News
13 February 2023
Ninety researchers from 26 countries, part of the eLTER PPP and eLTER PLUS projects, gathered in Mallorca from 16 to 20 May 2022 for the first ever consortia physical meeting. This was a great opportunity to capture the spirit of the projects, so a professional team was hired to shoot 23 videos which we present to you now. They are grouped into three categories: - eLTER Stakeholders Information: The videos here aim to provide comprehensive and tailored information to the four main Stakehold...
13 February 2023
Berchtesgaden National Park is Germany's only national park in the Alps. It offers unique opportunities for research on mountain landscapes and their natural dynamics. Particularly relevant research topics include species conservation, ecosystem dynamics, long-term ecological monitoring across trophic levels, and learning from protected areas for ecosystem management. Research and monitoring in Berchtesgaden National Park is led by Prof. Rupert Seidl, Chair of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Manag...
7 February 2023
The cross-border project SIMILE (Italian acronym for “System for the Integrated Monitoring of Insubric Lakes and their Ecosystems”) financed within the Interreg Italy-Switzerland Cooperation Programme 2014-2020, is coming to an end. SIMILE focused on three subalpine lakes, two of which, Maggiore and Como, belonging to the LTER Italy network.The project’s general objectives were the improvement of lake monitoring and the strengthening of the coordinated management of water through an intensificat...
6 February 2023
The LTSER Sabor site in the Northeast of Portugal has been participating in the LIFEPLAN project for the last two years. LIFEPLAN is coordinated by Helsinki University, with several partners across the world aiming to assess the global diversity of a wide diversity of terrestrial taxa, including birds, mammals, insects, plants, and fungi.Using the most recent advances in sampling methods, as well as in molecular, bioinformatic, bioacoustics and statistical analysis, the project aims to set the s...
6 February 2023
Atmospheric pollution is associated with demonstrated health and climate issues. Our understanding of the sources and transformation processes are confronted with the chemical complexity of the particulate phase, and more particularly of its organic fraction. The metrological limits of the instruments commonly used in the various observatories therefore deprive us of a complete vision of the mechanisms involved.Indeed, it has been recently underlined that in Paris, for instance, around 80% of or...
6 February 2023
The ESA EarthCARE Team is looking for a young graduate trainee to undertake an investigation into the EarthCARE mission. EarthCARE’s objective is to investigate the interaction between clouds, aerosols and radiation, providing global profiles of clouds, aerosols and precipitation along with co-located radiative flux measurements. The data will be used to evaluate the representation of these constituents in weather forecasting and climate models. The payload consists of the ATmospheric LIDar...
3 February 2023
The Riserva Naturale Montagna di Torricchio is a protected area in the Central Apennines, Italy. During a recent survey of the reserve's insect biodiversity, directed by Dr. Federico Landi, a new species of beetle was found.As reported by Magrini (2021), Duvalius landii is a medium to large species of beetle that lacks eyes and pigmentation. It belongs to the straneoi group, cirocchii subgroup (sensu Magrini 2017).ReferencesMagrini P., 2017 - Revisione dei Duvalius Delarouzée, 1859 dei Gruppi be...
2 February 2023
The Karst Research Institute at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) is the leading partner of the LTER Slovenia consortium which belongs to eLTER. Within the consortium, multidisciplinary research focuses on karst areas, regions characterized by water-soluble rocks, which results in the absence of water at the surface, as water flows mainly underground through fractures.On the surface, the most characteristic karst landforms are karst plateaus and various...
1 February 2023
The permanent position of scientist at INRAE in soil sciences (erosion and effect of plant cover), at the LISAH lab is now open to competition, with the following schedule.Candidates must have a PhD or equivalent. In-depth skills in soil science and, ideally, in soil physics are highly recommended. Knowledge in modelling would be particularly appreciated. Basic knowledge of functional ecology would be a plus. Good interpersonal skills and openness to multidisciplinary are essential.Candidates sh...
1 February 2023
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, is looking for a PostDoc (2 years) or PhD student (3 years) in ground-based remote sensing of low-level clouds and fog in the context of the European Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS) project. The successful candidate will work with state-of-the-art ground-based remote sensing instrumentation and collaborate locally and in the wider ACTRIS network. Learn more and apply here.
29 October 2020
The two EU projects eLTER PPP and eLTER PLUS already had to hold their kick-off meeting in virtual form during the first wave of the COVID- 19 pandemic in March 2020. While eLTER PLUS collects and analyses the requirements of a wide range of eLTER actors and users (politics, science, peer organisations, etc.), eLTER PPP forges the eLTER RI design accordingly and negotiates with future donors in around 20 countries. The large consortia of the two projects are made up of experts from different fie...
1 October 2020
While eLTER PLUS collects and analyses requirements from a wide range of eLTER stakeholder and users (policy, science, peer organizations etc.), the eLTER PPP forges the eLTER RI design accordingly and negotiates with future funders in about 20 countries.
Therefore, it is crucial that the teams in both projects work in full awareness of related activities within and across the two projects. In comparison to usual project working styles, this implies a vivid working culture, effectiv...
15 September 2020
Using eLTER long-term site data, a recently published article by Veronika Fontana et al. investigates beta biodiversity patterns in pastured grasslands in the European Alps. The article is published in the Scientific Reports open-access journal and is titled “Species richness and beta diversity patterns of multiple taxa along an elevational gradient in pastured grasslands in the European Alps”.
The study investigates in parallel species richness and beta diversity components of nine taxo...
22 July 2020
Using eLTER site data, a recently published article by Francesca Pilotto et al. investigates biodiversity trends in Europe. The article is published in the Nature Communications journal and is titled “Meta-analysis of Multidecadal Biodiversity Trends in Europe”.
The new study uses a comprehensive dataset of 161 biological time series across Europe mostly collected from eLTER sites. This unique dataset covers 21 European countries, nine biogeoregions, three realms and eight taxonomic groups. T...
19 May 2020
COVID-19 might have altered our lives in the last few months, but at eLTER we have proved our resilience and determination for success through the extremely fruitful and inspiring kick off meetings of our two projects - eLTER PPP and eLTER PLUS (30 March - 03 April 2020). In the space of just a few weeks we’ve moved the two events fully online, with no cuts to the initially planned programme. We missed on a traditional group photo but we kept our spirits high through improvising severa...
17 April 2020
At the end of March, 2020, while COVID-19 continued to spread across the globe, more than 100 scientists of the integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological systems Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI) convened virtually to kick off a five-year effort to strengthen Europe’s capacity for long-term ecological observation and research though its two new projects (Horizon2020 Advanced Communities “eLTER PLUS” and the eLTER RI Preparatory Phase Project). While the confere...
4 December 2019
Improving knowledge about ecosystem functioning is essential for addressing the crucial challenges of managing limited natural resources in a sustainable manner, to assure long-term human wellbeing on the planet. The Global Ecosystem Research Infrastructure initiative (GERI) aims at establishing indispensable infrastructures across continents. GERI was discussed in a high level conference of the G7 Group of Senior Officials (GSO) in Shanghai last week, and approved as a GSO use case.
The pote...
15 September 2019
With the approval of two projects totalling 14 million euros for eLTER, the EU is opening another important chapter in the development of a permanent infrastructure for long-term ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological research in Europe. This funding will enable significant development of the eLTER Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI), in areas such as the RI's organisation, business model and legal basis. It will also give a major boost to scientific work done at eLTER sites and platforms....
17 June 2019
The special issue, entitled “Italian Long-Term Ecological Research for understanding ecosystem diversity and functioning. Case studies from aquatic, terrestrial and transitional domains” is the first published collection of studies performed at LTER-Italy sites. The eighteen papers in the volume present research carried out at two Antarctic and 16 Italian sites, one of which includes a comparative analysis with other International LTER Sites in Northern Europe and USA. Two additional papers are...
12 May 2019
eLTER reps including Michael Mirtl (chair of eLTER, from EAA, Austria), Nick Arnaud (CNRS, France) and Roland Baatz (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany) were in Vienna last week at the annual conference of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). They joined representatives of many other European environmental research infrastructures (RIs) at the ENVRI community booth. This popular exhibition stand was a source of information about RIs covering many environmental domains (solid earth, ecosystem/bio...