TY - CHAP
T1 - Sustaining Long-Term Ecological Research
T2 - Perspectives from Inside the LTER Program
AU - Alber, Merryl
AU - Blair, John
AU - Driscoll, Charles T.
AU - Ducklow, Hugh
AU - Fahey, Timothy
AU - Fraser, William R.
AU - Hobbie, John E.
AU - Karl, David M.
AU - Kingsland, Sharon E.
AU - Knapp, Alan
AU - Rastetter, Edward B.
AU - Seastedt, Timothy
AU - Shaver, Gaius R.
AU - Waide, Robert B.
N1 - Funding Information:
As evident from the six examples above, LTER projects employ a broad range of approaches to sustain long-term research at their sites. All these approaches have the same aims: to develop a strong, integrated research program that addresses key ecological questions; to build a research organization that can sustain the research program over decades or centuries; and to ensure sufficient flexibility for their research program to adapt to changes in the scientific or funding landscapes. Sites that realize these aims can attain their long-term research goals; those that fail face probation and termination. To avoid this fate, LTER projects must also navigate an evaluation process that includes an onsite mid-term peer review and a closed, external review of research proposals every 6 years (Jones and Nelson, Chap. 3). There are four possible results from this evaluation process. Proposals can be approved as submitted. Project leaders can be asked to submit an addendum to their proposal clarifying points raised by external reviewers, the NSF review panel, or program officers. Projects can be placed on probation for 2 years during which they are tasked with writing a new proposal that addresses any weaknesses perceived by the reviewers or panel. Projects can also be terminated if this second proposal fails to correct deficiencies in science, project management, or data management. Because seven of the 20 LTER projects funded by the Division of Environmental Biology (35%) have been terminated (Jones and Nelson, Chap. 3, this volume), this outcome is a real danger that adds tension and suspense to the renewal process.
Funding Information:
The Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study (HBES) was the progenitor of the Hubbard Brook LTER project and in some respects for the entire LTER Program. The HBES originated in 1963 as a cooperative endeavor between university scientists, F. Herbert Bormann, Gene E. Likens, both ecologists, and N. M. Johnson, a geochemist, and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Robert S. Pierce, a USFS scientist and the lead scientist for the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF), had sought academic involvement to increase the scientif capacity and scope of the HBEF. Building upon the insight of Bormann, the HBES applied the small watershed approach to quantify forest biogeochemistry, constructing budgets for water and mineral elements, their response to experimental manipulations and long-term changes. Long-term measurements of meteorological, hydrological and biogeochemical parameters were conducted, and Richard T. Holmes was monitoring breeding bird populations. This work was supported by U.S. Forest Service and a series of competitive research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Over its first decade this research led to the discovery of acid rain in North America and its impact on terrestrial and aquatic systems and showed that clear-cutting and other natural disturbances in forests severely disrupted the nitrogen cycle. These results validated the small-watershed approach to the study of ecosystem processes. Well before the start of the LTER program, therefore, the HBES was recognized as an important long-term research study.
Funding Information:
An important and even critical catalyst in the development of these models was the start in 1983 of the Antarctic Marine Ecosystem Research at the Ice Edge Zone (AMERIEZ) program, which was uniquely focused on investigating and understanding the role of sea ice in the marine ecosystem of the eastern Weddell Sea (Sullivan and Ainley 1987). AMERIEZ was funded by NSF and led by Neil Sullivan and David Ainley working in conjunction with a large steering committee of experienced Antarctic researchers. Over the course of 5 years (1983–1988), AMERIEZ’s multidisciplinary team conducted spring, fall, and winter research cruises using two vessels that sampled in tandem within and outside the pack ice of the marginal ice edge zone. Two outcomes were especially critical to PAL’s development. The first was that AMERIEZ validated the hypothesis that the ice edge functioned as an oceanographic front that separated ecologically distinct communities whose life histories were strongly influenced by the presence or absence of sea ice (Ainley et al. 1986; Fraser and Ainley 1986; Ribic et al. 1991). The second was that by the end of AMERIEZ in 1988, program results led to a fundamental change in the scoping of U.S. Antarctic marine ecosystem research, ushering in a new perspective on the role of sea ice as a driver of processes linked to marine ecosystem structure and function. The first PAL proposal, funded in 1990, elegantly captured this progression of ideas in its central driving hypothesis, which states that “the annual advance and retreat of the pack ice is a major physical determinant of spatial and temporal changes in the structure and function of Antarctic marine communities, from total primary production to the breeding success of seabirds” (Proposal number NSF-DPP-9011927).
Funding Information:
The HBRF has also supported a variety of major education and outreach projects, most notably the Science Links series that has covered such topics as Acid Rain, Nitrogen Deposition, Mercury Pollution, and Carbon Management with the aim of actively informing key policy makers and the public on issues of environmental concern. Most recently, the HBRF was funded by the NSF Education directorate to support an investigation of public engagement in science, evaluating a model of community-scientist partnerships in guiding the research endeavors of the HBES. COS members are active participants in all the endeavors coordinated by the HBRF.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Principal Investigators from several sites within the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program offer their insights about how long-term research has been effectively sustained from periods ranging from 20 to 40 years. The sites are: Hubbard Brook (New Hampshire), Konza Prairie (Kansas), Niwot Ridge (Colorado), Arctic (Alaska), Palmer Station (Antarctica), and Georgia Coastal Ecosystems (Georgia). The main themes discussed include: the importance of a strong foundation and common vision, creating a culture of collaboration and cooperation, showing the relevance of research to societal needs, managing conflict resolution, encouraging innovation, facilitating an exchange of ideas, working to build collaborations, willingness to adopt new management structures, and careful attention to transitions in leadership. The conclusion summarizes themes based on this chapter as well as other chapters in the book.
AB - Principal Investigators from several sites within the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program offer their insights about how long-term research has been effectively sustained from periods ranging from 20 to 40 years. The sites are: Hubbard Brook (New Hampshire), Konza Prairie (Kansas), Niwot Ridge (Colorado), Arctic (Alaska), Palmer Station (Antarctica), and Georgia Coastal Ecosystems (Georgia). The main themes discussed include: the importance of a strong foundation and common vision, creating a culture of collaboration and cooperation, showing the relevance of research to societal needs, managing conflict resolution, encouraging innovation, facilitating an exchange of ideas, working to build collaborations, willingness to adopt new management structures, and careful attention to transitions in leadership. The conclusion summarizes themes based on this chapter as well as other chapters in the book.
KW - LTER Program
KW - Long-term ecological research
KW - Program sustainability
KW - Scientific collaboration
KW - Scientific culture
KW - Scientific leadership
KW - Team science
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104036315&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85104036315&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-66933-1_4
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-66933-1_4
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85104036315
T3 - Archimedes
SP - 81
EP - 116
BT - Archimedes
PB - Springer Nature
ER -