Firbank, LG orcid.org/0000-0003-1242-8293, Bertora, C, Blankman, D et al. (11 more authors) (2017) Towards the co-ordination of terrestrial ecosystem protocols across European research infrastructures. Ecology and Evolution, 7 (11). pp. 3967-3975. ISSN 2045-7758
Abstract
The study of ecosystem processes over multiple scales of space and time is often best achieved by using comparable data from multiple sites. Yet long term ecological observatories have often developed their own data collection protocols. Here we address this problem by proposing a set of ecological protocols suitable for widespread adoption by the ecological community. 2. Scientists from the European ecological research community prioritised terrestrial ecosystem parameters that could benefit from a more consistent approach to data collection within the resources available at most long term ecological observatories. Parameters for which standard methods are in widespread use, or for which methods are evolving rapidly, were not selected. 3. Protocols were developed by domain experts, building on existing methods where possible, and refined through a process of field testing and training. They address above-ground plant biomass; decomposition; land use and management; leaf area index; soil mesofaunal diversity; soil C and N stocks, and greenhouse gas emissions from soils. These complement existing methods to provide a complete assessment of ecological integrity. 4. These protocols offer integrated approaches to ecological data collection that are low cost and are starting to be used across the European Long Term Ecological Research community.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Ecological Integrity; biogeochemical cycles; ecological processes; quality assurance of ecological data; Long Term Ecological Research. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union 262060 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 30 Mar 2017 14:52 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2023 22:26 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/ece3.2997 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:114283 |