The annual Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Mini-Symposium scheduled for Thursday, March 5, 2015, had to be postponed when a snowstorm forced the closure of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Unfortunately, the postponement was last-minute, and the mini-symposium speakers had already assembled in Arlington, VA.
Although NSF was officially closed for the day, Saran Twombly, Program Officer for the LTER program and Jane Silverthorne, Deputy Assistant Director of the Division of Environmental Biology, were able to make their way to the adjacent Hilton Hotel to meet with the LTER Executive Board. They joined the Executive Board and the mini-symposium speakers in a video conference with James Olds, Assistant Director for Biology. Each of the speakers presented a brief summary of their talk, followed by a general discussion of the health and future of the LTER program. We thank Drs. Olds, Silverthorne, and Twombly for meeting with the Executive Board, and the speakers, two of whom were subsequently marooned in Arlington for two days, for their persistence.
We received several messages from people who were disappointed by the cancellation, and we're happy to announce that we will be scheduling webcasts of the talks in the near future. The talks will be presented in blocks of two or three in April or May, with the original speakers and topics. The LTER Network office and NSF will provide details on the re-scheduled talks when they are available.