News
17 April 2023
eLTER PPP WP4 and WP6, and eLTER PLUS WP3* jointly organised a ‘Methods-Costs Workshop’ at the CNR Headquarters in Rome, Italy from 10-12 January 2023.The aim was to collect all available information on the elements that affect the costings of the eLTER Standard Observations (SOs) in different habitats and different ‘spheres’ (atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and socio-econosphere). This information is crucial for building the eLTER National RI, i.e., the eLTER Sites and eLTSER Pla...
14 April 2023
We are excited to announce the launch of the eLTER Instagram account: europeanlter!To ensure that the eLTER community reaches out to as wide an audience as possible, we launched the eLTER Instagram account. As of January 2023, the majority of Instagram users (around 77%) are between the age of 18 - 44. eLTER puts a special focus on reaching early career researchers, one of the main target audiences of the project. Apparently, Instagram is the place to be.Being an entirely visual platform, Instag...
13 April 2023
After months of preparation, eLTER launched its Grand Campaign (GC) aimed at filling a critical gap in the photo/video archive of the project and to significantly strengthen communication and dissemination activities. The RI's central communication team will visit selected sites and platforms in over 20 partner countries to take photos and videos with drone and camera, as well as to interview researchers and the national LTER teams.The Grand Campaign will provide five core outcomes (and a f...
13 April 2023
Established in September 2013, Wetlands International Europe is the single network organisation in Europe bringing together 10 NGOs whose shared mission is to inspire and mobilise society to safeguard and restore wetlands for people and nature. Our ambition for the period 2020-2030 is to upscale action to safeguard and restore wetlands, collaborating with multiple partners and mobilising a wide range of actors to transform whole landscapes and sectors. Our access to cutting-edge science, combine...
12 April 2023
The University of Bern is the third largest university in Switzerland. The position offers a world-class environment with an outstanding infrastructure.Carbonaceous particulate matter comprises a large fraction of the atmospheric aerosol and, therefore, badly affects our climate and human health. Measures that aim at improving air quality require that emission sources are apportioned and quantified individually. However, this endeavor has succeeded only for a small fraction of the carbonaceous p...
1 March 2023
Christian Körner et al. have prepared a five-year synthesis of a multidisciplinary, highly standardized, long-term monitoring programme of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the Austrian Hohe Tauern National Park and companion sites in northern Italy (Val Mazia/Matschertal, LTER site) and the central Swiss Alps (Alpine Research and Education Station Furka, ALPFOR, LTER site). The sites form a tri-national long term monitoring network in the Alpine and exemplify the wide geographical coverage...
20 February 2023
The KIT Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-AAF) offers three jobs for expanding and strengthening the team responsible for designing and building the new atmospheric simulation chamber AIDAc2 and the service chamber AIDAs. Both activities are funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research through the ACTRIS-D projects targeting the implementation of the KIT National Facilities and the Topical Center f...
19 February 2023
The Department of Environmental Science (ACES) at Stockholm University is one of the largest departments in the Faculty of Science. The department is divided into four units with more than 190 researchers, teachers, doctoral students and technical/administrative staff from over 30 countries. The department has a strong focus on research, spanning from couplings between climate change and biogeochemical cycles (atmosphere-land-ocean) to the sources, transport and effects of environmental contamin...
13 February 2023
Ninety researchers from 26 countries, part of the eLTER PPP and eLTER PLUS projects, gathered in Mallorca from 16 to 20 May 2022 for the first ever consortia physical meeting. This was a great opportunity to capture the spirit of the projects, so a professional team was hired to shoot 23 videos which we present to you now. They are grouped into three categories: - eLTER Stakeholders Information: The videos here aim to provide comprehensive and tailored information to the four main Stakehold...
13 February 2023
Berchtesgaden National Park is Germany's only national park in the Alps. It offers unique opportunities for research on mountain landscapes and their natural dynamics. Particularly relevant research topics include species conservation, ecosystem dynamics, long-term ecological monitoring across trophic levels, and learning from protected areas for ecosystem management. Research and monitoring in Berchtesgaden National Park is led by Prof. Rupert Seidl, Chair of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Manag...
1 July 2021
Understanding the Earth is not possible without interdisciplinary science. We need a holistic approach where environmental data, research products and services produced by the different Research Infrastructures (RIs) are harmonized and easy to access and use for scientists from any field of environmental research. Such integration efforts are organized within the European environmental Research Infrastructures (ENVRI) community.ENVRI is a cluster of terrestrial, solid earth, marine and atmospher...
30 June 2021
After a scientific evaluation by peers from the community, 24 applications were approved for funding from the first eLTER call for Transnational and Remote Access (TA-RA) under the eLTER PLUS project.
Overall 67 scientists from across 10 countries will benefit from the scheme, using the sites in 11 other countries: Germany, France, the UK, Israel, Italy, Greece, Austria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Spain, Finland.
The proposals cover a wide variety of ecosystems and topics to be researche...
13 May 2021
Over 150 people from both consortia of the eLTER PPP and eLTER PLUS projects took part in 25 sessions with the audience for each of them varying between +30 to >150. Naturally, due to the high number of participants and sessions, this presented a significant organizational and logistical challenge which was successfully overcome with the joint efforts of both organisers and participants.The meeting started with high-profile guest speakers valorizing the framework where an international resear...
23 April 2021
A data paper has been published in Earth System Science Data journal describing how the eLTER Information System infrastructure has been expanded by a climate service data product, providing open access to pre-processed regional climate change scenario data from a state-of-the-art regional climate model ensemble of EURO-CORDEX.The paper demonstrates a number of the strengths of eLTER including its extensive site network, Information System and ability to publish European-scale data products.The...
21 April 2021
The first eLTER call for Transnational and Remote Access (TA-RA) proposals to be organised under the present eLTER PLUS project gathered 20 applications.
The projects are currently being run through a plausibility check and scientific evaluation. For the details and the sequence of the TA-RA related processes, see the reference document on the TA-RA Scheme.
Reviews are conducted by peers from the eLTER community. The outcome of the evaluation process will be announced soon. Successful...
8 April 2021
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting 2020 was held between 1-17 December as an entirely virtual event.
As 1 of 6 partners in the Global Ecosystem Research Initiative (GERI) eLTER presented GERI achievements and plans in a session on “Global Environmental Measurement and Monitoring Technologies: Current Capabilities and Future Needs”.
One of the highlights reported by Michael Mirtl was the completion of the GERI Memorandum of Cooperation signing process by December 2020.In...
6 April 2021
The eLTER France community shares the news of receiving 9.6 million euros in the span of the next 8 years for research under the infrastructure project TERRA FORMA. The project’s objective is to design and test smart observatories of socio-ecological systems in the Anthropocene (geological age starting roughly in the mid. 20th century onward, debates are still ongoing on the exact time it encompasses).
Led by CNRS, TERRA FORMA aims at developing a new kind of observatory of the critical zone...
2 April 2021
We are continuing to develop an eLTER cookie-cutting tool, designed to make it easy to explore and collateharmonised datasets for a spatial unit like an eLTER site. Extracting data that are relevant for a site now takes a minute instead of potentially hours. This is one of the first steps towards establishing “information clusters” for each site benefiting from multiple data sources beyond data gathered at the site.The prototype eLTER cookie-cutting tool is being tested after it was demons...
1 April 2021
The eLTER whole system approach is utilizing the broad variety of biodiversity, environmental and socio-ecological data monitored at eLTER sites.Recently, a new study has been published in the journal Science of the Total Environment titled “Recovery from air pollution and subsequent acidification masks the effects of climate change on a freshwater macroinvertebrate community”.Using 32 years of detailed freshwater macroinvertebrate and environmental data collected from the eLTER site Bavarian Fo...
30 January 2021
13th of January 2021 marked an important day for the Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research (eLTER) as it held its first ever Sites and Platforms Forum (SPF) in a virtual setting.
Around 240 participants from 26 countries representing about 200 sites and platforms took part in the event which had one major objective – to give voice to the group of most important internal stakeholders in the eLTER initiative, the Site and Platform Coordinators (SPC...
27 December 2012
A paper published at the end of 2012 by a team of ILTER members demonstrates the importance of the International Long Term Ecological Research network in studying and monitoring environmental changes at a global level.
The paper, authored by Dr Petteri Vihervaara (Finland) and co-workers, is entitled "Using long-term ecosystem service and biodivers...
11 November 2012
The International Long Term Ecological Research Network (ILTER), of which LTER-Europe is a part, is leading the development of the GEO BON Global Network of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Observation Sites. The medium terms aims of this initiative are to pull together the "community of common interest" of individuals and contact points for sites and networks that would be willing to contribute to the network.
A meta-database of sites will al...
18 August 2012
The Global Land Project has formally accepted ILTER as an endorsed network, enabling ILTER to participate more strongly in GLP research programmes.
The International LTER network, ILTER, has been accepted as an endorsed network of the Global Land Project (GLP), a joint core Project of both the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). The GLP...
9 March 2012
The EU's INTERACT research infrastructure project, which includes some ILTER research sites, has recently been highlighted by the EU as a success story.
The EU is funding a number of infrastructure projects aiming to build environmental research and monitoring capacity. INTERACT is one such project. Its main objective is to build capacity for identifying, understanding, predicting and responding to diverse environmental changes throughou...
14 June 2011
News of the LTSER workshop that took place in Helsinki in June, co-organised by LTER-Europe and ALTER-Net
The workshop 'Long term socio-ecological research: What do we know from science and practice?' was co-organised by LTER-Europe and ALTER-Net. It took place in Helsinki, Finland from 14-17 June 2011. The workshop was attended by 33 people; 14 European LTER networks were represented. The programme featured nine keynote presentations, e...