News
25 July 2023
Digital Twins (DTs) started in industry to monitor and understand systems and processes, but they have now also become a hot topic in ecology. In a new paper (De Koning et al. 2023), they describe how DTs can help ecology, as a kind of real-time model that can integrate data and domain knowledge to continuously adapt to the real world.The study aims to clarify potential misunderstandings, as they are not necessarily artificial intelligence, large interconnected databases, and a synonym...
24 July 2023
The Portuguese LTsER Montado platform currently has several active research projects:- Project RENEWAL aims tot promote the resilience of agroforestry systems in drylands to a more arid future, ensuring ecosystem functions and services. It addresses climate change effects on oak woodlands (montados), semi-natural agroforestry systems of high ecological and socio-economic importance, that are an important ecosystem type southern Portugal. Montados are highly vulnerable to climate change and are c...
24 July 2023
Prof. Dr. Harry Vereecken has been awarded the 2023 Alfred Wegener Medal & Honorary Membership for his groundbreaking contributions to soil-plant-atmosphere research with a focus on subsurface processes related to the hydrological and biochemical cycles. Not only has he greatly advanced the specific research on the subject, but perhaps more importantly, he has been an integrator of connecting the individual sub-processes and sub-disciplines.In an interview he gave for eLTER regarding his awa...
21 July 2023
eLTER Business Plan and Socio-Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) Framework development services tender is now open. Qualified applicants can apply by 25 August 2023, 2pm EET, and offer services regarding the Business plan, SEIA or both. The applications in English are accepted.eLTER Business planWe are looking for support in developing the eLTER Business plan - a central document for the success of eLTER that will be used when approaching the potential eLTER members, private sector and funders as...
18 July 2023
The scientific term succession describes the mechanisms by which inanimate or disturbed areas are colonised by living organisms. In the Rotmoos valley near Obergurgl, such succession studies have been carried out for decades. The glacier that originally dominated the valley has been melting for over 150 years, releasing areas for recolonisation.As a result, this open-air laboratory continues to reveal new findings. In a long-term study carried out by a group of researchers at the University of I...
12 July 2023
From 18 – 22 June 2023, the eLTER General Executive Team (GET) met at the Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station in Finland, a respected multidisciplinary research facility known for its long-term ecological research initiatives. The biodiverse environments provided an ideal setting for focused reflections and discussions, interactive social activities and hikes to significant and picturesque locations.During the meeting, GET members had the opportunity to identify and discuss the challenges lying ahea...
11 July 2023
eLTER Head Office and General Executive Team (GET) are searching for a candidate to take over and support the eLTER coordination and ESFRI process. The job position offers a great opportunity to join an international and interdisciplinary team, grow into science/project management and work at the science-policy interface.The candidate will become part of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) which is the lead institution of the eLTER ESFRI process, aiming at the establishment of...
10 July 2023
The eLTER whole system approach (WAILS) workshop took place in Gran Paradiso National Park in Italy on 12-16 June 2023. It brought together 20 participants from 11 countries and diverse research areas.The workshop took the form of a summer school, with the first days focused on lectures that explained in depth the WAILS approach of eLTER. This is a holistic view on the ecosystem that combines bio-geo-hydro and socio-ecology. The workshop also looked at the long-term research conducted...
3 July 2023
The Department of Environmental Sciences at Stockholm University is looking for two PhD students in Environmental Science to work on the project "Feedbacks between a changing climate and vegetation: The role of volatile organic compounds and biogenic aerosols (CLIVE)".The goal of the project is to study a small fraction of the carbon taken up by plants and which is released back into the atmosphere as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The research will focus on better quantification of the curr...
27 June 2023
ATMO-ACCESS (Solutions for Sustainable Access to Atmospheric Research Facilities) is an integrated activity for research infrastructures in the field of environmental sciences for the establishment of a comprehensive and sustainable framework for access to distributed atmospheric Research Infrastructures and to ensure optimised access and use of the services they provide to users.The ATMO-ACCESS Coordination and Project Office is currently looking for a Project Manager with a 1-year fi...
23 June 2022
CNRS has opened a tenure track position on the observation and analysis of the stratosphere variability. This Junior Professorship aims at supporting and developing actions of long term observation of the atmospheric composition resolved in altitude (profiles) by means of active remote sensing (LIDAR).Labelled through the NDACC National Observation Service and structured within the ACTRIS research infrastructure in France and the ACTRIS ERIC in Europe, LIDAR observations are one of the most...
17 June 2022
Atmospheric Ammonia Pollution Measurement Scientist£41,040Full timeBased at UKCEH EdinburghThe closing date for applications is Tuesday 28th June 2022.Interviews will be held shortly after this.Research scientist with experience of passive and active sampling of atmospheric ammonia pollution is required to lead projects and develop research for high quality measurements of this pollutant and others in agricutural, urban and rural locations. Integration of ammonia pollution research with ecosyste...
25 May 2022
Last autumn, a project started on "Monitoring of the conservation status of the Mar Piccolo of Taranto, with particular reference to the presence of marine phanerogams and non-indigenous species". It was funded by the Apulia Region within the framework of POR-Puglia 2014-2020, aiming to select monitoring actions on Apulian species and habitat of the Natura 2000 network.During the next two years, up to December 2023, mapping of marine phanerogams (i.e. Cymodocea nodosa and Ruppia cirrhosa) will b...
23 May 2022
How can nature conservation be combined with the Bedouin shepherds' traditions? To answer this question, we've collected a diverse group of experts from academia and civil society to consider dimensions ranging from ecological impact of grazing to the meaning of 'natural'.Through discussions with Bedouin shepherds, Nature and Parks Authority (NPA) representatives, and legal experts, we aim to find collaborative, equitable solutions to this seemingly intractable socio-ecological challenge.&n...
18 May 2022
At the end of the first mandate of the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, the Presidential Estate of Castelporziano, published the fourth series of the work entitled "The environmental system of the Presidential Estate of Castelporziano. Research on the complexity of a Mediterranean coastal forest ecosystem", issued in three volumes within the "Scritti e Documenti" series by the National Academy of Sciences known as the XL.With over a thousand pages, the series collects sixty-...
10 May 2022
A new project funded by Portuguese national funds (FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) started in March 2021 and will run until 2024 with the support of LTSER Montado platform.Project RENEWAL (PTDC/ASP-SIL/7743/2020) is aimed at promoting the resilience of agroforestry systems in drylands to a more arid future, ensuring ecosystem functions and services. It addresses climate change effects on oak woodlands (montados), semi-natural agroforestry systems of high ecological and socio-econom...
4 May 2022
The National Emission reduction Commitments Directive (NEC-D) sets national emission reduction commitments for Member States and the EU for five important air pollutants: nitrogen oxides (NOx), non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs), sulphur dioxide (SO2), ammonia (NH3) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5).These pollutants contribute to poor air quality, leading to significant negative impacts on human health and the environment. Nitrogen and ozone affect ecosystems and biodiversity thro...
2 May 2022
A proposal for the world's first science national park is currently being considered by the Finnish government. The 4800 ha park would be situated within southern Finland's Lammi LTER and aims to strengthen scientific activities in the area as well as serve as a platform for the general public and scientists to interact.The Evo area has a rich history of scientific research dating back over a century and has been the site of intense ecological research and monitoring for many decades. With almos...
12 April 2022
In 2021 the Netherlands Long-Term Ecosystem Research Network (LTER-NL) was included in the list of Large Scale Research Infrastructure (LSRI) by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).This means that LTER-NL is now recognized as a LSRI and can apply for funding within the Dutch system. We therefore put in a large grant earlier this month where LTER-NL teams up with LifeWatch-NL and with a national scheme that monitors abiotic environmental variables (NemNet).Making use of the...
6 April 2022
The Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Gothenburg is looking for an Associate Senior Lecturer in Ecosystem Science. The Department trains Earth scientists and geographers, who can meet the increased need for geoscientists and geographers in society. It has bachelor and master programs in Earth Sciences and in Geography as well as third-cycle education in several Earth Science subjects. Its main research themes are “Climate and Climate Change”, “Earth Surface Processes” and “The Ge...
14 October 2022
The ICOS ERIC (Integrated Carbon Observation System RI) organised its fifth Science conference on September 13 to 15, 2022 in Utrecht, Netherlands. Among the highly interesting scientific talks were presentations from three eLTER researchers, in the session ‘Informing transformative change towards a sustainable future using integrated environmental research infrastructures’.Research infrastructures such as ICOS have significantly improved quantification of ecosystem greenhouse gas (GHG) balances...
12 October 2022
The Early Career & Friends (EC&F) group was established after the Integrated Progress Meeting on Mallorca in May 2022. The group includes scientists, technicians, administrators and other professionals who are actively engaged in eLTER work and who identify themselves as early career (EC), new to eLTER, or otherwise interested in the goals of the group (& Friends).With the support of the eLTER Head Office, this group aims to support EC work by promoting professional collaborations, p...
10 October 2022
The Covid-19 pandemic provides an extraordinary opportunity to investigate socio-ecological system resilience by comparing systems undergoing the same shocks at the same time. This research explores resilience, or a society’s capacity to endure external shocks/stress like pandemics or climate change, through the lens of social ecology, a discipline that studies the interconnections between society and its natural environment, viewing them as a single, holistic system.To discover what characteris...
7 October 2022
More than 100 LTER-Europe sites belong to the air pollution effects monitoring of the UNECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP). The long-term International Cooperation Centers (ICP) of ICP Forests, ICP Waters, and ICP Integrated Monitoring, and several data and analysis groups, have for many decades been identifying ecosystem damage (and subsequent recovery) from air pollution. eLTER and the ICPs work in the same realm of environmental issues, address common societal g...
5 October 2022
DEIMS-SDR is one of the most comprehensive publicly available catalogues of long-term ecosystem research and monitoring sites in the world. It was created to reduce fragmentation and to increase the findability, interoperability, and accessibility of in-situ sites and data.Today, DEIMS-SDR contains detailed site information of about 760 eLTER sites in Europe as well as sites outside of Europe. It offers information on long-term research sites and access to data sets.In order to promote DEIMS-SDR...
3 October 2022
The University of Helsinki, Institute for Atmosphere and Earth System Research/Department of Forest Sciences, is looking for a Postdoctoral researcher to a Horizon Europe project BioDT (Biodiversity Digital Twin), and the eLTER ESFRI process, where the PI at Helsinki University is professor Jaana Bäck.BioDT aims at pushing the current boundaries of predictive understanding of biodiversity dynamics by developing a Biodiversity Digital Twin (BioDT), providing advanced modelling, simulation and pre...
3 October 2022
The long wait for a physical Interim Council (IC) meeting came finally to end when the delegations met face to face in Uppsala, Sweden, on September 28-29 2022.The IC04 meeting was hosted by SLU and chaired by Prof. Kevin Bishop. Delegates from seven countries attended the meeting physically, with a further 11 delegations joining via Zoom.Apart from the joy of really meeting many people for the first time, there were also important items on the agenda. The IC discussed the recently established e...
7 September 2022
On 24th and 25th August an eLTER delegation, led by Michael Mirtl (eLTER PPP coordinator) and Jaana Back (eLTER PLUS coordinator), visited the head offices of their “sister” research infrastructures of ICOS and ACTRIS for an important exchange of experience and support.ICOS was represented by Werner Kutsch (Director General), Katri Ahlgren (Head of Communications), Elena Saltikoff (Head of Operations) and other key members. The ACTRIS group was headed by Eija Juurola and Paolo Laj, both Interim...
20 July 2022
BorealScat-2 is the new radar tower experiment located at Svartberget Experimental Forest for studying temporal variations in forest radar measurements. The tower, previously used in the BorealScat experiment, has been relocated and upgraded.The aim is to investigate forest moisture variations in P-/L-/C-/X-band tower-based radar observations and to develop methods for estimating forest evapotranspiration from space-borne radar observations. The antenna array at 50 m provides full 3D tomographic...
20 July 2022
In the Austrian Eisenwurzen, cultivation of local fruit tree varieties in traditional meadow orchards was an historically important type of land use. While today, this practice is still part of the region’s cultural identity and an important tourism asset, meadow orchards and their many ecological benefits disappeared from most European cultural landscapes during industrialization. In the course of combating climate change and biodiversity loss, however, there has been a renewed focus on agrofor...
26 January 2023
While the effects of climate change become apparent, the need for information on the vitality of forests is increasing. Since detailed information is often lacking, the numerous estimates on forest health are contradictory and speculative. Forest remote sensing can close this information gap. With the improvement of sensor technology (e.g., hyperspectral) and the cost-effective use of UAVs, the application possibilities of remote sensing methods for the vitality assessment of woody plants are in...
25 January 2023
The Department of Geography of the University of Marburg, Working Group Climatology and Remote Sensing, Prof. Dr. Jörg Bendix, is currently accepting appplications for the project "CropHype - Improving plant recognition based on hyperspectral EnMAP data using Geo Engine". It is a position as PhD student, 3 years, 75% of regular working hours. Learn more and apply.
24 January 2023
The Department of Music at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology is looking for a PhD in Musicology and Interdisciplinary Ocean Studies.The PhD candidate will undertake independent research that connects music studies (broadly understood) to marine environmental topics. The PhD candidate will be hosted by the Department of Music and will develop a research project that sits within the university’s strategic research area NTNU Oceans. NTNU Oceans has coordinated several projects in t...
20 January 2023
The Faculty of Geosciences - Department of Geography at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München is looking for a Scientific researcher modeling Earth system feedbacks.The chair for Physical Geography and Land Use Systems (Prof. Julia Pongratz) at LMU’s Department of Geography investigates the interactions between natural ecosystems, land use and climate change. Its group develops and applies the latest generation of land and Earth system models and integrates them with observations. Key resea...
7 December 2022
Through cutting-edge research in the fields of ENERGY, HEALTH and MATTER, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) solves some of the pressing societal and industrial challenges of our time. Join our 1.500 employees from more than 50 nations at one of our six research sites and help us moving research to the next level!The Center for Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS) is a German-Polish research center for data-intensive digital systems research. CASUS was founded in 2019 in Görlitz and c...
24 November 2022
Aarhus University is looking for an academic technician/research engineer with a PhD in aerosol physics/engineering to support the infrastructure around the AURA atmospheric simulation chamber. Candidates should contact Merete Bilde: bilde@chem.au.dk.Aarhus University currently has an open tenure track position in Atmospheric and Climate Chemistry.Several post doc and PhD positions will open soon. Interested candidates are encouraged to contact us in advance: - Aero...
14 November 2022
The OrGanic Tracers and Aerosol Constituents ‐ Calibration Center (OGTAC‐CC), hosted and operated by TROPOS ACD as one TC unit of the ECAC‐CAIS consortium, is announcing the following activity for all operators of ACTRIS NFs (observational and exploratory platforms), and former EUROCHAMP2020 members as well as to all other interested parties as users:Topic:Theory and practice ‐ determination of organic tracers and aerosol constituents from sampling to the final result demonstrated for the f...
14 November 2022
The Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) is offering a permanent position for project leader at NILU's data centre.The position is permanent and linked to NILUs role as an international data center for atmospheric observations. NILU have strong ambitions to deliver open access to data and tailored services to support our users.You will contribute to further strengthen the Department for Atmospheric and Climate Research (ATMOS) project portfolio related to observation-based research on atm...
7 November 2022
As part of the AtmoTrace project, funded by Science Foundation Ireland, there are currently three PhD positions available at the Center for Research into Atmospheric Chemistry (University College Cork, Ireland, https://www.ucc.ie/en/crac/).The project is trying to develop cavity enhanced absorption instrumentation for several applications reaching from laboratory developments, via atmospheric chamber studies, to airborne field campaigns. More information on the corresponding positions and applic...
13 October 2022
ACTRIS RI announced its TransNational Access call. ATMO-ACCESS provides opportunities for accessing 52 of the most advanced operational European atmospheric research facilities in Europe.The Third Call for TransNational Access is currently ongoing. A full list can be found here.If you are interested to benefit from the instruments, data, or other advantages of the most advanced operational atmospheric research facilities in Europe, please submit your application before January 5, 2023.More infor...