OOS 90

Cross-Scale Perspectives: Integrating Long-Term and High-Frequency Data into Our Understanding of Communities and Ecosystems

The goal of this session is to illustrate how both high-frequency and long-term observations are modifying our understanding of the complex interactions between organisms and their physical environment. With recent advances in sensor technology, we are now able to collect high-frequency physical, chemical, and biological data on the minute to sub-hourly scale for extended periods. Simultaneously, many studies in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems have now amassed 6+ years of data that highlight variability on inter-annual to decadal time scales. Together, these high-frequency and long-term data streams are contributing new knowledge to our understanding of the coupling between organisms and abiotic factors such as temperature, light, nutrients, and oxygen. We will bring together ecologists from a diversity of study systems to explore how high-frequency and/or long-term data have deepened our understanding of community and ecosystem ecology against the backdrop of anthropogenic change. While many of these projects have emerged from Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites, Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) projects, and sensor networks (e.g., the Global Lakes Ecological Observatory Network, GLEON), we invite presentations from all ecologists who have harnessed “big data” approaches to study changes in populations, communities, and/or ecosystems over time. Talks will cover a diversity of ecosystem types (terrestrial, marine, and freshwater) and include speakers at a variety of career stages and institutions.