It is a pleasure and an honor to have this opportunity to greet the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) community. The coming year promises new opportunities and challenges for LTER researchers. The program is uniquely positioned to lead the broad environmental research community in initiatives that require integration across broad spatial and temporal scales. Interest in research at these broader scales is growing, as evidenced by new programs at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and by the success of efforts like Nut Net. LTER has the potential to be at the forefront of these initiatives. . This opportunity is matched by the urgent challenge of prioritizing activities and the use of resources, including time, in response to certain budget constraints.
