We propose that an LTER-wide taxonomic database would minimize much of the work of resolving taxonomic differences for future cross-site, network level research projects. The EcoTrends project has built a database to standardize site codes and nomenclature with USDA PLANTS database symbols* and/or the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) taxonomic serial numbers across all participating sites (totaling >1800 plant and animal species at 14 sites). We would like your help to improve, expand, and share it.
 

Over the past few years, several LTER-wide projects have created web services to easily find, access and compare long-term ecological datasets (e.g., EcoTrends*) and spatial datasets (e.g., LTER Spatial Data Workbench/CREATE**) across the LTER network; however, temporal and spatial datasets are often stored separately and accessed from different websites. Integrating long-term data and map layers from across the LTER network in a single website could be the next step in improving access to LTER’s rich legacy of both temporal and spatial data.

We propose using this workshop as a follow up session to the Identifying the benefits and barriers to graduate student cross-site socio-ecological research in urban systems GSS workshop. We will focus on developing features for a networking tool that links graduate students doing socio-ecological research in urban systems across the LTER network. During this meeting, we will brainstorm (and possibly test or create) effective networking tool(s) to facilitate students’ cross LTER collaborations and research.

The adoption of the Ecological Metadata Language specification (EML) has been key to building network synthesis architectures which are based on high-quality standardized metadata. Several scientific groups such as the Genomics Standards Consortium, the LTER GIS community and the NEON network plan to work further with EML either to directly describe data or to augment specific data collections. Additionally, semantic approaches for data description are emerging, and EML should achieve compatibility with these.

Information management plays a central role in supporting the broad temporal and spatial scale synthesis projects envisioned for the LTER. It is essential that all LTER scientists, students, and staff understand that LTER research and information management go hand-in-hand, and that the principles of information management practice be learned and applied by all LTER personnel.

In this workshop there will be presentations on using tools such as Google Earth, Internet mapping, video cameras, and other visualization tools currently available to LTER sites. LTERmaps (an interactive web mapping application) will be introduced to the LTER community.  There will also be time to discuss how to implement these technologies at LTER sites.

Quality control is a critical component of environmental data management, particularly for data collected by autonomous sensors. Performing quality analysis on high volume, real-time data from sensor networks, flux towers and instrumented platforms is a major challenge, though, and can become a limiting factor in managing these data. Software developed at the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER Site (GCE Data Toolbox for MATLAB) has proven very effective for quality control of both real-time and legacy data, as well as interactive analysis during post processing and synthesis.

The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) entered in 2004 in a five year cooperative agreement with LTER. The NBII-LTER cooperative agreement is the result of efforts championed by W. Michener dating back to 2000. The overarching goal is the interoperability of both networks: Sharing the wealth on information on ecological and biological resources, and offer those to educators,, scientists, lawmakers and the public in general.

The LTER Network Information System (NIS) is the primary channel for exposing site-based data and metadata through a unified interface for use by value-added applications that include synthesis projects at both local and national scales, and is a core component of the Strategic Cyberinfrastructure Plan. The underlying framework to enable the LTER NIS is the Provenance Aware Synthesis Tracking Architecture (PASTA).

DataONE (Observation Network Earth) ensures the preservation and access to earth observation data spanning broad science disciplines to enable advances in science and education. For example, data on the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases can facilitate advances in climate change science and modeling, while data on land use patterns can facilitate scientific understanding of human-environment interactions at local and regional scales.