ILTER Annual Meeting

Ottawa, Canada

April 13, 2002

 

The 2002 International Long Term Ecological Research (ILTER) Network Committee meeting was held near Ottawa, Canada.  The meeting was hosted by the Canadian Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network in conjunction with their 2002 National Science meeting.  The EMAN National Science meeting was held to address ecological issues such as the monitoring of key ecological indicator species; the challenge of getting information from scientists to policy and decision makers; and global issues such as climate change, invasive species, biodiversity and the sustainable use of land and resources.

 

Welcome – Hague Vaughn (Canada)

Hague Vaughn welcomed participant to the meeting and to Ottawa.  He provided background on the Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network  (EMAN)  of Canada and the active programs within  EMAN.  In particular Dr. Vaughn pointed out some of the public outreach activities that have been developed such as Nature Watch, Frog Watch, Ice Watch, Plant Watch and Worm Watch.  Further detail can be found on the EMAN web pages at http://www.eman-rese.ca/.  There was also a parallel session at the EMAN science meeting entitled: ILTER-EMAN International Symposium: Role of monitoring, indicators and research in developing and implementing sustainable ecosystem management.

The symposium covered the following:

·       Review papers from US, Canada, Mexico, the Americas and Europe

·       Solicited and submitted papers

·       Open discussion

 

Discussion of agenda –

Jim Gosz (USA)

Jim Gosz, the chairman of the ILTER Network welcomed participants to the meeting.  He gave a short overview of the past year’s activities and outlined the agenda to the group.

 

Regional Reports

 

ELTOSA –

Joh Henschel (Namibia)

Joh Henchel reported on the developing Environmental Long-Term Observatories (ELTOSA) of South Africa.  This will be based on Environmental Observatory Networks (EON) for South Africa, similar to the National Observatory Network plans of the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States.  His full presentation can be viewed here.

 

Latin America – Francisco Barbosa (Brazil)

Contacts among countries developing LTER Networks in Latin America have been rare this past year.  Certain countries previously expressing interest (e.g., Argentina) or having formal networks (e.g., Colombia, Uruguay) have not moved forward.  Hence, the LA region has only five functional national networks (Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela), and perhaps it is best at this time to focus on existing networks rather than new networks.  The exception to this decision is Ecuador, who sent a representative to this meeting.  Eventually, we may need to focus on different regions (e.g., Mesoamerica, Amazon, temperate South America) in order to promote coherence.  Armando Torres also spoke about the difficulty in maintaining a regional network.  Hague Vaughn withdrew offer to host listserver for the Americas, as all content would have to be translated into French.

 

East Asia-Pacific –

Hen-Biau King (Taiwan)

Dr. King reported on the 4th regional conference on LTER at Lake Hovsgol, Mongolia, and the Organic Matter Decomposition workshop at Fu Shan, Taiwan, in 2001.  The Decomposition workshop included a tele-presentation by John Porter.  Results from the meeting are available on a CD from Dr. King. 

 

Dr. Kim said an new chair will be appointed for the  Korean LTER and invited ILTER to participate in the 2002 INTECOL meeting August 1-18 in Seoul.   A motion was made and seconded for ILTER to become an official sponsor of INTECOL.  The motion was approved unanimously. 

 

Dr. Zhao indicated that CERN will add 5-6 new sites.  In addition, $20 million has been provided to upgrade instrumentation including the addition of flux towers. 

 

Eastern Europe –

Julius Oszlanyi (Slovak Republic)

Dr. Oszlanyi reported on active sites in Central and Eastern Europe  - a map and list is included in his presentation.  He pointed out specific site activities in Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.  He also announced the International Confernce on “Integrated Long-Term Ecological Research in Poland,  to be held October 18-19 in Lodz, Poland.  Overviews of his presentation are available from Dr. Oszlanyi’s talk at this link. 

 

Dr. Tadeusz Prus (Poland) reported on the national conference on Long-Term Research in Poland held in 2001.

 

North America –

Jim Gosz (USA)

Dr. Gosz described the general activities of the now 24 site U.S. LTER Network.

There have been no regional activities but several opportunities for future activities are on the horizon.

 

Western Europe –

Michael Mirtl (Austria) and Sander van der Leuuw (France)

Dr. Van der Leeuw suggested that moving LTER forward in Europe will require a close connection with the social sciences.  The principal problem in Europe is fragmentation and the narrow focus of Europe-wide funding agencies.  The existing ILTER community organization might be useful in overcoming this fragmentation.

 

Criteria for membership in ILTER

Jim Gosz led a discussion of proposed criteria for membership in ILTER.  Barbosa raised a question about the meaning of having a data management and accessibility policy.  The consensus was that such policies could be in the nature of commitments to managing long-term data without making specific commitments to accessibility.  The key point is having a defined policy.  We also discussed the need to include proposed sites with an application.  Some wordsmithing took place.  The final wording was accepted by unanimous vote:

 

Criteria for national networks :
The petition for a country to join the ILTER Network should come from a national government body, or private entity acting at the national level, and address the LTER program within that country’s boundaries (I.e., its national program).  Mission statements of the national LTER program should be consistent with the mission of the ILTER Network.  Other criteria include:
  • existence of a national committee or other management structure
  • a set of proposed sites or criteria for selection of sites
  • a statement of collective purpose which might include defined research or monitoring themes
  • a data management and accessibility policy
  • prospects for long-term stability of the program
 
Criteria for other kinds of affiliation:
The group concluded that other kinds of classes of affiliation would be useful, but that these must be carefully defined.  Characteristics of organizations with which affiliations might be developed include the existence of expertise that would complement ILTER research programs.  The affiliation must be mutually beneficial and must support the core goals of ILTER.  For some affiliations, formal memoranda of understanding will have to be developed.  Themes for which affiliating organizations might be sought include: information management and technology, modeling, research management and administration, communications, public education, biodiversity, conservation, invasive species, and resource management.

 

Presentations by applicants for membership

Presentations were made for additional countries to the ILTER membership:

France – Sander van der Leeuw

Mexico – Gerardo Ceballos

South Africa (Pauw)

 

Gerado Ceballos mad a motion to accept France’s petition for a national network of sites within France and Antarctica.  There was some discussion regarding research sites outside of the sponsor country, but clearly Antarctic sites would be included (for instance, two of the U.S. LTER sites are in Antarctica.   The motion was seconded by Hague Vaughn and the motion passed unanimously.

 

Hague Vaughn motioned to accept participation of South Africa and Mexico.  Francisco Barbosa seconded and the motion then passed unanimously.

 

Criteria

The committee re-visited the criteria for ILTER membership and made one further change based on discussion of issues raised during the consideration of new applications.  In particular, the committee added words to indicate that bi-national sites proposed by a country applying for member ship would have to be approved beforehand by the national network in the second country.

 

 

ILTER Network Office renewal

Bob Waide discussed the ILTER request that will be a part of the Network Office renewal proposal and solicited suggestions for adding to or improving that request.  Jim Gosz indicated that one option might be for other countries to assume part of the burden for coordinating ILTER activities. Sander van der Leeuw suggested that the proposal might be worded to indicate that development of a distributed support structure would take place over the next six years.  Tom Lacher suggested that affiliation with global organizations such as UNESCO and GEF might provide opportunities for funding.  Francisco Barbosa asked whether we might want to write proposals for things like the Minimum Standard Installation.  The general answer to this question is yes, but that such activities would be greatly enhanced by the existence of a person dedicated to these activities.

 

GT-NET demonstration project –

John Vande Castle (USA)

A general overview of the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS) Net Primary Productivity (NPP) Demonstration Project was covered.  The project is closely associated with the ILTER network since all sites participating in the project a both GTOS and ILTER sites.  The purpose of the project is to improve current estimates of global terrestrial primary productivity by comparing ground based measurements of land cover (LC), leaf area indices (LAI) and net primary productivity (NPP) with MODIS satellite-derived remote sensing products.  During 2001, the original database to support information and data exchange within the NPP Demonstration project was modified with updated site information of the 26 participating sites in the project.  MODIS data products have been extracted from the NASA archives and placed online within the project webpage for sites to access.  The initial MODIS data products such as NDVI and LAI have been produced since June of 2000, providing more than a full year of data for comparisons and validation with ground reference data.  At present MODIS data is available on the Internet in the form of 1100 x 1100 km "tiles" from the NASA archives.  For sites which participate in the NPP Demo Project, it is planned that regular 11 x 11 km cutouts of selected MODIS products will be provided for sites by the NASA archive center at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, the NASA ORNL DAAC.  Primary production data products have been produced globally starting in 2001 which will now allows a first comparison of global satellite, and ground based annual NPP data.  One important consideration was a need for accurate location of ground measurement locations.  For comparison of ground and satellite product data, sites must be located  within 1 km.   For this level of accuracy, a site location to the nearest tenth of a minute is required, so sites need to be located to the nearest degree, minute and second.  A number of workshops are planned during 2002, focused on efforts of researchers currently comparing ground validation measurements with the MODIS data products, and synthesis of these data.  Updated information is also available on the GTOS NPP Project webpage at: http://www.ilternet.edu/gtnet/

 

ILTER global initiatives

GBIF and ECOBAS-

An item from the previous year’s ILTER meeting was how ILTER should interact with associated initiatives such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and activities such as The ECOBAS project, which  provides a system for documentation of mathematical descriptions of ecological processes.  Discussion was postponed until a sub-committee (to be named) could address criteria for association for groups like ECOBAS and to investigate further the costs of a relationship with GBIF.  There was a GBIF Informatics meeting in San Diego, 2002 which Peter McCartney, information manager of the U.S. “CAP" LTER site attended. 

 

After discussion, the committee concluded that the ILTER should work to support the global change, biodiversity, and desertification conventions. We should compile a portfolio of activities that contribute to the goals of the conventions with whom we ant to affiliate.  The focus on long-term ecosystem dynamics allows us to make a unique contribution to some of the conventions.  Jim Gosz will develop a draft document explaining how ILTER can contribute to the conventions for circulation.  We will focus on the World Summit of Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August-September.  Waide will send Joh Henschel’s suggestions for planning for this activity.

 

ILTER funding initiatives

A discussion was initiated regarding the need to develop funding initiative for ILTER research and scientific exchanges.  The U.S. National Science Foundation has funded this and will probably continue some funding, but other funding sources could further enhance ILTER research efforts.  Proposals to the EC, and other entities have been put forward by individuals within the ILTER Network, such as efforts lead by Terry Parr of the U.K. ECN Network.   Although funding has not yet been made available, this is still an important pursuit.  Perhaps help is needed from a group such as an advisor board, or people who know how these organizations and foundations work.

 

Gap identification

Funding is clearly a gap.  Francisco Barbosa suggested a need for further training and research oriented workshops.  Collaborations were suggested as the best way of closing gaps.  Dr. Zhao suggested initiating joint programs, especially related to information management, management of research networks, and development of cross-site, multinational, multidisciplinary research efforts.

 

Future meetings

The next ILTER Network Committee Meeting will be held September 8-10, 2003 in Beijing. China.