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The etwork Newsletter Message from the Executive Director Strategic Planning for LTER Robert B. Waide, Executive Director, Roger Bales, Barbara Bedford, Robert tion of NET activities as well as visits by LTER Network Office Dickinson, Jim Levitt, John Magnuson, Pam NET staff to sites for joint discussions of Matson, Elinor Ostrum, Jack Stanford, needs. The LTER Network will spend the next few Margaret Werner-Washburne, Michael Development of these strategic plans will months developing a strategic plan to help Goodchild, and Paul Risser, Chair) this benefit greatly from the involvement of a define future goals and activities of the summer. After revision, the strategic plan will wide range of LTER scientists and students. network. The 20 Year Review Committee be rolled out at the All Scientists Meeting for Two groups have already been asked to called for such a plan, saying: general comment before taking final form. focus on specific sections of the Network “The LTER program must forge a bold NSF has also asked the LTER Network strategic plan. The LTER Education Commit- decade of synthesis science that will lead to Office (NET) to develop its own strategic tee has been working on a strategic plan for a better understanding of complex environ- plan. This request was based on a series of education in the LTER Network for over a mental problems and result in knowledge that recommendations made by the Site Review year. This plan, when completed, will inform serves science and society. To realize this Team that evaluated the Network Office development of the education section of the ambitious goal, the LTER community, renewal proposal. The goals of the Network Network strategic plan. The Network working with NSF, must develop a compre- Office strategic plan will overlap greatly with hensive strategic plan for the LTER enter- the plan being drafted by the Executive prise.” continued bottom of page 2, col. 1 Committee for the network as a whole, and —Final Report, LTER Twenty-year Review the NET plan will be developed in close Committee consultation with the Executive and Coordi- NSF endorsed the recommendation nating Committees. However, the NET plan Inside This Issue strongly, and the LTER community is will also include sections that address responding. The Executive Committee will management structure and evaluation of the Site News (Shortgrass Steppe, McMurdo, take the lead in developing a draft plan, Luquillo, Palmer).....2 Network Office, as well as sections focusing working closely with the Coordinating on tasks that have been assigned to NET in All Scientists Meeting Announcement.....6 Committee and the Network Office. The the new Cooperative Agreement with NSF. Executive Committee (Dan Childers, Bruce These tasks include linking the LTER Network News (EML, Invasive Species Hayden, John Hobbie, Nancy Grimm, Alan Database, AG TRANS, LTER Outreach, information management efforts with the Knapp, Peter McCartney, and Jim Gosz, Special Journal Issues).....7 global information technology infrastructure Chair) met in Washington in late February to and facilitating international LTER activities. Special Feature—Augmented LTER decide the timetable and approach to the task One important element of the NET strategic Sites.....12 of strategic planning. They will meet again plan will focus on a mechanism for sites to before the May Coordinating Committee International Networking (Kellogg/Taiwan provide input to NET on their needs and to Agriculture, Luquillo/Taiwan Invasive Earth- meeting at Kellogg Biological Station to assess NET response to these needs. The worms).....14 continue their work. After the Coordinating goal of this section will be to enhance regular Committee provides input to the draft, a Publications .....17 communication between sites and the revised version will be reviewed by the LTER Network Office. Operationally, this will Calendar....20 National Advisory Board (Peter Arzberger, involve formal requests to sites for evalua- 1 The Network Newsletter Vol 16 No 1 Spring 2003 The Site News Each keynote talk was followed by a poster SGS Symposium session and a discussion. Since we were etwork specifically seeking areas for future collabo- Opening the Doors to rations, the discussions focused on how ews Collaboration basic and applied aspects of research fit into N Vol 16 No 1 Spring 2003 Nicole Kaplan, SGS LTER conservation efforts, and the relationships between research, land use and management The Network News The Shortgrass Steppe (SGS) LTER project, issues facing the SGS. Approximately 90 is produced each along with the USDA-ARS, the USFS Pawnee spring and fall at the National Grassland and the Colorado State people attended the symposium, including LTER Network Office University Agricultural Experiment Station five high school students from eastern through a cooperative agreement sponsored the 6th Shortgrass Steppe Sympo- Colorado, who presented several posters of between the sium on January 10, 2003, in Fort Collins, their research. Twenty-six posters were National Science Founation Colorado. One of the main goals of this year’s presented covering research studies, and the symposium was to create opportunities for conservation, land management, information University of New Mexico collaborations between the research commu- management, schoolyard LTER, and the GK- nity and others 12 partnership interested in or program. Although it working on is too early to issues concern- measure success of ing the conserva- the formation of tion or manage- collaborative projects, ment of the SGS. many email addresses Keynote talks were exchanged and were given by several of the Greg Gamble and contacts made at the Steve Kettler of symposium have been The National Science Foundation The Nature continued over coffee Conservancy of and at CSU seminars. Colorado, We will keep the LTER “Biodiversity community updated The University of New Mexico Conservation in on how our relation- Please contact the the Western High ships with conserva- LTER Network Office Plains” and Ken tionists and land with your questions, comments, Morgan of the managers develop. ideas Colorado Steve Currey, USDA Forest Service, District Please see the list and requests for more copies: Division of Ranger Pawnee National Grassland, and of poster titles and LTER Network Office Tammy VerCauteren, Prairie Partners Wildlife, “Species authors on the University of New Mexico Conservation Biologist with the Rocky Mountain Department of Biology Conservation on Bird Observatory, Fort Collins, CO, discussing Newsletter posters at the SGS Symposium. Albuquerque NM 87131-1091 Private Lands.” Web site. Edited, designed and produced by Msg from the Director will provide input to both Network and NET Patricia Sprott Continued from Page 1 [email protected] Information System (NIS) Advisory Group planning efforts. Printed on recycled paper with soy-based (Barbara Benson, Emory Boose, James Brunt, More involvement of LTER scientists will inks at Academy Printer David Foster, Mark Harmon, Don Henshaw improve our planning efforts. I urge you to comment the planning documents, and to This publication is available in its entirety (chair), Tim Kratz, Peter McCartney, Bill on the LTER World Wide Web Site: Michener, John Vande Castle, Bob Waide, communicate your ideas to the Executive and Marilyn Walker) is working to develop a Coordinating Committees and the Network http://www.lternet.edu strategy for making the NIS more responsive Office. Presentations and discussions of the to the needs of sites and the network as a strategic plans are scheduled for the All Scientists Meeting, providing an excellent The Network Newsletter Vol 16 No 1 Spring 2003 whole. The results of 2the group’s activities forum to obtain a broad spectrum of Site News more. As a result, solutes accumulate over holes are frozen solid for most of the year, time; atmospheric gases such as N2, O2, and except for a few summer months when solar Exploring an Ecosystem CO2 are scavenged from ice bubbles resulting radiation melts the ice around the sediment Entombed in Ice in chemistries within the cryoconite holes that allowing biological activity to occur within Life in extreme envi- are distinct from the surrounding ice. The this sealed microcosm. The contents of the photosynthetic and heterotrophic activity of holes are flushed during decadal warming ronments at McMurdo resident organisms modify the initial events, when melt water abounds on the Dry Valleys LTER geochemical characteristics of the cryoconite glacier surface. The flushing events trans- dust. Algae and cyanobacteria have been port the hole contents to the valley streams Andrew G. Fountain, MCM-LTER identified in cryoconite holes of the McMurdo and eventually to the lakes, thereby provid- Additional Investigators, Dorota Poransinka, Dry Valleys, as well as rotifers and tardigrades. Martyn Tranter, and Christine Forman ing organic carbon and other nutrients to Our estimates of bacterial production in the oligotrophic aquatic ecosystems down- Frozen environments comprise 25% of stream. Nutrients make their way back the Earth’s surface. Once believed to be up to the cryoconite holes via dust, and devoid of life, closer observations of various chemical cycles. This feedback glacial ice reveals microhabitats— loop connects all the major components frequently teeming with life. Cryoconite of the dry valley ecosystem and holes, from “cryo” meaning ice and involves exchanges of unique bio- “conite” meaning dust, form on glaciers geochemistries between soils, streams, in the McMurdo Dry Valleys and offer a lakes and glaciers. unique addition to the growing list of We have encountered holes that extreme habitats where life thrives. have been isolated by an ice lid from the New research on these micro habitats atmosphere for a decade. For such suggests they are more important to the holes we believe that gases and some overall function of the polar desert nutrients important to the biochemical ecosystem than previously thought. reactions are scavenged from the Cryoconite holes develop from melting ice. Other nutrients may be sediment that collects in small patches obtained from the dissolution of both on the glacier surface (Fig.