The prospect for long term, interdisciplinary research continues to grow since the "regionalizing" of the Coweeta and North Temperate Lakes LTER sites and the initiation of the two urban LTER sites: Baltimore and Central-Arizona-Phoenix. Additional sites have recruited social scientists and expanded both the questions asked and the geographic extent of their interests. Thus, there is growing opportunities for collaboration among sites that might not identify themselves as "urban," in conjunction with the existing regional and urban sites. 

Climate change represents one of the most challenging and important research topics of the 21st century. Rising global temperatures, particularly in urban areas, has prompted an influx of research not only on changes in physical conditions, but also on the increasing vulnerability of human health and well-being as a result of global and regional climate change.

The Southwest is the incubator of the country’s fastest growing urban landscapes; relatively young socio-ecosystems of known origins but unknown fates. The region has long-served as a destination for the American dream of the fresh start, the new land; sunlit places far from East Coast stoicism and West Coast angst. Ironically, Thomas Jefferson’s humid zone ideal of an eternally expanding fee simple empire remains most robustly in force and uncontradicted in the deserts of the Southwest. Las Cruces, New Mexico is no exception.

This working group is a continuation of the previous day's meeting, here to plan the future course of actions.

Increasing land fragmentation, mostly caused by urban sprawl and “leap-frog’ developments, is a major concern in many rapidly growing metropolitan cities of the US. Land fragmentation affects biodiversity and ecosystem processes, as portions of the landscape become isolated without connecting corridors and this, in turn, can change ecological structure and function. This cross-site comparative study, a joint-collaboration of several LTER sites (i.e.

Land fragmentation caused by urban sprawl and “leap frog” development patterns has important consequences on ecological structure and function. A group of researchers from several LTER sites--Central Arizona-Phoenix, Konza Prairie, Jornada Basin, Sevilleta, and Shortgrass Steppe—is collaborating in a cross-site comparison study to analyze the land fragmentation patterns and processes in some of the fast growing cities in the Southwest and Midwest regions.