LTER-Italy

The Italian Long-Term Ecological Research Network (LTER-Italy; www.lteritalia.it) includes terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems distributed throughout our country, with a marked transecodomain approach. At the LTER-Italy sites ecological observations are carried out at the multidecadale scale, appropriate to support understanding and management of the environment.

LTER represents one of the main tools for analysing how ecosystems change over time, and for describing and interpreting natural variability as opposed to ‘man-made’ variability. LTER-Italy is one of the twenty-five national networks that make up the LTER-Europe Network (LTER-Europe; www.lter-europe.net) and it pertains to the LTER International Network (ILTER; www.ilternet.edu/), globally distributed.

LTER networks were created to share and integrate the ecological information, from local to global scale, becoming a scientific reference for policy makers.

LTER-Italy is also one of the key nodes of the E-infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research LifeWatch (LifeWatch Italy; www.servicecentrelifewatch.eu/home).