Network News

Reflections is an outstanding collection of science translated into artistic form and is on display at the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The triennial LTER All Scientists Meeting (ASM) is a mere six months away (September 10-13, 2012) and the planning committee has been working since last June to make this an event to remember.

Inigo San Gil (McMurdo/LTER Network Office, LNO) and Marshall White (LNO) attended the recent DrupalCon meeting in Denver, CO, March 19-23, 2012.

National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded researchers have successfully tested equipment to map the hidden distribution of groundwater and ice in the McMurdo Dry Valleys region for the first time in Antarctica.

The Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program’s Principle Investigator Mark Williams was recently featured on a blog for PLoS (the Public Library of Science), a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization focusing on research communication.

The powerpoint files from the 2012 LTER Mini-symposium presentations are available in the intranet document library here: http://intranet2.lternet.edu/documents/154

**This story has been updated to include the missing summary for Topic 6**

Researchers at the Konza Prairie (KNZ) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site have discovered that the severity of climate effects such as droughts and heat waves depends on when they occur.

Efforts to encourage engagement of arts and humanities by Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) and related sites are bearing fruit. Since the concept took root independently at Harvard Forest (environmental literature and history), North Temperate Lakes (visual arts), and Andrews Forest (creative writing, environmental ethics), there have been a variety of activities at site and network scales, including brainstorming workshops at the past two All Scientists Meetings and a more comprehensive one at the Andrews Forest in May, 2011. Twelve LTER and two additional sites were represented at this workshop, at which participants discussed the status of the Reflections program and charted a future for arts-humanities-science collaboration at such sites (see workshop report at http://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu/lter/research/related/writers/events/ArtsHum_Wrkshop_rpt_051111.pdf, which includes a list of participating site representatives).

At a symposium organized by a team of scientists from the U.S. Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network during this year’s Ecological Society of America (ESA) annual meeting in Austin, TX, researchers highlighted the role of long-term research in providing an ecological context for addressing many of the Earth's most pressing problems related to planetary stewardship.