The Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network has released a new informational video, "Long Term Ecological Research: Addressing the Ecological Challenges of the 21st Century," that explains the long-term approach to ecological research and highlights the role and activities of the US LTER program. The video employs examples drawn from the various LTER sites to demonstrate how the LTER approach is providing solutions to some of the nation's most critical ecological challenges.
"We live in an age of change, and the LTER Network is dedicated to understanding how ecosystems and the services they provide to humans are affected by change," says Robert B. Waide, Executive Director of the LTER Network Office, which is based at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
Both the new LTER video and a similar informational video about the International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) Network produced in 2003 were sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Jim Gosz, a former LTER chair and biology professor at the University of New Mexico, provides most of the explanations in the video (a professional narrator provides the overall narration).
The video will be distributed in limited quantities in DVD format, but is also available for viewing or download online at www.lternet.edu/ltervideo.
LTER is a coordinated network of 26 field research sites whose purpose is to support fundamental research on ecological processes occurring over long time periods and large geographical scales. The Network was formed in 1980 by the NSF and represent a diversity of habitats, including deserts, estuaries, lakes, ocean currents, coral reefs, prairies, various forests, alpine and Arctic tundra, urban areas, and production agriculture in continental North America, islands in the Caribbean and Pacific, and Antarctica. The Network's mission is to provide the scientific community, policy makers, and society with the knowledge and predictive understanding necessary to conserve, protect, and manage the nation's ecosystems, their biodiversity, and the services they provide.
For more information please contact: LTER Network Office, UNM Department of Biology, MSC03-2020, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131-0001; Phone: 1-505-277-2597; Fax: 1-505-277-2541; Email: office_support@lternet.edu; Web: www.lternet.edu.