Operations - Science - ILTER - International long term ecological research

Science

ILTER supports globally comparative and synthetic analyses over time and space in search of general ecological principles prevailing across biomes, environmental zones, ecosystem types and scales. It fosters long-term global-scale investigations of major ecosystems and socio-ecological systems to support knowledge-based decision making at various levels concerning ecosystem services and biodiversity.

ILTER Science Committee

The ILTER Science Committee comprises researchers from different disciplines, representing many different member networks. It defines the ILTER scientific agendas. Furthermore, the Science Committee develops the scientific programmes for ILTER events including the ILTER Open Science Meetings, whereby it invites keynote speakers (in cooperation with the ILTER Executive Committee) and evaluates abstracts received by prospective speakers. The Science Committee also helps evaluating proposals for ILTER Research Initiatives and provides advice regarding the ILTER educational activities.

Education

ILTER members collectively carry out a wide range of educational activities, in the field, laboratory and classroom. Their sites and the databases they develop create a number of unique educational opportunities for enhancing ecological and socio-ecological literacy. These unique aspects include:

The ability to monitor long-term patterns and phenomena
The ability to analyze and synthesize the data collected at different stations
The ability to undertake learning relating to large-scale processes typical of most of the systems on Earth
The accumulation of data from different systems and over time by different educational communities enables the development of unique mutual relationships.
The potential for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary generalization is more similar to the context of problem solving in the real world.