Get Ready for ASM 2012 -- A Message From Bob Waide

The LTER All Scientists Meeting is just two weeks away, and final preparations are underway.  The meeting will feature seven plenary presentations, 75 working groups, and an ever-increasing number of posters.  We project over 700 participants, and in anticipation, the cooks are planning a few surprises, beverages have been ordered, and the band and the elks are both tuning up.

For those of you arriving on Sunday, make sure you get to the Ruesch Auditorium by 7:30 pm to hear the Lightning Plenary talks and vote for your favorite presentation. 

Plenary presentations

See http://asm2012.lternet.edu/agenda for biographies of the speakers

• John C. Wingfield, Assistant Director for Biological Sciences, National Science Foundation
  Vision of a Strategic Innovation for Biological Sciences
• Erle C. Ellis         
  Ecology in the Anthropocene: Observing, Understanding, and Embracing Human Nature
• Robert Kates
  Does LTER All Science include Sustainability Science?
• J. Stephen Lansing
  The Balinese Would Like a Word: Implications of Alternate Steady States in Lakes and Rice Paddies
• Michael P. Nelson           
  The Value of, and Challenges for, Long Term Ecological Research
• Elizabeth Borer 
  Emergent Properties of Cooperative Science: the Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts
• Luis Amaral
  From the Three Rs to the Three Cs: Complexity, Creativity, Collaboration

Working Groups and Other Sessions

I would like to draw your attention to a few of the many interesting working groups and other sessions. 

• Monday afternoon will feature a working group focused on identifying synergies between LTER and NEON. 
• On Monday evening, NSF representatives will lead a town hall discussion. 
• Energizing the research agenda for ecosystem science will be the topic of a Tuesday morning group, and in the afternoon, an invited session will focus on anthropological sciences, ecology, and environment. 
• A Wednesday morning session will try to envision LTER research in the year 2100. 
• On Thursday morning, the Long Term Agro-ecosystem Research Network and the LTER Data Co-op will be introduced in separate working groups. 
• Finally, a Thursday afternoon session will provide time for working group organizers to report the new and exciting ideas that came out of their discussions

Posters

Posters are still coming in, but there is a cutoff date of September 1 if your poster is going to appear in the program.  Poster size should be 47 x 47 inches maximum. 

We will have a competition for best student poster if we can round up enough judges.  If you are willing to volunteer to judge a few posters, send a message to jrariden@lternet.edu. 

Transportation

Please make your round-trip reservations for the airport shuttle as soon as possible.  If you don’t, you may get stuck without transport.

Registration

Note also that online registration closes on September 1.  Onsite registration will be more expensive, so save yourself some money and register now. 

Finally, please note that the LNO will be issuing a call for proposals for research working groups and post-doctoral projects before the ASM.  The deadline will be early October, and funds will need to be expended by August 2013.  Except for the timing, the call will be similar to the one issued last year.  Keep an eye out for the announcement.

All right, that’s it.  See you in a couple of weeks.

Bob