The 2015 Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) All Scientists Meeting (ASM) will take place at the YMCA of The Rockies in Estes Park, Colorado, from August 30 through September 2, 2015. The ASM Program Committee, assisted by the LTER Network Office, is developing a meeting that will provide an exciting forum to discuss LTER science, synergistic collaborations and Network planning.
The meeting dates and location were selected by the LTER Executive Board based on exit polls and input from previous meetings, and to reduce overlap with other meetings and holidays. The primary travel day for most LTER scientists will be Sunday, August 30, with most departures on Thursday, September 3. LTER Information Management, Grad Student, Education, and Executive Board representatives will arrive on Saturday, August 29, in time for their pre-ASM meetings on August 30.
The 2015 ASM activities will be focused around the meeting theme “From Long-Term Data to Understanding: Toward a Predictive Ecology”. Working groups and poster presentations will be organized around sub-themes selected by the Program Committee, including: 1) The unique value of long-term, networked studies, 2) Crafting conceptual models that are sustainable, 3) Does continuous ecosystem stress lead to vulnerability? 4) Predicting ecological change: LTER in the era of big science, 5) LTER and society: broader impacts of long-term research, and 6) Long-term changes in Net Primary Productivity across ecosystems.
The Program Committee invites all interested scientists to submit proposals for Working Groups beginning in February 2015 until the close of submissions on July 1. Working Group meetings are one of the highlights of the ASM and lead to future LTER collaborations, research activities, publications, databases, and other products. The working groups are meant to be an open forum with flexible formats to meet the objectives of the group as determined by the organizers. The Program Committee will review all submissions to resolve overlap of content between working groups.
Discussion of research findings during evening mixer sessions is also a very popular activity during the ASM. Facilities at the YMCA permit display of more than 400 science and informational posters, which will be based on meeting themes, through the duration of the meeting. Poster submissions for the 2015 meeting will also be accepted beginning in February on a first come, first served basis up to our available limit of 400. As in previous ASM meetings, a student poster award competition will be held to highlight student research. Abstracts are required for poster submission and will be published online as part of the program. Early submission is encouraged and essential to ensure a slot in the poster session. We encourage you to start thinking about how you will contribute to another successful ASM now! More information regarding the meeting, including the agenda, is available on the ASM website, http://asm2015.lternet.edu/.