Promoting LTER in the East Asia-Pacific Region

International Workshop

The East Asia – Pacific LTER Network

Friday Afternoon

September 19, 2003

Renaissance Madison Hotel (State Room)

Seattle, Washington, USA

Table of Contents

Agenda

Introduction

Promoting LTER in East Asia-Pacific Region/Hen-biau King

Abstracts

CERN: Annual Progress Report of CERN/OUYANG Zhu and ZHAO Shidong

JERN & JaLTER: Networking Japanese Long-Term Research Sites/Kohsuke Homma, Naoko Tokuchi and Hideaki Shibata

K-LTER Network: Activities in Korean LTER Sites/Joon Hwan Shin, Jong-hwan Lim, Jeong Soo Oh¹, Dowon Lee, Do-Soon Cho, Byung-Sun Ihm⁴ and Eun-Shik Kim

M-LTER Network: Hovsgol LTER/J. Tsogtbaatar and Clyde Goulden

Philippines LTER Network: Accomplishments for the last 3 years of Mindanao Long Term Ecological and Biodiversity Research: Status and Conservation Initiatives/Victor B. Amoroso

TERN: Recent activities in Taiwan LTER sites/Yau-Lun Kuo

Thailand LTER Network: Long Term Ecological Research in Thailand/ Yongyut Trisurat

Australia LTER Network:

Vietnam: Nguyen Hoang Nghia

Special Reports

Pacific Rim Application and Grid Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA)/ Peter Arzberger and Philip Papadopoulos

The VIII Seoul INTECOL International Congress of Ecology and Subsequent Progresses in LTER and the National Basic Ecological Research in Korea/ Eun-Shik Kim, Byung-Sun Ihm, Dowon Lee, Yowhan Son, and Sun-Kee Hong

Abstracts for Submitted Posters

Study canopy arthropod responses to storm disturbances at the U.S. and Taiwan LTER sites/Jung-Tai Chao

Database Management System for LTER Sites in Taiwan/Chaur-Tzuhn Chen

Relationships between nutrient content of dominant tree species and environmental factors in Nanjenshan subtropical rain forest of Taiwan/Zueng-Sang Chen, Cha-Chee Wu, Chun-Chih Tsui, and Chang-Fu Hseih

Web Services for Computational EcologyTony Fountain and Longjiang Ding

Soil macro-fauna increases mite density in a subtropical lowland rain forest of Taiwan/Ping-Chun Lucy Hou and Ching-Yu Huang

Experimental assessment of toads as predators of detrial food webs in a subtropical monsoon forest, Taiwan/Ping-Chun Lucy Hou, Ching-Yu Huang, Jao-Jinn Jong, and Hsin-Lin Wei

25-ha Forest Dynamics Plot in Fushan LTER Site/Hsieh Chang-Fu and Wen-Liang Chiou

Growth Strategies of Four salt marsh plants on Mankyung Estuary, Korea/Byung-Sun, Ihm and Jeom-Sook, Lee

Parameterizing threshold values when leaf area indices are estimated from hemispheric digital images/Kyounghee Kim, Taehee Hwang, Jiyeon Kim, and Dowon Lee

Impact of frugivores on plant regeneration and forest structure/Ling-ling Lee

Long-term ecological research on the coral reefs at Kenting National Park/Kwang-Tsao Shao and Hsing-Juh Lin

Agenda

Organizers: Hen-biau King and Eun-Shik Kim

Title: International Workshop on Promoting LTER in the East Asia-Pacific Region

Keywords: International networks, East Asia-Pacific region, LTER

1:30 - 1:40 Welcome and Introduction

1:40 - 3:10 Country Site Reports (10 8-min presentations, total 8 formally established Networks: Chair (Hen-biau King), Australia, China, China-Taipei, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand LTER sites, and 1 LTER Network is coming: Vietnam LTER site)

3:10 - 4:00 Cross Country Collaboration Examples (Case Studies): 6-min each

Peter Arzberger

David Coleman

Alan Covich

Steve Hamberg

Eun-Shik Kim

Hen-biau King

Frances Li

Pang-Fang Lin

Others

4:00 - 4:25 Discussion

4:25 - 4:30 Conclusions

4: 30 - 5:00 Break

5:00 – 6:00 Business Meeting & Social Gathering

Promoting LTER in East Asia-Pacific Region

Hen-biau King

Chair, The East Asia-Pacific Regional LTER Network

Recent demographic, political, economic, and environmental trends in Asia make clear the need for LTER and related studies in the region. The East Asia-Pacific (EAP) LTER network was then formally established in 1995. This network encompasses a diverse range of ecosystems, from larch forests to mangrove estuaries.

Under the ILTER framework, two members have officially established the LTER sites in the region since the last ILTER ASM in August 2000. These are Korea LTER Network with 4 sites and Mongolia LTER Network with 2 sites. There are additional countries, including Thailand and Vietnam, that are interested in and towards establishing LTER Networks. Since last ILTER ASM was held, Korea has held an International LTER Joint Seminar with CERN in November 20-25, 2000. Mongolia LTER Network hosted the biannual 2001 LTER Conference for the region and concurrently hosted a Data Management Training Workshop. Thailand hosted a Regional Conference on LTER in East Asia on July 2002. That conference gave birth to the Thailand LTER Network. Korea LTER Network, led by Eun-Shik Kim, organized an LTER Symposium during the VIII International Congress of Ecology ( INTECOL) on August 13, 2002.

There is a cross regional site comparison study currently undergoing entitled “organic matter decomposition experiment (OMDE),” which involves 10 sites ranging from Lake Hosgvol site in Mongolia to semidry ecosystems in Australia. An OMDE workshop, jointly sponsored by the ILTER Network Office and local host TERN Network, was held at the Fu-shan TERN site in November, 2001 to discuss the research on decomposition and protocols for conducting this ambitious broad spatial scale collaborative study. The organic matter decomposition experiment is planned to be carried out as a five-year study.

This workshop of promoting LTER in the East Asia-Pacific region will begin with a review of past and current LTER studies within the region and then focus on promoting more collaborative projects within the region and beyond. Emphasis will be placed on the design of and effectively conducting regional ecological studies. A discussion of future proposed regional activities, funding sources, and priorities for the EAP will be held.

Recent activities in Taiwan Ecological Research Network

Yau-Lun Kuo

Department of Forestry, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung

The Taiwan Long Term Ecological Research Network (TERN) was established in 1992 with main sponsorship from Taiwan National Science Council (NSC). A research site was set up at Fu-shan Forest. As the program met with great enthusiasm from ecologists in Taiwan, the NSC subsequently extended the TERN program to another three forest sites, namely Guan-dau-shi Forest (1994), Nan-jen-shan Forest (1995), and Ta-ta-chia Forest (1996). In addition to those NSC funded sites, the Yuan-yang Lake site was established in 1992, which was sponsored by the Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica of Taiwan. In 2001, the first LTER project in Taiwan focusing on a marine ecosystem was launched at Kenting. This new project consisted of studies covering temporal and spatial variations in hydrography, nutrients, zooplankton, coral, decapod crustaceans, algae, periphyton, and larval and adult fishes. Currently more than 20 scientists from 7 universities are working on this project. In 2002 and 2003, TERN and National Center for High-Performance Computing had successfully established ecology-grid systems at Fu-shan and at Nan-jen-shan sites. Adopting wireless communication technology, high-resolution cameras had been installed at both sites to collect real-time ecological data, such that the eco-grid system can carry out long-term ecological research without making difficult journeys to research sites. Two cross regional site comparison studies are currently undergoing, entitled “organic matter decomposition experiment”, coordinated by Dr. K.C. Lin, and “canopy arthropod responses to storm disturbances”, coordinated by Dr. J.T. Chao. Another significant achievement of TERN was setting up a 25-ha forest dynamics plot in Fu-shan Forest by Prof. C.F. Hsieh. Plot survey was initiated in July 2002 and completed in June 2003. A preliminary inventory enumerated at least 261 species consisting of 75 tree species, 37 shrubs, 30 climbers and 119 herbs. Presently we are promoting an agricultural LTER program emphasizing on the relationship among soil ecology, crop production, and environmental impacts.

JERN & JaLTER

- Networking Japanese Long-Term Research Sites-

Kohsuke Homma (Field Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Niigata University), Naoko Tokuchi (Field Science Education and Research Center, Kyoto University) and Hideaki Shibata (Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University)

Long-term researches in Japan have been conducted by many researchers from all aspects of ecology in these 15 years. A lot of long-term studies have been made on forest ecology, limnology and hydrology, and some cross-site studies have also been made (Homma et al. 1999, Shibata et al 2001, Nakashizuka et al. 2002 etc.). However, most study sites in Japan have been maintained by a few researchers individually and networks among sites are very weak, though the number of study sites is more than 200.

In 1997, some scientists launched a technical committee for LTER in the Ecological Society of Japan (ESJ) and started to examine domestic LTER network. In 1997 and 1999, young scientists were dispatched to US-LTER sites to study LTER systems. After that, moved by the efficient system of US, the young scientists published reports on some journals (Homma 2001, Tanaka 2001 etc.) and hold some symposia in the annual meeting of ESJ and Japanese Forestry Society (JFS) to spread the LTER recognition. As a consequence of those movements, Japan Ecosystem Research Network (JERN) was founded in June 2003, and the program ‘JaLTER’ started for promoting Japanese LTER network.

JaLTER is going to launch the inter-site networks with a virtual network office till the end of 2004. At first, JaLTER networks 5 to 10 university forests and governmental forest reserves as a ‘core research site network’, and will connect other research sites successively for inter-site studies. Study sites for limnology and marine biology are going to be networked later.

Core research subjects of JaLTER are; 1) plant community dynamics, 2) matter flow, 3) microclimate, 4) hydrological dynamics, 5) plant-animal interaction, 6) informatics, 7) inventories of biodiversity and 8) educations. Every core research theme is planned considering inter-site studies and international networking in Asia-Pacific region.

Activities in Korean LTER Sites

Joon Hwan Shin¹, Jong-hwan Lim¹, Jeong Soo Oh¹, Dowon Lee², Do-Soon Cho³, Byung-Sun Ihm⁴, and Eun-Shik Kim⁵

¹Department of Forest Environment, Korea Forest Research Institute; ²Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University; ³School of Life Sciences, The Catholic University of Korea; ⁴Department of Biology, Mokpo National University ; ⁵Department of Forest Resources, Kookmin University

Currently, three sites have been registered in ILTER, and an additional one is in the process of registration. Korea Forest Research Institute (KFRI) is in charge of all the sites. The Gwangneung Experiment Forest (GEF) represents the oldest natural forest in the central sub-zone of the cool temperate forest zone. Mt. Gyebangsan forest (GBF) is located in the northern sub-zone of cool temperate forest zone. Mt. Geumsan forest (GSF) is in warm temperate forest zone. A new LTER site, Samcheok site (SCF) is located in the east coastal region of cool temperate forest zone. Permanent plots of about 4,000 ha were designed considering fire pattern, forest ownership, geology, etc. in a forest area burned in 2000. Major research programs in the Korean LTER sites are those of ecosystem studies including monitoring the change of the forest ecosystems in energy fluxes, water and nutrient cycling, forest stand structure, biological diversity, quantifying nutrient budgets and fluxes among forest ecosystem compartments, and integrating ecological data with GIS-assisted model. At a flux tower in GEF, environmental changes including fluxes of energy, carbon dioxide, water vapor pressure and soil heat are monitored. This site was registered as a KoFlux site in 2002, and we are pursuing synergy effects of the two ecological study networks in this site. Other activities and data including soil properties, stream water quality, nutrient cycling, air pollution, and biological diversity have been investigated and plant phenology as an indicator of climate change is presented. At the SCF site, some researches are additionally conducting following researches such as; fire damages, firebreaks, forest stand density control to increase tolerance to fire, etc.

KFRI is considering the establishment of the fifth LTER site in Jeju-do island that is located at the southernmost of the Korean peninsula. The Ecological Society of Korea will launch four additional LTER programs at the Nakdong River, salt marsh of southwestern coast, and Mt. Jumbong forest, and for Korean species of magpie in September 2003 with financial support from the Ministry of Environment, Korea. There are also other long-term ecological studies at individual sites with no official support of finance.

Remarks: We have modified the old site names of Kwangneung, Kyebangsan, and Keumsan, as new site names of Gwangneung, Gyebangsan and Geumsan, respectively.

Mindanao Long Term Ecological and Biodiversity Research: Status and Conservation Initiatives

Victor B. Amoroso

Central Mindanao University, Musuan, Bukidnon, Philippines

This paper presents the Long Term Ecological and Biodiversity Research in Mindanao Island, Philippines. It highlights the issues and threats to Mindanao biodiversity and ecology and LTER conservation measures and initiatives. It would further discuss the LTER initiatives, viz., Mindanao LTER and Biodiversity Research Consortium, Mt. Musuan Zoological and Botanical Garden, two 1-ha plots, capability building for natural resource management, training of indigenous peoples as research partners, production of instructional and communication materials and establishment of the Natural Science Museum in two institutions in Mindanao.

LONG-TERM ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN THAILAND

Yongyut Trisurat

Faculty of Forestry, Kasestsart University, Bangkok

The Kingdom of Thailand is situated within two major biogeographical regions, the Indochinese region in the North and the Sundaic region in the south. In addition, some elements of Thailand’s flora and fauna are also influenced by biogeographical characteristics of the Indian and Palaeoarctic regions. Therefore, the Kingdom is one of the rich countries in biological resources in this region. However, with the rapid industrialization and economic development in the last three decades, the natural resources have been over exploited. Forest cover was declined from 53% in 1961 to 25% in 1998. The degradation of natural resources poses major challenges to decision making regarding sustainable utilization of natural resources. In order to solve this problem in smarter way, Thailand has launched the first long-term ecological research (LTER) in 1963 for forest hydrology research. Basically the main objectives of LTER in Thailand is to inventory precise baseline information on biodiversity, to monitor ecosystem function, and to study forest community ecology and population dynamic, in addition to conserve the genetic resources of various forest ecosystems for on going and future studies/uses. Nowadays, there are a number of institute implement LTER and collaborative among these agencies are initiated. The objectives of this paper are to present the progress of LTER in Thailand, to assess the needs of Thai’s scientists in LTER, and to present draft strategies to promote LTER in Thailand.

Pacific Rim Application and Grid Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA)

Peter Arzberger and Philip Papadopoulos

The Pacific Rim Application and Grid Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA) was initiated in 2002 involving more than a dozen institutions along the Pacific Rim, with a dual mission to build sustainable collaborations and to advance the use of grid technologies via applications. Activities include conducting joint projects that develop grid software driven by application needs, sharing resources across institutional and international boundaries, developing training and exchange programs, and communicating and disseminating the results of these efforts. PRAGMA works with regional and international bodies that set standards (such as the Global Grid Forum (GGF)) and enhance the overall infrastructure such as Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN), the Asia Pacific Grid (ApGrid)). We will review the trends that led to PRAGMA and outline some future directions. In particular we will focus on activities in the area of eco-informatics, where we are developing a testbed of climate data, working with colleagues in Japan and China and with ILTER sites in Taiwan.

The VIII Seoul INTECOL International Congress of Ecology and Subsequent Progresses in LTER and the National Basic Ecological Research in Korea

¹Eun-Shik Kim, ²Byung-Sun Ihm, ³Dowon Lee, ⁴Yowhan Son, and ³Sun-Kee Hong

¹Kookmin University, ²Mokpo National University; ³Seoul National University; ⁴Korea University

The VIII INTECOL International Congress of Ecology was held during the period of August 11-18, 2002, in Seoul, Korea. This paper was prepared to report the outcomes of the INTECOL Congress, a world academic festival for the scientists in ecology and environment and the subsequent progresses in LTER and the National Basic Ecological Research in Korea. While the Congress provided the ecologists with opportunities for establishing and enhancing the foundation for the development of ecological research in the world, it contributed in promoting interdisciplinary research, technology transfer, and public awareness related to the general theme of the Congress, ‘Ecology in a Changing World.’ During the Congress, 1,965 international ecologists from 57 countries registered, more than 2,000 Korean people including general public attended, and 1,267 papers in oral and poster were presented. Among the 23 plenary speakers, Hen-biau King, the Vice Chair of the ILTER Network, gave a plenary lecture to the Congress participants. At the Closing Ceremony, “World Ecologists' Declaration for the Harmonious Living of Human Beings and Biosphere in the 21st Century” was announced and the congress participants unanimously urged the world community to enhance such research as LTER for the next generations to come. In addition, the East Asian Federation of Ecological Societies (EAFES) was formulated with initial endeavors among the national ecological societies of China, Japan, and Korea. As the fruit of the Congress, another Korea LTER program, the National Basic Ecological Research, was officially initiated with the sponsorship from the Ministry of Environment, Korea. Ecologists in Korea are facing with challenges for the promotion of ecology in a changing world.

Study canopy arthropod responses to storm disturbances at the U.S. and Taiwan LTER sites

Dr. Jung-Tai Chao

Division of Forest Protection, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, Taipei

The current study attempts to compare arthropod fauna among Taiwan, Puerto Rico, and Oregon, and provides data on recovery rates of arthropod communities under contrasting disturbance frequencies. We expect to find distinct arthropod assemblages among different host plant species and disturbance levels. Besides, early successional stage at each site could show an arthropod dominance hierarchy that is distinct from that of late successional stage at each site, e.g., dominance by sap-sucking arthropods on early successional stage vs. dominance by folivores on late successional stage. Collected insects belong to order Thysanura, Collembola, Orthoptera, Thysanoptera, Dermoptera, Hemiptera, Neuroptera, Hymenoptera, Homoptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, and Diptera. Homoptera is the highest in species richness and abundance. About 60 % of total specimens were Homoptera. This result indicates that canopy of Fushan forest should have been disturbed. In litter layers, mites and springtails were dominant in arthropod fauna, and make up 60.5 % and 34.9 % of total collections, respectively.

Database Management System for LTER Sites in Taiwan

Chaur-Tzuhn Chen

Department of Forestry, National Ping-tung University of Science and Technology, Ping-tung

The focus of remote sensing and GIS activities within LTER is for data acquisition and encouraging cross-site, large-scale collaborations. More important is the aim to link technically oriented scientists specializing in these data with other ecological researchers. Our ongoing three-year study was conducted to establish a landscape database and land-use change for Taiwan’s ecosystems, and use GIS as a tool to develop an Ecological Database Management System. During the first year of the project, the structure of the Management System was developed. Selected environment factors, such as elevation, slope, aspect, moisture gradient, and potential solar radiation were digitized using a Digital Elevation Model. The network database for 4 experimental sites (Fu-shan, Guan-dau-shi, Ta-ta-chia and Nanjenshan) was established for the Taiwan Long-Term Ecological Research Network Information System (Taiwan LTER NIS; URL:http://lter.npust.edu.tw/). This has resulted in a cooperative database system for communication and data sharing among sites. By collecting data set documentation forms from other international research networks, dividing the ecological data into spatial and non-spatial types, we established the preliminary explanatory comment format. We also held cross-site conferences with research scientists to identify variables of scientific interest.

In the future, this program will continue to grow to include internet infrastructure, geographic spatial information and a relational database approach to maintain and develop the Taiwan LTER NIS. We will use questionnaires and organize workshops in our approach to establish intercomparable data for storage and access from a central location. We also will use existing data to filter and retrieve the data for various scientific communities. During the third year, we will begin to interpret the information to apply our ecological data to broader communities. The development of Taiwan LTER NIS can achieve the goals of communications and data sharing among research sites and will incorporate the growing availability of internet tools. This project has had a significant role in catalyzing the vision of an expanded, more integrated network-level information system, and the process of providing information and knowledge within our immediate scientific community and to the broader community is an important aspect of Taiwan’s LTER and the regional LTER program development.

Relationships between nutrient content of dominant tree species and environmental factors in Nanjenshan subtropical rain forest of Taiwan

Zueng-Sang Chen, Cha-Chee Wu, Chun-Chih Tsui, and Chang-Fu Hseih

About one hectare of permanent long landscape site located in the northeastern of Nanjenshan long-term ecology research (LTER) site has been established since 1994 and the detail soil characteristics and vegetation species are also surveyed. The vegetation types of the site were divided into three groups and the landscape was divided into four positions including summit, upper backslope, lower backslope, and footslope. The objectives of this study is to establish the relations between nutrient concentration (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn) of leaves and perennial parts of 20 dominant tree species and environmental factors (landscape position and soil properties) by redundancy analysis. The results indicated that the concentration of the macroelement including N, P, K, Ca, and Mg are significantly accumulated in the leaves of dominant tree species growing in the footslope position (p< 0.05), but the concentration of Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn of leaves are not significantly different for vegetations located in different landscapes. The first axis of Redundancy analysis (RDA) biplots can explain 56% of total variants and the first two axes of RDA can explain 85% of total variants. It indicated that environmental factors including topographic variables and soil properties could control the distribution and variation of elements in the vegetation. The nutrient concentration in leaves of vegetations are significantly affected by the environmental factors including landscape position, elevation, slope and the available content of N, P, K in surface 5cm soil, but the nutrient concentration of perennial parts of vegetations are not significantly affected by the environmental factors. This research indicated that the nutrient concentration of dominant tree species were interactively affected by species characteristics and the environmental factors including landscape position, vegetation species and soil properties.

Web Services for Computational Ecology

Tony Fountain and Longjiang Ding

The maturation of web services technology has provided new opportunities for building information management and analysis infrastructure and tools for ecologists.  We have explored the web services technology through the I2G (International Information Grid for Ecology and the Environment) project which demonstrates a web services prototype for federating LTER Network climate data collections and PRAGMA international partner weather data collections.
The developed services are standard SOAP-based message type services and relay on an open source software stack including Apache Tomcat and AXIS. They are integrated with EML and wrapped in a simple application portal that provides a testbed for exploring a variety of issues in web service development and deployment.  In addition to these development activities we have initiated a technology transfer initiative to move these developments out to the LTER Network sites and PRAGMA partners.  The I2G project originally focused on ClimDB and came out of the discussions with LTER Information Managers Executive on Feb. 2002. Climate data was one of the two key types of data to be collected by all LTER Network sites. In this presentation we will review the issues encountered during this project, both system development and technology transfer, and highlight future directions and opportunities.