The Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) Network is a project to understand and enhance the sustainability of agriculture through coordinated research and long-term study. The network contains 18 sites located throughout the continental
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
. Each site was selected based on research productivity, capacity for infrastructure, potential data richness and availability, geographic coverage at various scales, agency partnerships, and long-term institutional commitment.
The project is managed by the
USDA-ARS in partnership with local institutions. LTAR is the only US based long-term observatory network focused on studying
agroecosystems
Agroecosystems are the ecosystems supporting the food production systems in our farms and gardens. As the name implies, at the core of an agroecosystem lies the human activity of agriculture. As such they are the basic unit of study in Agroecology, ...
.
See also
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Long Term Ecological Research Network
*
National Ecological Observatory Network
National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a large facility program operated by Battelle Memorial Institute and funded by the National Science Foundation. In full operation since 2019, NEON gathers and provides long-term, standardized da ...
References
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Ecology organizations
Environmental monitoring