Region: North America

The North American Regional
Long Term Ecological Research Network

James R. Gosz
Chair, International LTER Coordinating Committee

A further development in ILTER has been the formation of Regional LTER Networks that can focus on environmental issues common to neighboring countries, facilitate exchanges of scientists/students, and study scales of research appropriate to the region.  The North American Region consists of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, three countries accounting for a very large land mass and a tremendous range of environmental conditions.  Some of the most pristine habitats in the world exist on this continent as well as some of the most significantly altered environments through human occupation and use.  The habitats cover most of the biomes of the world ranging from extreme desert to tropical forest, sea level to mountain environments over 4000 m, and many levels of human occupation, land use, resource management and anthropogenic effects.  Fortunately there are current and potential long-term research sites in Canada, Mexico and the United States that are located in many of these situations and can provide the important studies needed to evaluate the complexity and dynamic nature of these ecosystems. 

The LTER Network in the United States started in 1980 and the Network for Canada was formed in 1994 through the involvement of the Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN).  Mexico is actively pursuing the development of a formal LTER Network (MEXLTER) by developing an agreement with the National Council of Science and Technology.   EMAN is a network of people working at long-term, multidisciplinary research and monitoring sites located over all of Canada with the objective of understanding which changes are occurring in the ecosystems and why.  The fundamental philosophy of MEXLTER is to address ecological research at large temporal and spatial scales in a fashion that has not been generally practiced in Mexico and create a legacy of well-designed and documented experiments and observations for future generations.  The U.S. Network also has the philosophy of understanding general ecological phenomena at longer temporal and larger spatial scales, creating a legacy of experiments and observations, conducting major synthetic and theoretical efforts, and providing information for the identification and solution of societal problems.

   In November 1998, at a meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico, the principals from the LTER efforts in the three countries agreed to form the North American LTER Regional Network. The first formal meeting of the North American Region occurred in August 1999 as a Special Session during the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America.  This Special Session at ESA was designed to identify research programs in the countries, characteristics of sites involved in the networks, and, most importantly, the regional scale questions that could be addressed through this network.  Holding this meeting in conjunction with the annual ESA meeting was intended to open the process to discussion by the broader ecological community as well as identifying the research opportunities present in these sites and countries. 

   The Special Session program is recorded here for future reference.

James Gosz,  “Introduction, ILTER overview and Regional LTER Network activities”

Gerardo Ceballos,  “The Mexican Long-term ecological reserve network proposal”

Hague Vaughan, “The Canadian Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN): Its Evolution, Design and Policy Linkages”

Mark Harmon,  “Crossing Borders: Continental-Scale Patterns of Decomposition”

David Lightfoot,  “A Cross-site Experiment on faunal community control of vegetation at U.S. LTER sites (Sevilleta, Jornada) and Mapimi Biosphere Reserve (Mexico) “

K.E. Webster, P.A. Soranno, S.B. Baines, C.J. Bowser, T.K. Kratz, J.J.Magnuson, P.J. Dillon, P. Campbell, E.J. Fee, and R.E. Hecky, “Structuring Features of Lake Districts in Wisconsin and Ontario:  Geomorphic and Landscape Controls on Lake Responses to Drought”

Jim Vose,  “Comparative Analyses of Hydrologic Processes in Watersheds in Western Mexico and the Southeastern United States”

David Foster, Diego Perez Salicrup, and Deborah Lawrence, “Regional Analysis of Forest Ecosystem Response to Disturbance: Comparing Temperate and Tropical Landscapes” 

Manuel Maass,  “ Long-term nutrient cycling in a dry forest of western Mexico”

Enrique Jardel,  “ Long term research on human impacts in subtropical montane forests”

Rodrigo Medellin,  “Long-term ecological research in the tropical rain forest of the Chajul Biological station, Chiapas”

Lucina Hernandez and Miguel Equihua,  “Long-term ecological studies in desert habitats of the Mapimi biosphere reserve, Durango”

Cliff Drysdale, “Kejimkujik National Park, Nova Scotia: An EMAN case study site”

Adam Fenech, “Linking EMAN case study sites and dispersed networks to provide an early warning capability”

Brian Craig, “Public Participation in EMAN: Using volunteers and linking with associated programs such as the UNESCO MAB”

   A second session, limited to LTER scientists from the three countries, was held to propose future actions.  Key discussions centered on developing a strategy for implementing cross-site research in North America and the relative roles of case study sites and dispersed networks to develop a coordinated approach to environmental monitoring and assessment.  There was agreement to participate in a number of “demonstration projects” initiated by the Global Terrestrial Observation System (GTOS) and DIVERSITAS.  Primary interest was expressed for involvement in the Net Primary Productivity project involving validation of MODIS imagery, a North American decomposition and soil biodiversity experiment, validation of imagery for forest and other land cover in the Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC), and the Terrestrial Carbon Observation (TCO) initiative.  There also was special interest in “Developing the International Aspects of a North American Graduate Training Program” and areas of special need for collaboration and training in Mexico.  Those efforts were developed further during 2000.

   The second meeting of the North American Regional LTER Network was to be held in conjunction with the annual ILTER Network meeting in Utah, U.S. in 2000.  In 2002, the ILTER Network meeting is planned for Whitehorse, Canada, which will provide an excellent opportunity for Mexican and American scientists to visit Canadian sites.