Workshop-NEON: Synergies Between NEON and LTER; Estes Park, CO; August 31 -Sept. 2, 2015; and Millbrook, NY -Remainder of 2015 and Early - 2016

长期数据为重要的生态问题提供了一些最可信的答案。包括人类在内的生物体对环境变化的直接反应往往是短暂的，不能提供更持久变化的准确图景。该项目将举办一系列研讨会，以检验通过不同项目在不同地点收集的长期数据能否很好地整合起来，以确定生物如何在更长的时间内对环境变化作出反应。其中许多反应具有社会重要性；例子包括对长期营养添加的反应，入侵物种造成的破坏，以及新疾病或病媒的出现。讲习班将邀请早期职业研究人员参加，为他们提供分析和解释长期数据的培训。一个由生态学和生态系统科学领域的主要研究人员组成的工作组将探索国家生态观测站网络（NEON）和长期生态研究网络（LTER）之间的协同作用，NEON是美国国家科学基金会（nsf）的一项新投资，LTER是一个已经存在了30多年的项目。NEON是一个大陆尺度的观测设施，用于记录生态随时间的变化，而LTER项目由长期的问题驱动的研究项目组成，旨在了解广泛生态系统中的生态过程。一个突出的问题是，这两项投资的数据将在多大程度上相互补充。在连续的两个研讨会中，将讨论四个主题：1)LTER数据和见解如何为NEON站点提供景观和区域尺度的生态背景；2) NEON收集的数据是否可以为所有LTER项目实施的五个核心研究领域提供信息；3)作为LTER研究基础的概念模型能否为NEON站点的数据收集提供信息？ 4)LTER和NEON数据的联合分析是否比单独从任何一个数据源获得的数据更能改善对未来生态轨迹的预测？在凯里研究所举办的两次讲习班将分别有两个小组参加；这些基团之间会发生一些重叠和交换。这种结构允许有效地探索所有四个主题。这些研讨会的成果将包括一系列的论文以及协议、概念模型和预测平台，这些将促进这两个主要的长期研究平台在未来几十年里的有效互动。

Long-term data provide some of the most trust-worthy answers to important ecological questions. The immediate responses that organisms, including humans, make to an environmental change are often short-lived and do not provide accurate pictures of more permanent shifts. This project will conduct a series of workshops to examine how well long-term data collected through different projects, and at different locations, can be integrated to determine how organisms respond, over longer periods, to environmental change. Many of these responses are of societal importance; examples include responses to long-term nutrient additions, disruptions caused by invasive species, and the appearance of new diseases or disease vectors. The workshops will engage early-career researchers, providing them training in the analysis and interpretation of long-term data. A working group composed of leading researchers in ecology and ecosystem science will explore synergies between the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), a new NSF-investment, and the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, a program that has been in place for over 30 years. NEON is a continental-scale observation facility for documenting ecological change over time while the LTER program consists of long-term question-driven research projects aimed at understanding ecological processes in a wide range of ecosystems. An outstanding question is the extent to which data from these two investments will be complementary. Four topics will be addressed in a sequence of two workshops: 1) how can LTER data and insights provide landscape and regional scale ecological context for NEON sites; 2) can data collected by NEON inform the five core research areas implemented by all LTER projects; 3) can the conceptual models that underlie LTER research inform data collection at NEON sites and 4) does combined analysis of LTER and NEON data improve predictions of future ecological trajectories over those obtained from either data source alone? Two workshops held at the Cary Institute will each engage two groups; some overlap and interchange will occur between these groups. This structure allows efficient exploration of all four themes. Products from these workshops will include a series of papers as well as protocols, conceptual models and prediction platforms that will facilitate productive interactions between these two, major long-term research platforms over the coming decades.