NEON LTAR Workshop: Identifying Continent Scale Questions and Approaches for Advancing the Sustainable Intensification of US Agriculture

新的农业和野生/自然研究地点网络-包括国家生态观测站网络、长期农业生态系统网络和长期生态研究网络等-有可能为解决大规模问题提供最佳途径。 本次研讨会将汇集在这些网络中工作的研究人员，以确定了解跨尺度联系的机会和障碍，并探索网络内的站点如何更好地优化数据产品，测量和新的传感器技术，以解决新出现的国家级问题。 本次研讨会的结果对美国农业具有重要意义，因为美国农业面临着越来越大的压力，需要满足对食品和其他农产品的新需求，同时更好地保护自然资源和环境。 农业面临的这些挑战表现在农场和牧场的规模上，但个体农民和牧场主的个体决定的影响迅速扩大，产生区域性影响。 拟议的探索跨自然/野生和农业系统的交叉性，允许确定可持续的解决方案，传达全球利益。密歇根大学-凯洛格生物站资助实施一个研讨会，旨在确定如何通过利用国家生态观测网络（氖），长期农业生态系统研究网络（LTAR），长期生态研究网络（LTER）和其他美国农业和生态研究网站。 通过一系列便利的虚拟会议，讲习班与会者将讨论和确定：（a）重点技术工作组现在可以通过后续讲习班和数据分析开展的综合活动，以及（B）可以很快启动的优先衡量标准，以促进今后有机会解决以这些网络的数据为依据的重要的大陆规模问题，产生更广泛的社会效益，也就是说，农业的可持续集约化。 参与者将探索依赖于缩放（空间或时间）的科学问题，以及与网络节点之间的互操作性、数据协调、测量技术、培训和组织需求相关的问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

New networks of agricultural and wild/natural research sites – including the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), the Long-term Agroecosystem Network (LTAR), and the Long-term Ecological Research Network (LTER), among others – have the potential to inform best ways to approach large-scale problems. This workshop will bring together researchers working in these networks to identify opportunities and barriers for understanding linkages across scales, and to explore ways that sites within networks could better optimize data products, measurements, and new sensor technology to address emerging national-scale problems. The results of this workshop have implications for US agriculture as it faces increasing pressures to meet emerging demands for food and other agricultural products while better conserving natural resources and protecting the environment. These challenges, faced by agriculture, are expressed at the farm and ranch scale, but the effect of individual decisions by individual farmers and ranchers scale rapidly to create regional to national effects. The proposed exploration of intersectionality across natural/wild and agricultural systems allows for the identification of sustainable solutions that convey global benefits.The University of Michigan -Kellogg Biological Station is funded to implement a workshop intended to identify ways to advance continent-scale agricultural science by leveraging resources of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), the Long-term Agroecosystem Research Network (LTAR), the Long-term Ecological Research Network (LTER), and other U.S. agricultural and ecological research sites. Through a series of facilitated virtual meetings, workshop participants will discuss and identify a) synthesis activities that can be undertaken now by focused technical working groups via follow-on workshops and data analysis, and b) prioritized measurements that could be initiated soon in order to contribute to future opportunities for addressing important continental-scale questions informed by data from these networks, yielding broader societal benefits, i.e., the sustainable intensification of agriculture. Participants will explore scientific questions reliant on scaling (spatial or temporal), and questions related to interoperability among network nodes, data harmonization, measurement technologies, training, and organizational needs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.