops held at the Cary Institute will each engage two groups; some overlap and interchange will occur between these groups. This structure allows efficient exploration of all four themes. Products from these workshops will include a series of papers as well as protocols, conceptual models and prediction platforms that will facilitate productive interactions between these two, major long-term research platforms over the coming decades.