The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program is, in a sense, an experiment to transform the nature of science, and represents one of the most effective mechanisms for catalyzing comprehensive site-based research that is collaborative, multidisciplinary, and long-term in nature. The scientific contributions of the Program are prodigious, but the broader impacts of participation have not been examined in a formal way. Long-Term Ecological Research captures the consequences of participation in the Program on the perspectives, attitudes, and practices of environmental scientists.
The edited volume comprises three sections. The first section includes two chapters that provide an overview of the history, goals, mission, and inner workings of the LTER network of sites. The second section comprises three dozen retrospective essays by scientists, data managers or educators who represent a broad spectrum of LTER sites from deserts to tropical forests and from arctic to marine ecosystems. Each essay addresses the same series of probing questions to uncover the extent to which participation has affected the ways that scientists conduct research, educate students, or provide outreach to the public. The final section encompasses 5 chapters, whose authors are biophysical scientists, historians, behavioral scientists, or social scientists. This section analyzes, integrates, or synthesizes the content of the previous chapters from multiple perspectives and uncovers emergent themes and future directions.
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
Chapter 1: Changing the Nature of Scientists: Participation in the Long-Term Ecological Research Program - Michael R. Willig and Lawrence R. Walker
Chapter 2: Sustaining Long-Term Research: Collaboration, Multidisciplinarity and Synthesis in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program - Robert B. Waide
Chapter 3: Reflections on LTER from NSF Program Directors' Perspectives - Henry L. Gholz, Robert Marinelli, and Phillip R. Taylor
H. J. ANDREWS EXPERIMENTAL FOREST (AND) LTER SITE
Chapter 4: Streams and Dreams and Cross Site Studies - Sherri L. Johnson
Chapter 5: Data, Data Everywhere - Susan G. Stafford
Chapter 6: Science, Citizenship, and Humanities in the Ancient Forest of Andrews - Frederick J. Swanson
ARCTIC (ARC) LTER SITE
Chapter 7: Bridging Community and Ecosystem Ecology at the Arctic LTER Site via Collaborations - Laura Gough
Chapter 8: LTER in the Arctic: Where Science Never Sleeps - John E. Hobbie
Chapter 9: Forty Arctic Summers - Gaius R. Shaver
BALTIMORE ECOSYSTEM STUDY (BES) LTER SITE
Chapter 10: Of Fish and Platypus: If You Could Ask a Fish What It Feels Like to Swim? - J. Morgan Grove
Chapter 11: Long-Term Ecological Research on the Urban Frontier: Benefiting from Baltimore - Steward T.A. Pickett
CEDAR CREEK ECOSYSTEM SCIENCE RESERVE (CDR) LTER SITE
Chapter 12: Beneficiary of a Changed Paradigm: Perspectives of a "Next-Generation " Scientist - Elizabeth T. Borer
Chapter 13: Listening to Nature and Letting Data Be Trump - David Tilman
CENTRAL ARIZONA-PHOENIX (CAP) LTER SITE
Chapter 14: The Socializing of an Ecosystem Ecologist: Interdisciplinarity from a Career Spent in the LTER Network - Daniel L. Childers
Chapter 15: An Urban Ecological Journey - Nancy B. Grimm
COWEETA (CWT) LTER SITE
Chapter 16: An Anthropologist Joins the LTER Network - Ted L. Gragson
FLORIDA COASTAL EVERGLADES (FCE) LTER SITE
Chapter 17: The Benefits of Long-Term Environmental Research, Friendships, and Boiled Peanuts - Evelyn E. Gaiser
Chapter 18: Collaboration and Broadening Our Scope: Relevance of LTER Science to the Global Community - Tiffany G. Troxler
JORNADA BASIN (JOR) LTER SITE
Chapter 19: A Dryland Ecologist's Mid-Career Retrospective on LTER and the Science-management Interface - Brandon Bestelmeyer
Chapter 20: Tales from an LTER "Lifer " - Debra P.C. Peters
KONZA PRAIRIE (KNZ) LTER SITE
Chapter 21: A Forest to Prairie Transition as an LTER Scientist - John Blair
Chapter 22: Growing-Up with the Konza Prairie LTER Program - Alan K. Knapp
Chapter 23: Born and Bred in the LTER Network: Perspectives on Network Science and Global Collaboration - Melinda D. Smith
LUQUILLO (LUQ) LTER SITE
Chapter 24: Confessions of a Fungal Systematist - D. Jean Lodge
Chapter 25: A Glimpse of the Tropics Through Odum's Macroscope - Ariel E. Lugo
Chapter 26: Taking the Long View: Growing Up in the LTER - Whendee L. Silver
MOOREA CORAL REEF (MCR) LTER SITE
Chapter 27: Kelp Forests, Coral Reefs, and the LTER Program: Synergies and Impacts on a Scientific Career - Sally J. Holbrook
Chapter 28: The LTER Construct for Understanding Dynamics of Coral Reef Ecosystems and Its Influence on My Science - Russell J. Schmitt
NIWOT RIDGE (NWT) LTER SITE
Chapter 29: Top of the World Collaborations: Lessons from Above Treeline - Katharine N. Suding
NORTH TEMPERATE LAKES (NTL) LTER SITE
Chapter 30: My Evolution as an LTER Scientist - John J. Magnuson
PALMER ANTARCTIC (PAL) LTER SITE
Chapter 31: Learning from a Frozen Ocean: The Changing Face of Antarctic Ocean Ecology - Hugh W. Ducklow
PLUM ISLAND ECOSYSTEM (PIE) LTER SITE
Chapter 32: Mysteries in the Marsh - Anne Giblin
Chapter 33: Perspectives on a 30-Year Career of Salt Marsh Research - James T. Morris
SANTA BARBARA COASTAL (SBC) LTER SITE
Chapter 34: Evolution of an Information Manager - Margaret O'Brien
SEVILLETA (SEV) LTER SITE
Chapter 35: From LTER to NSF and Back: A Personal History of LTER Science and Management - Scott L. Collins
Chapter 36: The LTER Stimulus: Research, Education, and Leadership Development at Individual and Community Levels - James R. Gosz
SHORTGRASS STEPPE (SGS) LTER SITE
Chapter 37: LTER and Lessons from Networked Lives - John C. Moore
VIRGINIA COASTAL RESERVE (VCR) LTER SITE
Chapter 38: Networking: From LTER to NEON - Bruce P. Hayden
Chapter 39: Sharing Information: Many Hands Make Light Work - John H. Porter
ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS
Chapter 40: Coda: Some Reflections on the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program - William H. Schlesinger
Chapter 41: Scholarly Learning in an Ecological Setting: Applying the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors Framework to Perceived Outcomes from Participation in the Long-Term Ecological Research Program - Mark A. Boyer and Scott W. Brown
Chapter 42: Exploring the Scientific and Beyond: Science Interactions of LTER Scientists - Courtney G. Flint
Chapter 43 Long-Term Ecological Research over the Long Term: An Historian's Perspective - Christopher Hamlin
Chapter 44: Tradeoffs of Participation in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program: Immediate and Long-Term Consequences - Lawrence R. Walker and Michael R. Willig
Mike Willig directs the Center for Environmental Sciences & Engineering and is a Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut. He has been an active member of the Luquillo Mountains LTER site since its inception over 25 years ago.
Professor Lawrence Walker is an ecologist at the University of Nevada Las Vegas who studies plant succession and the disturbances, both natural and human-caused, that trigger it in many ecosystems around the world.