Collaboration and Broadening Our Scope: Relevance of Long-Term Ecological Research to the Global Community

Abstract

As part of my long-term ecological research experience, I have come to recognize that individual success is not necessarily the hallmark of an effective or successful scientist. To achieve problem-oriented solutions to the grand challenges of society, service and collaboration can have more impact on ecology and society than singular scientific achievements. Because of my experiences with the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program, I promote the idea that collaborative research is essential training for ecosystem scientists. The LTER program promoted the increasing importance of effective science communication at a time when it was not widely appreciated. The LTER program demonstrated to me that engendering a spirit of collaboration was the key to building a network of scientists that could address grand challenge questions. After studying anthropology as an undergraduate in Louisiana, I moved to Florida to work with Daniel Childers in the field of ecology. During my PhD work with him at Florida International University (FIU), I became involved in the Florida Coastal Everglades site (FCE) of the LTER program. During graduate school, I participated as cochair of the LTER graduate student committee. Currently, I am a research assistant professor with appointments at the Southeast Environmental Research Center and the Department of Biological Sciences at FIU. My research focuses on long-term ecosystem responses to hydrologic restoration, carbon cycling, and plant–soil interactions along environmental gradients in the Everglades. I collaborate with researchers at FCE and other LTER sites, as well as with colleagues in the International LTER (ILTER) to broaden the scope and integration of site-based, long-term research. Ecosystem approaches are a hallmark of science in the LTER program, and long-term manipulations at the ecosystem-scale are numerous within the LTER network. Simple ecosystem modeling allows for the integration of responses into a few synthetic variables (e.g., soil nutrient concentrations or carbon accumulation rates). My research in the LTER program strives to identify data gaps posed by such modeling and looks for creative and robust ways to develop data sets that contain a comprehensive suite of input parameters.