The Benefits of Long-Term Environmental Research, Friendships, and Boiled Peanuts

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyn E. Gaiser
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Student ◽  
Environmental Research ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
University Of Georgia ◽  
Integrative Research ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
Savannah River Ecology Laboratory ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The University

The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has enabled me to conduct more broadly relevant science by addressing questions within an interdisciplinary framework and to unravel the causes for surprising ecological phenomena through persistent studies and collaborations. Educational opportunities within the LTER program have connected me to students from grades K–12 to graduate levels in new ways from the field to the classroom, across places from Florida to Alaska, and among disciplines in a collaborative setting. The audience for my research expanded as a consequence of my experiences in the LTER program, and I have learned how to more effectively communicate integrative research to large audiences of scientists, policy-makers, and the public, often through nontraditional media. The LTER program is foremost a network of people, and I have found that science evolves most successfully when ideas and information are shared voluntarily across backgrounds, disciplines, and cultures in a network of cultivated, trusting relationships. The Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE) is the LTER site where I am currently the principal investigator, but the LTER program has been a part of my life for most of my career. My experiences in the LTER program began in the early 1990s when I was a graduate student at the University of Georgia, where the Coweeta (CWT) LTER site is based. Although I was not formally a part of CWT, many of my friends and professors were, so the program influenced my development as a scientist. I remember my first field trip to CWT, led by Gene Helfman and Judy Meyer, and the fun of snorkeling in mountain streams where we camped and conducted a few experiments, including examining the effects of rapid consumption of s’mores and boiled peanuts on preschool children (Judy and Gene’s kids). LTER-related activities wove in and out of my graduate student experience, and the rewards of sharing of ideas, data, friendships, and boiled peanuts created in me a lifelong commitment to persistent, collaborative science. This sense of fulfillment, of being part of something larger, was reinforced at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL), where I conducted my research.

An Anthropologist Joins the Long-Term Ecological Research Network

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted L. Gragson
Keyword(s):  
Design Education ◽  
Environmental Science ◽  
Ecological Research ◽  
University Of Georgia ◽  
University Of Montana ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
Common Purpose ◽  
Dramatic Shift ◽  
The University

Environmental science has no room for theoretical or methodological hegemony, and questions cannot be asked in the absence of purposeful design. Education must simultaneously engage students in thinking and doing, ideally in collaboration. Communication is a two-way process in which scientists are challenged to be credible and legitimate in conveying salient results to diverse audiences. Collaboration is about leveraging individual skills toward a common purpose, which can only succeed when trust exists between investigators. I was trained as an ecological anthropologist with an emphasis on behavioral and ecosystem ecology at the University of Montana and the Pennsylvania State University. I have conducted archaeological, behavioral, cultural, and historical research throughout the western and the southeastern United States, as well as in several countries in lowland South America, the Dominican Republic, and southern France. Currently, I am professor and head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Georgia. In 1997, I was invited to join the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program at the Coweeta site (CWT). CWT is based in the eastern deciduous forest of the southern Appalachian Mountains, and I was brought in to collaborate on regionalization of what had been exclusively a site-based project. Just prior to joining CWT, I had been involved for several years in regional conservation activities in Paraguay and Bolivia. Since 2002, I have served as principal investigator of CWT, leading the successful grant renewal efforts in 2002 and 2008. I recently completed the 2014 renewal effort, which was successful. There has been a dramatic shift over the period of my involvement in the LTER program in attitudes within the network to regionalization and participation by scientists from disciplines other than ecology (Gragson and Grove 2006; Robertson et al. 2012). Several colleagues and I have helped to foster this shift through our involvement on the LTER Social Science Standing Committee (1998–present), leadership in the LTER planning activities (2004–2007), and service on the LTER Executive Board (2008–2011). My experiences in the LTER program have influenced my ideas about the nature and conduct of environmental research.

A Forest to Prairie Transition as a Long-Term Ecological Research Scientist

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Blair
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Student ◽  
Forest Floor ◽  
Principal Investigator ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
Ecological Research ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
University Of Georgia ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
Kansas State University

Being involved in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program for most of my career has greatly influenced my development as an ecologist. It has broadened my understanding and appreciation of ecological processes at scales ranging from microbial processes to ecosystem fluxes. Participating in the LTER program has heightened my awareness of the critical role of spatial and temporal variability in ecological dynamics, as well as the value of long-term data for identifying directional environmental changes or assessing responses to experimental manipulations. Working with other investigators at an LTER site over long periods of time has revealed the importance of a place-based understanding of ecological processes as a source of insight into complex ecological phenomena. Interacting and collaborating with students and scientists having diverse research interests and backgrounds has enhanced my ability to communicate more effectively with other scientists and with the public. There are some trade-offs between directing a large research program and advancing one’s personal research, but the rewards of long-term collaboration are substantial. I have been part of the LTER program for most of my career, from graduate student at one LTER site to principal investigator at another. I began my PhD training at the University of Georgia in 1983 under the direction of D.A. (Dac) Crossley, Jr., the first leader of the Coweeta (CWT) LTER program. My early research focused on forest ecology, including plant litter decomposition and effects of clear-cutting and regrowth on decomposer communities and forest floor processes (Blair and Crossley 1988). My first postdoctoral appointment was on a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant that I wrote to study forest-floor nitrogen dynamics using stable isotope tracers. In 1992, I joined the faculty of the Division of Biology at Kansas State University as an ecosystem ecologist. This position had been held by Tim Seastedt, another Crossley graduate student who served as principal investigator of the Konza Prairie LTER (KNZ) program and later as principal investigator of the Niwot Ridge LTER program. I was hired with the expectation that I would become engaged in the KNZ program, where my research would focus on ecosystem processes in tallgrass prairie.

Long-Term Ecological Research Over the Long Term: A Historian’s Perspective

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Environmental Research ◽  
Ecological Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ecological Science

There are many precedents for long-term research in the history of science. Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program’s current identity reflects significant change—intended and accidental, both consensual and conflictual—from research concerns that were prevalent in the 1980s. LTER program has pioneered modes of research organization and professional norms that are increasingly prominent in many areas of research and that belong to a significant transformation in the social relations of scientific research. The essays in this volume explore the impact of the LTER program, a generation after its founding, on both the practice of ecological science and the careers of scientists. The authors have applied the agenda of long- term scrutiny to their own careers as LTER researchers. They have recognized the LTER program as distinct, even perhaps unique, both in the ways that it creates knowledge and in the ways that it shapes careers. They have reflected on how they have taught (and were taught) in LTER settings, on how they interact with one another and with the public, and on how research in the LTER program has affected them “as persons.” A rationale for this volume is LTER’s distinctiveness. In many of the chapters, and in other general treatments of the LTER program, beginning with Callahan (1984), one finds a tone of defensiveness. Sometimes the concerns are explicit: authors (e.g., Stafford, Knapp, Lugo, Morris; Chapters 5, 22, 25, 33, respectively) bemoan colleagues who dismiss LTER as mere monitoring instead of serious science or who resent LTER’s independent funding stream. But more broadly, there is concern that various groups, ranging from other bioscientists to the public at large, may not appreciate the importance of long-term, site-specific environmental research. Accordingly, my hope here is to put LTER into several broader contexts. I do so in three ways. First, to mainstream LTER within the history of science, I show that the LTER program is not a new and odd way of doing science but rather exemplifies research agendas that have been recognized at least since the seventeenth century in the biosciences and beyond.

Coda: Some Reflections on the Long-Term Ecological Research Program

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Schlesinger
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Research ◽  
Environmental Biology ◽  
College Age ◽  
Lake Washington ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Reflections ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Long Term Studies

Ecology has a history of long-term studies that offer great insight to ecosystem processes. The advent of the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program institutionalized long-term studies with some core measurements at a selection of sites across North America. The most successful LTER sites are those that have an energetic leader with a clear vision, who has guided the work over many years. Several LTER sites have established successful education programs for K–12 and college-age students, as well as for science policy-makers. Implementation of more and better cross-site work would be welcome. The various essays in this volume reflect a broad range of experiences among participants in the LTER program. Nearly all are positive: only mad dogs bite the hand that feeds them. All authors appreciate the advantages of long-term funding for their research and lament that funding of the LTER program by the National Science Foundation (NSF) is so limited. There are numerous testimonials for how the LTER program has changed and broadened participation in collaborative science. The real question is whether the LTER program has allowed science to proceed faster, deeper, broader, and with more critical insight than if the program had not been created. To answer that question, I offer a few personal reflections on the LTER program. First, we must note that long-term research existed well before the LTER program. Edmondson began his long-term measurements of exogenous phosphorus in Lake Washington in the early 1950s (Edmondson 1991). Across the country, Herb Bormann and Gene Likens began long-term studies, now in their 50th year, of forest biogeochemistry at Hubbard Brook in 1963 (Likens 2013). Each of these long-term studies enjoys ample coverage in every text of introductory ecology. The advantages of long-term research are undisputed among those who are funded for it. Indeed, NSF embraces a wide variety of decade-long studies with its Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) program. The authors of several chapters recall how Howard Odum’s early work focused their attention on the connections between large units of the landscape.

scholarly journals Promoting the creation of Innovation Ecosystems: the case of the University of Porto

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Melo Brito
Keyword(s):  
Growth And Development ◽  
Success Factor ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Innovation Ecosystems ◽  
The University ◽  
Key Success Factor ◽  
Knowledge Valorisation

Universities are increasingly acting as promoters of innovation, economic growth and regional development, a trend that has attracted the attention of both policy makers and researchers. The objective of this paper is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of higher education institutions as dynamic promoters of growth and development. The University of Porto is used as a case study to explore how universities can act as innovation ecosystems leaders and integrators. The main contributions of the paper are threefold. First, the case puts in evidence a key success factor: the talent to transform the knowledge produced by universities into valuable solutions for companies and other organisations. Second, links between universities and industry must assume a long-term and relational nature rather than an intermittent and transactional character. Finally, the success of university-based ecosystems depends on the integration of a diversity of actors, resources and competences. This means that a sustainable strategy of innovation and knowledge valorisation requires an approach that fosters both internal and external networking.

Forty Arctic Summers

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaius R. Shaver
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Student ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Ecological Research ◽  
Ecosystem Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
Umbrella Organization ◽  
Set Up

I was committed to long-term, site-based, research long before the Arctic (ARC) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site was established in 1987. Working with the LTER program since then has allowed me to reach my goals more easily than would have been possible otherwise. Because of my deep involvement in research in the LTER program, most of the examples I use in teaching now come from LTER sites. For the same reason, most of my communications with the public are about research in the LTER program. I learned the value of collaboration as a graduate student, from my earliest mentors and collaborators. Being a part of the LTER program has helped me to develop a wide array of enjoyable, comfortable, and productive collaborations. A message to students: be generous in all aspects of your research and professional life, because there is much more to be gained from generosity than there is to be lost. I helped set up the ARC site of the LTER program in 1987 and have made it the focus of my scientific career for the past 27 years. My experience with integrated, site-based, multidisciplinary ecosystem research actually began in 1972, however, when as a graduate student I worked with the US Tundra Biome Study at Barrow, Alaska (Brown et al. 1980; Hobbie 1980). The Tundra Biome Study and its umbrella organization, the International Biological Program (IBP), ended officially in 1974, but the ideas developed and lessons learned from these programs were central to the later development of the LTER program (Coleman 2010). These lessons were central to the formation of my own professional worldview; key among them was the idea that long-term approaches, including long-term, whole-ecosystem experiments, were essential to understanding distribution, regulation, and change in populations, communities, and ecosystems everywhere. My dissertation research, on root growth at the Barrow site, benefited greatly from the interactions I had with the diverse group who worked there. I finished my PhD in 1976, during a period when the need for a federally supported program of long-term, multidisciplinary, site-based ecological research was becoming increasingly clear.

Changing the Nature of Scientists: Participating in the Long-Term Ecological Research Program

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Willig ◽  
Lawrence R. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Rapid Change ◽  
Environmental Research ◽  
Ecological Research ◽  
Governmental Agencies ◽  
Grant Support ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
Old Men ◽  
Splendid Isolation ◽  
Diverse Groups

From the outside looking in, scientists are often characterized as old men in white laboratory coats, working in splendid isolation, usually within the confines of rather sterile looking laboratories. Of course, this image was never quite accurate for ecologists, who abandoned white laboratory coats for more field-appropriate boots and khaki pants, but who nonetheless typically worked alone or with the benefit of a faithful field assistant (Figure 1.1a). The late 1900s was a time of rapid change in the way in which ecological research was conducted, in part because of opportunities for support from governmental agencies. Especially critical in effecting these changes was grant support that would allow scientists to comprehensively investigate the intricate and complex ecological interactions between organisms and their environment from a long-term and site-based perspective. Such efforts often involved large and diverse groups of scientists representing multiple disciplinary perspectives and investigative approaches (Figure 1.1b). The US Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program, with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), was one of the first governmental programs to catalyze long-term, site-based, multidisciplinary, and collaborative research. The scientific research arising from such support has been broad and deep, resulting in thousands of publications. The research insights have been integrated into a number of synthetic books, each dedicated to long-term research at a particular site in the LTER program (Knapp et al. 1998; Bowman and Seastedt 2001; Greenland, Goodin, and Smith 2003; Schachak et al. 2005; Magnuson, Kratz, and Henson 2005; Foster and Aber 2006; Chapin et al. 2006; Havstad, Huenneke, and Schlesinger 2006; Redman and Foster 2008; Lauenroth and Burke 2008; Brokaw et al. 2012). In contrast, the effects of the LTER program’s many innovations on the participating scientists have not been explored in a comprehensive or systematic fashion. This book provides a window into how scientists have changed as a consequence of participation in the LTER program. The LTER network of sites, begun in 1980, effectively implemented the first effort by the NSF to systematically fund long-term, site-based environmental research.

scholarly journals Scenario Studies as a Synthetic and Integrative Research Activity for Long-Term Ecological Research

BioScience ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan R. Thompson ◽  
Arnim Wiek ◽  
Frederick J. Swanson ◽  
Stephen R. Carpenter ◽  
Nancy Fresco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Research ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Integrative Research ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research

scholarly journals Developing engineering students’ engagement with Circular Economy practices

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Ormazabal ◽  
Carmen Jaca ◽  
Vanessa Prieto-Sandoval ◽  
Álvaro Lleó
Keyword(s):  
Circular Economy ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Economic Sustainability ◽  
Business Managers ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Short And Long Term ◽  
The University

The Circular Economy has become a topic of high interest for policy makers, scholars, and business managers because it is shown as a new paradigm to achieve the sustainability of our society. However, the main efforts in Circular Economy cannot be reduced to professional or experts’ acts. Nevertheless,  we consider that if we pretend to meet the current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, we have to teach present generations the principles to achieve the economic, social and economic sustainability in the short and long term. This paper enhances the use of guided and official student clubs at the university to teach and engage engineering students with the Circular Economy practices.

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