LTER-LIFE

Long-Term Ecosystem Research — Living Lab Infrastructure For Ecology


– Overview

LTER-LIFE is a scientific infrastructure supporting integrated ecological research through the development of digital ecosystem twins. The initiative brings together research communities, data resources, and computational tools within a virtual research environment, enabling deeper understanding of ecosystem dynamics and long-term environmental change.

– Goals

The project pursues three primary aims:

  • Bringing together geographically focused research communities — connecting people that do research on different aspects of the same ecosystem.
  • Creating a discoverable portal for legacy data, models, and tools to facilitate sharing and reuse.
  • Establishing virtual laboratories within a shared research environment to enable ecosystem modeling and scenario analysis.

– Focus Areas

Two Dutch ecosystems serve as initial study areas, selected for their extensive documentation and research history:

  • Wadden Sea — aquatic ecosystem
  • Veluwe — terrestrial ecosystem

– Key Facts

  • 10-year grant from NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research)
  • Established in August 2023

For more information, please visit the LTER-LIFE project website.

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