The EcoTrends Project began in 2004 as a joint collaboration among the LTER Program, USDA Agricultral Research Service, and the USDA Forest Service with two goals: (1) to create a book illustrating trends in long -term data and showing the value of long-term data across a network of sites in addressing continental-scale questions, and (2) to make long-term biotic and abiotic data easily accessible through a common web interface with a focus on derived or aggregated data to allow cross-site analyses to be made.

Viral-mediated cell lysis and microzooplankton grazing are both important sources of phytoplankton and bacteria mortality in the ocean, however, the magnitudes of these mortality sources are difficult to quantify. Using the modified (viral) dilution method, the effects of viral- and microzooplankton-mediated phytoplankton mortality can be examined simultaneously.

Designing infrastructure to support the management of diverse data presents unique challenges for each site. Described here is the current information system architecture, as well as targeted architectural features, implemented by the Ocean Informatics team to provide a working solution for accommodating heterogeneous data types. The system architecture is a major component of a site information environment, providing an orientation for technical development, organizational communication, and collaborative science.

 The movement and exchange of data are frequently described using a 'flow' or a 'pipeline' model.  We differentiate a uni-directional data 'flow' from an alternative model, a web-of-repositories. A web-of-repositories is a federation of diverse nodes where communication, connections, and data exchange are multi-directional. Each node has a unique sphere-of-context with technical, organizational and social dimensions. In this poster we explore a multi-repository data landscape.

The southern California Current System (CCS) is a moderate upwelling system comprised of water masses with differing nutrient loadings and consequently community structure. The mesozooplankton community of the CCS is dominated by copepods and euphausiids; the copepod species Calanus pacificus is one of the two dominant copepod species in this region, and the dominant euphausiid species is Euphausia pacifica. The abundances of both of these species vary significantly with El Niño Southern Oscillation conditions.

Biologically-mediated carbon export transports carbon from the sunlit surface layers into the ocean's interior where it can be sequestered for centuries.  It is a process mediated primarily by plankton ecology, particularly the phytoplankton that fix inorganic carbon and zooplankton that either rerespire it or repackage it into larger particles.  On a cruise in the CCE, we tracked parcels of water for four-day "cycles" during which we measured carbon flux and biological rates while measuring net changes to the plankton community.  These experimental cycles provided