European Long-Term Ecosystem Research Network

• On 16-22 September 2013, LTER-Europe and EnvEurope Project Life+ are coorganizing the International Symposium: "Ecohydrology, Biotechnology and Engineering: Towards the Harmony between Biogeosphere and Society on the basis of Long-Term Ecosystem Research". For more information go here, or contact LTER-Europe Secretariat.      There will be an LTER-Europe session at the ALTER-Net conference, Science underpinning the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy: 15 April, Ghent, Belgium. More... The next International LTER meeting will take place in South Korea from 7-11 October 2013. Details are on the ILTER website.   Long-Term Ecosystem Research (LTER) is an essential component of world wide efforts to better understand ecosystems. This comprises their structure, functions, and response to environmental, societal and economic drivers as well as the development of management options. For the first two decades of its existence LTER built on natural sciences. The ongoing re-design of LTER aims at expanding its scope to the human dimension. Strongly coupled and integrated socio-ecological systems are driven by economic, cultural and environmental forces likewise. Their investigation requires a new generation of socio-economic and ecological research (LTSER) with adequate infrastructure. LTER-Europe is a network of: National networks and the European contribution to the global International Long Term Ecological Research (ILTER) with over half of the ILTER members belonging to LTER-Europe Go... Research infrastructures (LTER sites and LTSER platforms forming national networks) Go... Institutions involved in ecological research across the continent and aiming at a virtual European ecological research institute Researchers in natural sciences, sociology and economy Go... Scientific site co-ordinators and research platform managers Go... Long-term data Go... Research projects Go... Support for communication and lobbying.

  The Zöbelboden LTER Master Site, Austria [Photo by M. Mirtl]

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