[LTER-All-lter] ILTER Joint Paper Initiative

[Francesca Pilotto]

Dear colleagues,
This is a second call for long-term biodiversity data.
In June we circulated a call for data for a joint manuscript on
biodiversity trends (see below). Many thanks to the people who showed
their interest in the project and offered their datasets! 
Unfortunately we got only a few feedbacks from America so far, compared
to Europe, where we have already >120 datasets at the moment and more
will come in the next weeks - you can check the enclosed map to get an
idea of the current distribution of the datasets (please note that the
distribution of American sites is not precise as I haven´t received the
site coordinates yet). With such an imbalanced distribution, we would
have to exclude American datasets and focus our study on European data
only. This is a pity as, we believe, this study has the potential of
being of great impact and extending it beyond the continental scale
would give it much more strength! Therefore, before settling on the
decision to exclude American datasets, we decided to send out this new
call.  
Please let me know if you may have additional datasets and may be
interested in joining the project. 
Here a short recap of our plans. We aim to gather as many long-term
(>15 years) biodiversity datasets as possible, from LTER sites, from a
large variety of biomes from the freshwater, marine, transitional and
terrestrial realms, on several biotic groups (from plankton, to
invertebrates, birds, vegetation...) to write a joint paper on
biodiversity trends. All data providers will be invited to contribute to
the manuscript and be coauthors. These are the criteria for data
selection: 
·		 coverage of at least 15 years
·		 at least 10 sampling events during that time that are
evenly distributed within the 15 years
·		 no changes in sampling method, taxonomic resolution and
season
·		 the data of a certain time series are from the same
site (no space-for-time substitution!)
·		 data are digitalized and could be submitted within a
few weeks
·		 true number abundance or biomass data on species or
genus level
·		 georeferences for all sites where data were sampled
from
If you have additional datasets that fulfill the criteria and you wish
to join the project, please fill in the enclosed excel file with basic
information on your dataset and send it back to me by the 12th August. 
I am looking forward to getting positive feedbacks!
Best wishes,
Francesca Pilotto

Dr. Francesca Pilotto 
Department of River Ecology and Conservation
Clamecystr 12, 63571 Gelnhausen
Tel.: (+49) 06051619543128  | Mail: francesca.pilotto at senckenberg.de
SENCKENBERG Gesellschaft für Naturforschung (Rechtsfähiger Verein gemäß
§ 22 BGB)
Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main 
Direktorium: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Volker Mosbrugger, Prof. Dr. Andreas
Mulch, Stephanie Schwedhelm, Prof. Dr. Katrin Böhning-Gaese, Prof. Dr.
Karsten Wesche.
Mitglied der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

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Dear ILTER friends and colleagues,
As most of you know the decline in insect biomass that was recently
published in a paper by Hallmann et al. in PlosOne (October 2017) raised
enormous attention across the globe. The underlying data were compiled
by hobby entomologists over approximately 30 years in different German
nature reserves.
I believe you all may agree that such a decline is not restricted to
nature reserves in Germany but is most likely a common pattern across
several parts of the world and also not only restricted to insects.
However this has to be proven.
I wonder if there might be similar long-term datasets from various
ILTER sites? If so, we may compile these data and write a joined paper
on cross-taxa and cross-realm patterns in global biodiversity decline?
I am aware that similar studies have been done before (e.g. Bowler et
al. 2017 Nature Ecology and Evolution) but I believe that there are
still many unanswered questions and many taxa groups that have never
been included in such studies.
I am sure you need to know more about the planned paper project than
just a draft title. However, as we currently do not know how many
datasets over which time periods, from which ecosystems and countries
might be available, we would rather like starting to draft an outline of
such a paper after knowing what data might be available.
Therefore, I would be happy if you could let me know if you may have
long-term biodiversity data from an ILTER site that fulfills the
following criteria:
·		 coverage of at least 15 years
·		 at least 10 sampling events during that time that are
evenly distributed within the 15 years
·		 no changes in sampling method, taxonomic resolution and
season
·		 the data of a certain time series are from the same
site (no space-for-time substitution!)
·		 data are digitalized and could be submitted within a
few weeks
·		 true number abundance or biomass data on species or
genus level
·		 georeferences for all sites where data were sampled
from
All data contributors will be offered to become co-authors.
Thank you very much!
Peter Haase
(ILTER Science Committee Chair)
 
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