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NSF PR 02-65 - August 2, 2002
Twenty-Years of Long-Term Ecological Research:
National Science Foundation Releases Review Report
The National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Long-Term Ecological
Research (LTER) program must forge ahead to a bold
decade of synthesis science that will lead to a better
understanding of complex environmental problems, and
result in knowledge that serves science and society,
according to the authors of the just-released NSF
report, "Long-Term Ecological Research Program: Twenty-Year
Review."
At the same time, "achievements of the LTER program
in the past 20 years are impressive," states the report.
The program's first decade was devoted to long-term
data collection and analysis in five core areas: primary
production, nutrient flux, trophic structures, disturbances
(such as fires and hurricanes) and organic matter
accumulation and decomposition. In its second decade,
the LTER program incorporated the advice of NSF's
10-year review report, and dealt with large-scale
and cross-site ecological patterns and processes as
well as anthropogenic influences on ecological systems.
"Twenty years of research at LTER sites have yielded
major synthetic and theoretical advances in ecological
knowledge, and have served society by informing solutions
to environmental problems," write the 20-year review
report's authors.
Says Mary Clutter, NSF's assistant director for biological
sciences, "This report comes at a critical time in
the history of the LTER program, and will help guide
the development of the program over the next 10 years.
The scientific vision in the report is clear, appropriate,
and consistent with the current state of LTER science.
The next ten years should be the 'Decade of Synthesis.'"
The LTER program has evolved from five sites with an
annual budget of $1.2 million into a network comprising
24 ecologically diverse sites--including two urban
sites, a network office, an annual budget of $17.8
million in FY 2002 across four NSF directorates, and
some 1,100 scientists and students who generate approximately
$44 million in LTER-related research. Twenty-four
nations now have associated International LTER (ILTER)
programs.
In the decade ahead, the LTER enterprise will inhabit
a new scientific landscape, according to the report.
"Technology is revolutionizing how research is done
and enlarging the scope, scale and complexity of research
that can be done. Policymakers, funding agencies,
organizations, and the public increasingly are asking
science to provide solutions to environmental issues
and to be more accountable for public investments
in research."
The report makes 27 recommendations about how the LTER
program might best enter its third decade. Among the
recommendations are that: the LTER program adopt and
make systemic what NSF has informally termed "21st
century biology," science that is multidisciplinary,
multidimensional, scalable, information-driven, predictive
and model-based, education-oriented, and increasingly
virtual and global; biological diversity be designated
a new core area (or function) for the LTER program
at all or selected sites; and the LTER program should
partner with social scientists to increase understanding
of the interrelationships and reciprocal impacts of
natural ecosystems and human systems in order to inform
environmental policy.
Henry Gholz, NSF program director for LTER, says the
report "will be invaluable in focusing ecologists
and the larger scientific community on the future
of long-term ecological and environmental science
in the U.S."
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