LTER Portugal

• LTER Portugal website
• ILTER regional network: Europe

The Portuguese Ecological Society (SPECO) is developing the LTER Project in Portugal. The aim of this project is to select the Portuguese sites that will integrate the LTER network of European sites. The project will be developed in the scope of the Iberian Peninsula in close collaboration with the Spanish Association of Terrestrial Ecology. This project is supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology.

SPECO will implement the LTER sites at national level. These will later be part of an Iberian network according to a strategy that will be defined in close collaboration with the Spanish Association of Terrestrial Ecology (AEET).These sites will then integrate the European LTER network.

Since October 2003, SPECO has been developing initiatives to implement the LTER network in Portugal and starting contacts with Spain , in order to create synergies and to attend to complementarities among the sites that will integrate the future Iberian LTER network. In that same year, SPECO promoted a workshop on the importance of LTER sites and the implementation of the European LTER network.

The main objective of LTER Portugal Project is to select a network of sites where ecological research is practiced in a long-term perspective and their recognition as LTER sites in the Iberian Peninsula . This second phase will take place in close collaboration with Spain . The selected sites will integrate a wide network of European expression, the LTER-Europe network.

The implementation of the project will be developed in the following stages:

• Survey on the implementation of LTER at an international level, namely in Spain, establishing international contacts.
• Contacts with scientists that develop ecological research in Portugal and Spain (inquiries).
• Create a data base on the ecological research developed in Portugal : institutions, researchers, developed projects, geographical areas of intervention, main results and forecast of continuity
• Development of criteria to select the sites that will integrate the LTER network in Portugal
• Establishment of contacts with institutions and municipalities, for analysis of long term viability for research

For the development of this project, SPECO has the participation of its Board, some of their associates, and the support of the Foundation for Science and Technology through a grantee on Management of Science and Technology. The main objective of this grant is to promote the implementation of the national LTER as well as to give support to the management of this non governmental organization.