Long-Term Ecological Research and Lessons from Networked Lives

Abstract

The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has affected how I conduct and evaluate ecological research. Working with the LTER program has given me a greater appreciation for the complexity of the natural world and has provided a framework to study it. The LTER program has provided the best possible venue to connect ecological research with classroom instruction, mentoring, and professional development. Translating our science to the public is a challenge. My experiences in the LTER program have provided multiple opportunities to work with the public, K–12 and college or university students, and professionals in different fields. This process has honed my communication skills. The ideas that emerge from true collaborative science cannot be understated. The work at an LTER site and within the LTER network works best when we collaborate. I received my undergraduate training in ecology at the University of California (UC) Santa Barbara. At UC Santa Barbara in the 1970s, the ecology program focused largely on populations and communities. Field observations, laboratory studies, manipulative field studies, and equation-based modeling were the norm. I recall the first set of litter and soil samples of arthropods that I sorted were extracted using Tullgren funnels and thought at the time that a person would have to be insane to pursue this type of work as a career. Two years later, I was in the graduate program at Michigan State University working with Dr. Richard Snider where I studied the impacts of herbicides on soil arthropods in no- till corn. At Michigan State, I learned the importance of species life histories, behaviors, and tolerances to environmental variation. My first exposure with the LTER program started in 1979, during my first year of graduate school at Michigan State University. A National Science Foundation (NSF) program officer was visiting the university to promote the concept of the LTER program and the first round of competition. Being 22 years old at the time, it was difficult for me to appreciate discussions about a program that would potentially operate over several decades. As a graduate student, it was a lesson in the planning, extended time frame, and other programmatic logistics of collaborative science.