LTER-Austria Conference 2024: A strong commitment to long-term ecological research

ecological research – LTER – makes a significant contribution to better understanding ecosystems. Scientists all over the world are working to gain new knowledge about the structure and functions of ecosystems but also about their long-term reactions to environmental influences and so-called social and economic “drivers”. LTER provides valuable information for policy makers and practitioners and contributes to the development of management options in response to the challenges of global change. The Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) are supporting the important work of the LTER community by once again providing a budget for research work and network infrastructure for the next three years.

Austria in long-term ecological research, © LTER-Austria

The HBLFA Raumberg-Gumpenstein is a founding member of the Austrian Society for Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER-Austria) and makes an important contribution to research in managed grassland with its long-term experiments. To this end, it operates a GeoSphereAustria measuring station in Gumpenstein and has been collecting phenological data at the site for many decades. Many projects have already been implemented using the Community platform.  

The research fields of LTER-Austria include:

• Process-oriented ecosystem research

• Biodiversity and conservation research

• Long-term social-ecological research (LTSER)

LTER-Austria now includes 3 LTSER platforms: LTSER platform Eisenwurzen, Tyrolean Alps and the Neusiedler See-Seewinkel platform, which is currently under construction.

The LTSER platform Eisenwurzen was founded in 2004 as the first Austrian LTSER platform and is part of the European network LTER-Europe (eLTER) and the global network (ILTER). It includes twelve research locations, including the HBLFA Raumberg-Gumpenstein, the WasserCluster Lunz and the Gesäuse and Kalkalpen national parks. Various regional institutions and decision-makers are actively working on this platform to create the foundations for sustainable ecosystem management and regional development. Exchange and collaboration with the local population as well as the integration of regional issues are central components of the work. 

LTSER Platform Eisenwurzen (EW), © LTER-Austria

On November 11th and 12th, 2024, the annual LTER-Austria conference with leading scientists and institutions committed to long-term ecological research and sustainable environmental strategies took place at the Institute for Social Ecology at BOKU Vienna eLTER research infrastructure, which is currently being set up, and the presentation of associated current developments in the decision-making process for selecting suitable standard methods for the collection of long-term data from the atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere and sociosphere . The second day of the conference was dedicated to the exchange of experiences about ongoing projects, the general meeting and the election of the new board.

The conference once again demonstrated the growing importance of long-term ecosystem research for understanding and dealing with the impacts of climate change and land use change. With a great response and numerous impulses from science and practice, the event underlined LTER-Austria's goal of further strengthening research on the resilience of ecosystems in times of climate change and intensifying the dialogue with society.