News
9 December 2020
The managing institutions that operate six different continental-scale ecosystem observing infrastructures, from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America (two from Europe), signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Tuesday 1 December, 2020, expressly committing to the development of the first-ever Global Ecosystem Research Infrastructure (GERI). This GERI is an integrated network of site-based research infrastructures dedicated to better understand the function and ch...
29 October 2020
The two EU projects eLTER PPP and eLTER PLUS already had to hold their kick-off meeting in virtual form during the first wave of the COVID- 19 pandemic in March 2020. While eLTER PLUS collects and analyses the requirements of a wide range of eLTER actors and users (politics, science, peer organisations, etc.), eLTER PPP forges the eLTER RI design accordingly and negotiates with future donors in around 20 countries. The large consortia of the two projects are made up of experts from different fie...
1 October 2020
While eLTER PLUS collects and analyses requirements from a wide range of eLTER stakeholder and users (policy, science, peer organizations etc.), the eLTER PPP forges the eLTER RI design accordingly and negotiates with future funders in about 20 countries.
Therefore, it is crucial that the teams in both projects work in full awareness of related activities within and across the two projects. In comparison to usual project working styles, this implies a vivid working culture, effectiv...
15 September 2020
Using eLTER long-term site data, a recently published article by Veronika Fontana et al. investigates beta biodiversity patterns in pastured grasslands in the European Alps. The article is published in the Scientific Reports open-access journal and is titled “Species richness and beta diversity patterns of multiple taxa along an elevational gradient in pastured grasslands in the European Alps”.
The study investigates in parallel species richness and beta diversity components of nine taxo...
22 July 2020
Using eLTER site data, a recently published article by Francesca Pilotto et al. investigates biodiversity trends in Europe. The article is published in the Nature Communications journal and is titled “Meta-analysis of Multidecadal Biodiversity Trends in Europe”.
The new study uses a comprehensive dataset of 161 biological time series across Europe mostly collected from eLTER sites. This unique dataset covers 21 European countries, nine biogeoregions, three realms and eight taxonomic groups. T...
19 May 2020
COVID-19 might have altered our lives in the last few months, but at eLTER we have proved our resilience and determination for success through the extremely fruitful and inspiring kick off meetings of our two projects - eLTER PPP and eLTER PLUS (30 March - 03 April 2020). In the space of just a few weeks we’ve moved the two events fully online, with no cuts to the initially planned programme. We missed on a traditional group photo but we kept our spirits high through improvising severa...
17 April 2020
At the end of March, 2020, while COVID-19 continued to spread across the globe, more than 100 scientists of the integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological systems Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI) convened virtually to kick off a five-year effort to strengthen Europe’s capacity for long-term ecological observation and research though its two new projects (Horizon2020 Advanced Communities “eLTER PLUS” and the eLTER RI Preparatory Phase Project). While the confere...
4 December 2019
Improving knowledge about ecosystem functioning is essential for addressing the crucial challenges of managing limited natural resources in a sustainable manner, to assure long-term human wellbeing on the planet. The Global Ecosystem Research Infrastructure initiative (GERI) aims at establishing indispensable infrastructures across continents. GERI was discussed in a high level conference of the G7 Group of Senior Officials (GSO) in Shanghai last week, and approved as a GSO use case.
The pote...
15 September 2019
With the approval of two projects totalling 14 million euros for eLTER, the EU is opening another important chapter in the development of a permanent infrastructure for long-term ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological research in Europe. This funding will enable significant development of the eLTER Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI), in areas such as the RI's organisation, business model and legal basis. It will also give a major boost to scientific work done at eLTER sites and platforms....
17 June 2019
The special issue, entitled “Italian Long-Term Ecological Research for understanding ecosystem diversity and functioning. Case studies from aquatic, terrestrial and transitional domains” is the first published collection of studies performed at LTER-Italy sites. The eighteen papers in the volume present research carried out at two Antarctic and 16 Italian sites, one of which includes a comparative analysis with other International LTER Sites in Northern Europe and USA. Two additional papers are...