The Chicago Region ULTRA-Ex will address a question fundamental to understanding the dynamic interactions between biodiversity conservation, ecosystem processes, and human well being in urban landscapes: In a complex urban/metropolitan system, what are the synergies and tradeoffs between conserving biodiversity and providing ecosystem services to people? The project focuses on the Green Infrastructure Vision of the Chicago Wilderness alliance, a conservation consortium of over 240 organizations.

The Integrative Science for Society and Environment (ISSE) initiative and its working model for the interaction of ecosystems and social systems represent the product of tremendous investment by the LTER network and its scientists as part of the 20-year planning process. Researchers in the emerging field of sustainability science promote similar frameworks that fundamentally integrate economy, ecology, and equity.

This session is intended both for social and biophysical scientists who want to help develop a proposal for the kind of “multi-site, highly collaborative and integrated research initiative” envisioned by the LTER planning group. The focus will be on what the LTER planning process calls the “centerpiece” of the group's conceptual framework, as well as one of “Grand Challenges” to be addressed at the network level – “the dynamics of coupled human-natural ecosystems.”

A major goal of the Florida Coastal Everglades LTER research program is to investigate how changes in freshwater flow related to Everglades ecosystem restoration will impact ecosystem processes, specifically in the Shark River Slough/Gulf of Mexico and the Taylor Slough/Florida Bay ecotones of Everglades National Park. This research is as much a question about natural processes as it is social processes.

The major contribution of land-based activities to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) is widely recognized by the scientific community. The question of how and whether to include the agriculture and forestry sectors in GHG emission reduction projects suitable for carbon emissions trading in ‘cap–and–trade’ programs however, remains controversial.