Implementing the ILTER Science Agenda: Defining International and Regional Science Initiatives Since its 2003 annual meeting, the International Long Term Ecological Research network (ILTER) transformed itself from essentially an infrastructure-building project to a more diversified, stable organization with the ability to implement substantive scientific projects in collaboration with the US-LTER International Committee (see web link in working group materials).

This study was conducted in Taylor River in the southern mangrove ecotone region of Taylor Slough in the Florida Everglades between two FCE-LTER water quality observation stations. This system is characterized by a series of interconnected creeks and ponds that make up the larger Taylor River. During wet season months from June to November, there is a distinct freshwater input to the mangrove estuary from the north, which essentially “flushes” most of the river and lowers salinity to less than 1 ppt.

Both slow and fast variables interact to produce ecosystem change observable in a human lifetime. Unfortunately, ecosystem processes that operate over hundreds to millions of years are difficult to document, but are likely essential for understanding future ecosystem changes. Ecologists have traditionally studied these long-term ecosystem variations using the chronosequence approach, which adopts a “space-for-time” substitution.

ILTER Synthesis Workshop: Interactions among ecosystem services, ecosystem dynamics, and human outcomes and behavior

Everglades restoration calls for an increase in water delivery to the major watersheds of Everglades National Park. The response to hydrologic restoration of the estuarine end-members of these watersheds are not entirely understood. In this project, we investigate how carbon fluxes in estuarine Taylor River are related to hydrology using existing seasonal and storm-mediated changes. Here we present daily estimates of whole-ecosystem, aquatic metabolism derived from high-frequency (10 minute) changes in water column dissolved oxygen.

Ecological complexity, a new but rapidly developing field integrating complexity theory and ecosystem function, can provide insights to tackle critical environmental problems. Here, ecological complexity is not merely describing complicated systems, but complex in the sense of studying many interacting components controlled by drivers operating across multiple scales.

In coastal peatlands, factors related to global climate change are expected to alter the flux of CO2 from soils to the atmosphere. Plant-soil feedbacks are expected to yield increased ecosystem stability, and strong feedback is often expressed in coastal systems, especially in peatlands. However, peatland characteristics that influence these feedbacks are not well studied, and could elucidate a better understanding of C dynamics.

 Tropical reef ecosystems lie at the interface of productive, populated terrestrial coastlines and unproductive, oligotrophic oceanic waters. Corals and other dominant reef organisms maintain complex symbiotic interactions with both surficial and planktonic aquatic microbial communities, but the processes defining the composition and life history of these communities are poorly understood.

Patterns of phenology for plants and animals control ecosystem processes, determine land surface properties, control biosphere-atmosphere interactions, and affect food production, health, conservation, and recreation. Although phenological data and models have applications related to scientific research, education and outreach, agriculture, tourism and recreation, human health, and natural resource conservation and management, until recently there was no coordinated effort to understand phenology at the national scale.

Changing global climate patterns may have a significant impact on plant phenology. In the northern hemisphere plants have responded to warmer temperatures by flowering earlier and sustaining longer periods of growth. Changes in atmospheric N deposition and precipitation may also affect plant phenology. We tested the effects of increased winter precipitation, summer temperature and nitrogen (N) on plant phenology in an alpine moist-meadow community at the Niwot Ridge LTER site. Treatment effects were simulated using snowfences, open-top warming chambers and N fertilizer in 1 m2 plots.