The LTER Network
The Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program is a national network of 24 field research sites with more than 1300 scientists collectively engaged and dedicated to multi- and interdisciplinary long-term research in environmental science. A Network Office facilitates LTER research by supporting and coordinating collaboration among sites. The LTER program is supported by multiple directorates of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The vision of the LTER Network is for a society in which exemplary science contributes to the advancement of the health, productivity, and welfare of the global environment that, in turn, advances the health, prosperity, welfare, and security of our nation.
The mission of the LTER Network is to provide the scientific community, policy makers, and society with the knowledge and predictive understanding necessary to conserve, protect, and manage the nation’s ecosystems, their biodiversity, and the services they provide.
· Understanding: To understand a diverse array of ecosystems at multiple spatial and temporal scales.
· Information: To inform the LTER and broader scientific community by creating well-designed and well-documented databases.
· Synthesis: To create general knowledge through long-term, interdisciplinary research, synthesis of information, and development of theory.
· Legacies: To create a legacy of well-designed and documented long-term observations, experiments, and archives of samples and specimens for future generations.
· Education: To promote training, teaching, and learning about long-term ecological research and the earth’s ecosystems, and to educate a new generation of scientists.
· Outreach: To reach out to the broader scientific community, natural resource managers, policymakers, and the general public by providing decision support, information, recommendations and the knowledge and capability to address complex environmental challenges.
LTER Coordinating Committee, September 19, 2003