Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. 1999. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc. 462 p.
The U.S. LTER Network is a collaborative ecological research effort that promotes synthesis and comparative research across disparate ecosystems and ecological research programs. The Network provides an important addition to the information, infrastructure, and culture underlying environmental science in the United States. From an initial six sites selected in 1980, the Network has grown to twenty-one sites, ranging from arctic tundra to hot desert, from tropical rainforest to suburban watersheds, and it represents the joint efforts of more than 1000 scientists. This community is performing research that will carry into the future a legacy of well-designed, long-term experiments and data sets that should provide unprecedented opportunities for the evaluation and synthesis of important ecological questions.
The value of community effort is demonstrated in many ways as individual scientists realize results, through collaborations, that are not possible via traditional, individually based research programs. However, effective collaborations do not occur without strong commitments to cooperation and consensus decisions, and the development of standard methods, the endeavor of this volume, is a good example of the effort required for significant long-term payoff.
The LTER Network is proud of this second volume in the LTER Series. We anticipate many additional volumes that will contribute to our long-term understanding of important ecological questions and that will promote the synthesis of knowledge from many sites.