Long Term Research in Environmental Biology

About NSF's Long Term Research in Environmental Biology Program

The Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) Program supports extended time-series data that address questions in evolutionary biology, ecology and ecosystem science.

Research areas include natural selection and other evolutionary processes and their effects on populations, communities, and ecosystems; species interactions that vary over time and space; population and community dynamics of species with long life spans and slow reproductive cycles; feedbacks among ecological and evolutionary processes; nutrients in soils that change over long periods of time; and climate cycles that take place over long intervals.

LTREB Discoveries

Part 1: By the light of January's wolf moon
On the hunt, is bigger better for predators like wolves?

Part 2: It's wildflower season on mountain peaks, but alpine plants may soon miss the date
Study conducted over 38 years shows one species' timing has shifted by 13 days

Part 3: Into the matorral: Scientists track avifauna in coastal Chile's thorn-scrub
Researchers discover ecological role of bird life in a biodiversity hotspot

Part 4: From lake to land, in a land of lakes
Moose act as conduits of nitrogen between water bodies and the edges of lakes, ponds

Part 5: Yellowstone ecosystem needs wolves and willows, elk and...beavers?
Scientists plot crucial links among Yellowstone plant and animal species

Part 6: On World Environment Day and every day, the stress of being ginseng
Common medicinal plant of deciduous forests under siege

Part 7: The truth about Echinacea: Plant commonly used for colds and flu suffers from disappearing habitat
Purple coneflowers, often found in vanishing prairies, provide food for bees and other species

Part 8: Earth Week: Whither Yellowstone's willows and the streams they shade?
Yellowstone's water table dropping below riverbank willow trees

Part 9: Natural regeneration of tropical forests helps global climate mitigation and forest restoration
New study looks at 43 regions in Latin America