One of the many National Science Foundation (NSF) awards made this summer was a $6.4 million grant to Sevilleta Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) drylands site. The location is one of 28 NSF LTER sites in ecosystems from deserts to salt marshes, coral reefs to forests.
According to the NSF, scientists at the Sevilleta LTER will recruit and train a diverse workforce from “schoolyard” activities to undergraduate, graduate and professional training.
Sevilleta scientists will combine long-term data with results of experiments to build models that predict ecological change; for example, what will happen when rainfall is low one year and high the next.
“Long-term research is critical to ecology,” said Stephanie Hampton, director of NSF’s Division of Environmental Biology, which funds the LTER site. “LTER data lead to findings such as the discovery of the link between rodents and the Sin Nombre hantavirus, which can cause respiratory disease. NSF’s LTER program allows researchers to discover ecological phenomena, assess the pace and impacts of environmental change, and forecast a range of future ecosystem scenarios.”
Jennifer Rudgers, a scientist at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and principal investigator of the site, said that “funding from NSF’s LTER program provides an opportunity to study the ecological consequences of variability in climate through long-term observations and experiments across the dryland ecosystems of the Southwestern U.S.”
UNM scientists, in collaboration with ecologists at Rice University and Northern Arizona University, will lead the research. It will take place at the 230,000-acre Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico and at nearby natural areas.
The researchers will conduct studies important to the state of New Mexico and the Southwest U.S. region, Rudgers said, such as investigating what drives transitions in dryland ecosystems.
“Research at the LTER site includes the study of such factors as changes in vegetation, and in carbon and nitrogen cycles, that are critical to dryland ecosystems,” said Rudgers. “We’re focusing on the ecological consequences of two key aspects: rising temperatures and increasingly variable rainfall.”
In addition to basic research, the LTER site will offer training opportunities, external research collaborations, and a commitment to inclusion and outreach, including a partnership with New Mexico’s flagship science outreach group, the Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program. (Photo credit: Douglas Moore shows a tower at the Sevilleta LTER site which provides scientists with data on an ecosystem transition zone.
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