LTER 5a: Understanding Environmental Change in Northeast Puerto Rico

The Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LUQ) integrates research and educational activities through a focus on two great challenges confronting society in the 21st Century: climate change and land use change. The goal is to understand: 1) how the environment of northeast Puerto Rico is changing; 2) the consequences of such change for biodiversity, biogeochemistry, and ecosystem services; and 3) how society can manage or adapt to these changes. Research will involve continuing long-term studies along climate and land use gradients, modeling and synthesis, and long-term field experiments and a new landscape-level project that are designed to provide a mechanistic understanding of the effects of key drivers of long-term change. Using integrated theoretical, experimental, and observational approaches, LUQ 5 will provide a comprehensive scientific framework for evaluating the management of tropical ecosystems and their services. The program will continue to train numerous graduate and undergraduate students, especially members of underrepresented groups, producing a cadre of collaborative, multidisciplinary scientists who can link population, community, and ecosystem approaches to provide a predictive understanding of environmental change. Schoolyard LTER in LUQ 5 will reach teachers and hundreds of middle and high school students through field research and via a web-based middle school curriculum for teaching ecology.