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Supplementary material

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1 Status of LTER member networksThe following Table 1 contains detailed information about the status of ILTER as composed of member networks

and their national networks of in-situ facilities.

Table 1 Overview of member networks, number of LTER Sites with two levels of documentation completeness

(>80%; >90%), and year of accession. The table represents the status in DEIMS as of 20th July 2017.

RegGroup Member network Accession year

# Sites (doc > 80% and accredited)

# Sites (doc > 90% and accredited)

# Sites with member network accreditation

Platforms (above 90%)

Africa Malawi 2006 0 0 0 0Africa Namibia 2001 1 1 1 0Africa South Africa 2002 9 9 9 0Americas Brazil 1998 26 18 26 0Americas Chile 2011 3 3 3 0Americas Costa Rica 1996 0 0 0 0Americas Mexico 2002 11 11 11 10Americas USA 1993 22 19 25 12Americas Venezuela 2002 0 0 0 0EAP Australia 1993 26 26 0 1EAP China 1993 42 14 42 0EAP Japan 2007 37 30 38 1EAP Korea South 1997 0 0 2 0EAP Malaysia 2013 1 1 0 0EAP Mongolia 1999 0 0 0 0EAP Philippines 2007 0 0 14 0EAP Taiwan 1993 8 8 8 8EAP Thailand 2006 2 2 2 2Europe Austria 2004 39 34 42 3Europe Belgium 2014 37 37 37 0Europe Bulgaria 2009 6 2 7 0Europe Czechia 1996 24 24 25 0Europe Denmark 2015 2 1 2 0Europe Finland 2007 15 9 17 1Europe France 2002 19 19 19 13Europe Germany 2005 33 31 33 0Europe Greece 2016 6 6 6 3Europe Hungary 1995 6 5 11 5Europe Israel 1993 13 10 13 2Europe Italy 2006 104 98 104 7Europe Latvia 2004 5 5 5 1Europe Lithuania 2005 0 0 0 0Europe Netherlands 2014 2 2 2 2Europe Norway 2014 10 10 25 1Europe Poland 1998 16 16 17 2Europe Portugal 2008 10 10 10 1Europe Romania 2003 6 6 10 6Europe Serbia 2009 5 5 5 0Europe Slovakia 1997 9 9 9 1Europe Slovenia 2003 13 13 13 0Europe Spain 2008 22 20 23 2Europe Sweden 2010 18 17 19 1Europe Switzerland 1998 23 23 23 0Europe United Kingdom 1993 61 60 61 1

692 614 719 86

2 Characteristics of eLTER Site categoriesThe main characteristics of the three categories of LTER Sites are listed below. LTSER Platforms, in a nested

design, will host several LTER Sites at a regional scale.

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ILTER Master Sites:

● full system approach (covering the entire ecological profile, decisive structures and functions for ecosystem

processes);

● technical site designs customized according to the ecological profile, enabling integrated analyses across system

strata (geosphere to atmosphere);

● covering the required spatial scales;

● time series of at least 10 years;

● permanently operated (regular/weekly sampling, continuous measurements etc.);

● inventories at appropriate intervals across ecosystem compartments;

● core basic infrastructure: permanent access, power supply, data transmission;

● highly instrumented;

● multi use: many other networks and/or related projects use the site;

● special role in the overall ILTER context;

o preferred nodes with other (more specific) ecosystem research RIs (e.g. ICOS),

o experimental approaches existent, or the site design supports their co-location,

● synonyms: “top sites”, “super sites”, “LTER hubs”, “HIS=Highly Instrumented Sites”, “M-Site”, “sentinel

sites”.

ILTER Regular Sites:

● in principle complying with the description of LTER Master Sites (ecosystem approach);

● they differ in the:

o level of instrumentation: some indicators might be measured with simpler methods,

o multi-use and availability of long-term data across all ecosystem compartments and disciplines,

o number of network memberships;

● special role in the overall ILTER context,

o increase network coverage,

o enable countries with less available resources in the field of ecosystem research to contribute;

● synonyms: “regular LTER site”, “R-Site”, “Regular Sites”.

ILTER Satellite Sites:

● not following the full ecosystem approach (e.g. for reasons of limited spatial scale considered);

● specific scientific and/or monitoring foci;

● may emphasize the long-term monitoring (observation), but there must be an explicit research component;

● special role in the overall ILTER context,

o link to the landscape level,

o RI for topics, which cannot be tackled at a small number small scale highly instrumented sites;

● synonyms: “extensive LTER site”, “E-Site”.

3 Critical Zone research and observatoriesThe Critical Zone is the living skin of Earth’s surface, reaching from the top of the canopy, through the soil profile,

and deep into the subsurface where fresh groundwater circulates (Brantley 2016). In many ways critical zone

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science is complementary to study of the biosphere, and it uses a theoretical framework similar to that which has

developed in support of ecosystem ecology (Richter and Billings 2015). There are two primary differences in the

approach taken to study the critical zone. First, there is a much stronger emphasis on deep soil processes, including

flow paths and the reactions of solids and solutes at depths of meters to 10s of meters. In a critical zone context, the

study of soil biology and biogeochemistry is often undertaken from the soil surface to unweathered bedrock; a wide

array of isotopic approaches is taken to quantity the provenance of soil materials; and the study of weathering

processes is conducted using detailed study of the physico-chemical processes at work along the entire soil and

regolith profile to develop an understanding of how the structure of a landscape has evolved. The second primary

difference in the approach taken in critical zone science is to focus on a longer time frame, similar to evolutionary

time scales. This is the scale at which soils and landscapes develop.

The concept of Critical Zone Observatories provides an unparalleled opportunity to bring the perspectives and

analytical approaches of the geosciences into study of long-term ecological processes.

The Critical Zone Observatory international network (CZEN.org) aspires to some of the same attributes shared by

the ILTER network, specifically the focus on long-term, site-based research and the “bottom-up” approach in which

investigators address hypothesis-driven questions that are well-suited for their specific site. In terms of scientific

focus, the CZO network shares a focus on understanding the drivers of water, energy, and materials budgets at the

catchment scale using an approach that includes assessment of the deep structure of soil and regolith (Brantley et al.

2016). As a network, however, the CZO international network is much less developed than ILTER. It does not have

a formal governance structure, meetings, or designated leadership team. In several national and continental networks

LTER and CZ research communities collaborate by using the same sites (e.g. China) or have even started

developing research infrastructures together (e.g. eLTER RI in Europe, see chapter Error: Reference source not

found).

4 The challenge of interoperabilityILTER is characterised by a high inter- but also intra-network heterogeneity (Vanderbilt et al. 2015) resulting in a

number of different interoperability issues to be solved on the local as well as on the global scale. A variety of data

management solutions and data formats are existing. But also on the socio-cultural aspect of data integration and

interoperability cultural differences and related implementations (e.g. data sharing rules) are existing. These can be

described by different interoperability issues ranging from technical to conceptual interoperability (see Turnitsa and

Tolk 2006). Whereas the technical interoperability is addressed by the software solutions taken, the other levels need

the involvement at least of the information managers within the community. Nevertheless, not all levels can be

addressed within ILTER because of its organisational complexity and also the limitations of funding for the global

scale services. By this ILTER focuses on the following interoperability issues:

● Syntactic and schematic interoperability ensure that a common structure to exchange information, i.e., a

common data format is applied (schema). This applies also to services for data and data query, metadata,

discovery, and workflow integrations (syntax) which need to follow standardised norms.

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● Semantic interoperability aims to use a common information exchange model (e.g. common reference lists,

standard variables, vocabularies or ontologies) in order to ensure an unambiguous definition of the content

shared. This also includes the definition of the thematic, spatial, and temporal references in the network.

● Legal interoperability considers that policies applied on different scales (e.g. national regulations) could

hamper the sharing and reuse of data. When using data on a global scale, e.g. for the definition of EBV,

data integration supported by ‘machine-to-machine’ interaction must be ensured. This is often difficult due

to varying provenance of authorship and ownership of data and requires the identification of legal and

policy bottlenecks (see Kissling et al. 2015). The problem can be solved in part by agreeing on a small set

of machine readable licenses for ILTER network contributions.

Generic guidance in respect of applicable metadata and data service standards is provided in Fig. 1. These generic

recommendations address aspects of syntactic and schematic interoperability, and need to be refined at the hand of

agreed essential variables to achieve semantic interoperability.

In practice, standardisation is never perfect, and mediation of any of the above-mentioned interoperability issues is

usually required. ILTER is likely to require a brokering service to aggregate metadata from all participants and to

allow data access in a federated system of systems.

Data Family Typical

Dimensionality

Typical Metadata

Standards

Typical Data

Services

Typical Operational

Environment

Crosswalks

Traditional Spatial

Data

t, XYz, P, B, C ISO 19115

FGDC

OGC WMS Spatial Database, File

System

Virtual WCS

WCS

Multidimensional Data T, XYZ, P, B, C ISO 19115 OpenDAP

ErDDAP

NetCDF

Array Database

WMS

WCS

Physico-Chemical

Observations Data

T, xyz, P, B, (C) ISO 19115

SensorML

SensorThings

SOS/ O&M

RDBMS

Text Files

WxS

Virtual WCS

Subtypes Point: xyz

Profile: xyz with one variable dimension

Transect: xyz varying along a trajectory

Coverage: xyz near-continuous (e.g. a raster)

Ecosystem Observation

Data

T, xyz, (P), B,

(C), Tx

EML

DwC +

DwC +

Object

Download

MetaCAT

RDBMS

Spreadsheets

Text Files

Images

Video

Audio

Virtual WCS

Subtypes Point: xyz

Profile: xyz with one variable dimension

Transect: xyz varying along a trajectory

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Coverage: xyz near-continuous (e.g. a raster)

Genetic Data t, xyz, Al FTP, ASN.1 GenBank Virtual WCS

Fig. 1. Data families: Example generic data families and interoperability requirements. The abbreviations are: S-DB:

spatial database; WxS: OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium web services); O&M: OGC Observations and

Measurements model; SOS: OGC Sensor Observation Service; CSV: comma separated value; DwC: Darwin Core,

and DwC+ - with extensions, RDBMS - relational databases., Virtual WCS - the ability to query and subset data in

any data family as if it were an array database (“Data Cube”).

The different types of coverage (spatial, temporal and semantic) and their attributes are:

Spatial Coverage: XYZ (continuous), xyz (discrete), (xyz) incidental

Temporal Coverage: T (continuous or near-continuous); t (discrete)

Topic or Semantic/Ontological Coverage

o Physico-Chemical Phenomenon: P (primary), (P) incidental

o mostly physical, chemical, or other contextual data

o Biological/ Ecosystem: B (primary), (B) incidental

o aspects such as traits, biomass, occurrence, abundance, structure (EBVs)

o Species and Taxonomy (with some extensions): Tx

o Allele/Genome/Phylogenetic: Al

The dimension of a sample, sampling event or specimen applies to all data families: S.

5 ILTER Site documentation mandatory fieldsThis includes the following information:

● Name and Description: Site Name, Site Code, Short Name, Size (in hectares), General Site Description and

Purpose of site

● Contact Details: Site Contact

● Metadata Details: Metadata provider

● Geographic Location: Country, Coordinates, Elevation (From-to, average)

● Ecosystem and Environmental Characteristics: Temperature (annual average), Precipitation (annual sum),

ILTER Biome, GEO-Bon biome, and Ecosystem and Land Use

● Network Affiliation: LTER Member Network and Networks (in addition to / Other than ILTER)

● Site Classification: Site Type (Spatial Design) and Site Classification/Category,

● Status and History: Site Status, Year Established

● Focus, Design and Scale of Site: Research Topics, Main observed parameters, Scale of Observation,

Design of Observation, Scale of Experiments, and Design of Experiments

● Protection Status and Resource Management: Protection Program

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● Infrastructure and Operation: Accessible All Year, Permanent Power Supply, Permanent Operation, Data

storage location

● Data Sharing Policy: Data Request Format and General Data Policy

In addition to these minimum requirements additional elements could be requested by regional groups (e.g. LTER

Europe).

6 Design Considerations for ILTER e-infrastructureDesign considerations include the following:

1. Architecture-related:

a. Standards and Specifications for Metadata and Data Services: these depend on the scope of data

families (Hugo et al. 2017) required by ILTER in respect of operational data management, as well

as those implied by agreed exchange mechanisms (See ’Data Exchange’ below);

a. Data Management and Curation: guidance from GEO, DSA/ WDS, RDA, and others influence

some of the elements of infrastructure design, and specifically impact on workflow arrangements,

the curation state of research outputs, and elements of quality assurance and trust;

b. Discovery and Search: services, user interfaces, and broker integration for dissemination of data

within multiple communities;

c. Reliable Citation: required for proper attribution, determination of dependencies, and increasingly

for provenance, as well as linkages to scholarly publication workflows - refer to DataCite and

Scholix for examples;

d. Application: access to data via standardised services, subsetting and query facilities, inclusion into

scientific workflows, and data visualisation and exploration tools;

e. Rating and Metrics: frequency of use and feedback on data and metadata quality, user annotations

and crowdsourced data, and quality assurance of crowdsourced contributions.

2. Semantic Web, Controlled Vocabulary, and use of Persistent Identifiers:

a. Identifiers need to be implemented as a minimum for the following aspects of research data and its

management:

i. Samples and specimens, including digital samples;

ii. Research output (scholarly publications, data - including dynamic data, code and

algorithms, protocols and methods) (see RDA recommendations);

iii. Researchers , institutions, repositories, funders, and projects;

iv. Instruments and sensors, including virtual instruments, which has an overlap with

protocols.

b. Vocabularies, ontologies, and thesauri are required to describe

i. Semantic, temporal, and spatial coverages - of which semantic coverages and can benefit

from the development of standard variable collections, such as already in process for

climate, ocean observation, and biodiversity;

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ii. Processes, characteristics of data sources and data sets, and similar qualitative

information - for example as developed as for biological collections ( Humboldt Core);

iii. The structure of ILTER and its sites, including information on the scientific context of

the site, length and scope of observation, and other information currently collected in

DEIMS-SDR.

3. Practical Guidance and Systems Engineering Considerations:

a. Granularity of Metadata and Citation for Dynamically Updated Datasets: guidelines are available

for the management of persistent identifiers associated with dynamically updated datasets. These

are of critical importance to ILTER, given the continuous nature of many of its observation sites;

b. Modularity of Loosely Coupled Services and Interfaces: There is significant support for a service-

oriented architecture for global research data infrastructure - this allows a ‘plug-and-play’ based

composition of applications and portals, utilising contributions from many;

c. Interoperability

i. Syntactic, Schematic, and Syntactic Interoperability standards need to be implemented, as

discussed in 6.4 above.

ii. Brokers and Mediators: In practice, standardisation is never perfect, and mediation of any

of the above is usually required. ILTER is likely to require a brokering service to

aggregate metadata from all participants and to allow data access in a federated system of

systems.

4. Open Data and Open Science: Considerations include publication of data in support of scholarly outputs,

minimum metadata requirements, licenses, data citation and citation indices, and integration with scholarly

publication workflows.

5. Reproducibility and trust: Formal certification of trusted data repositories is already available and serves as

a benchmark for sustainable infrastructure, with indications that such certification is likely to be extended

to other aspects of scientific output (samples, code, vocabularies, and protocols).

The e-infrastructure needs to provide functionality for the following use cases (Hugo et al. 2017; Oggioni et al.

2015):

1. Registration and identification of end-users: while not a requirement for access to services and data

provided under liberal licenses, it is nevertheless useful to keep track of users for purposes of motivation

and measurement of utility, enhancing user experience, and managing access to content. Implementation

can be based on open identification systems such as OpenID and EduRoam.

2. Administrative Functions: allowing end users to register and manage definitions of participating networks

and their observation infrastructure (as currently implemented in DEIMS), linking network or institutional

metadata collections for synchronisation, and managing user-generated objects and content.

3. Search and Discovery: allowing end users to search for networks, infrastructure, instruments, data objects

and services, and to persist predefined search definitions for future use. High-end faceted search

capabilities such as ElasticSearch or SOLR can be employed in this role.

4. Application: this includes binding of data services to user applications and processes, data exploration and

visualisation, inclusion of data services into distributed web processes, and composition of objects based on

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distributed services (for example Atlases or time series visualisations based on multiple, distributed

services).

5. Publication: The act of publication in a distributed environment needs to be managed, and publication

workflows are potentially required to assist with this.

6. Curation: users that contribute content need to be in a position to manage such content through curation

workflows - forming a large part of the technical aspects of certification as trusted infrastructure.

7. Assessment and Rating: end users need to provide feedback on quality of metadata and data, and

information on formally gathered metrics is required (AltMetrics, Scopus, Web of Science, and others).

8. Citation: allow end users to reliably cite data and other digital objects obtained from the infrastructure (for

example via DataCIte), even if the data was subsetted from a large or dynamic dataset, or was compiled

from multiple data sources distributed in the web.

9. Semantic Linking and Annotation: users require secondary tools for contextual annotation of data,

linking keyword and other descriptions to globally recognised vocabularies, and enhancing search

operations.

7 Communication strategyPersonal data and internal and external communication: ILTER maintains a contact data base which

encompasses all ILTER personnel, e.g. the representatives of its Member Networks, the chairs of its committees and

its various officers, and also anyone who signed up for the general ILTER mailing list or otherwise has actively

expressed an interest in being contacted by ILTER (sign-up information is provided on the ILTER website). Using

professional bulk-mailing systems, ILTER distributes information externally via its general mailing list, and

internally via a range of dedicated topical mailing lists to ascertain targeted information distribution without

overloading anyone. For all personal data held by ILTER, strict privacy regulations and safeguarding means are

employed in line with current data protection legislation.

8 The role of LTER in response to Grand ChallengesIt has become highly important, that research projects, networks and infrastructures give evidence of their relation

and response to Grand Challenges (GCs). Numerous lists of Grand Challenges have emerged over the past decade

with the tendency to rather elaborate and establish new Grand Challenge classifications than refer to existing ones in

a consistent manner. LTER-Europe has had a leading role in the major harmonization project of European

environmental infrastructures (ENVRIplus) in elaborating a scheme to identify the relevance of Research

Infrastructures (RIs) for GCs and provide comparable profiles of RIs in terms of their focal GCs (Mirtl et al, in

prep.). Instead of developing a customized system of GCs to best reflect the scope of environmental RIs, existing

GC classifications were used for better comparability and linkage of findings with other processes, strategy building

and stakeholders, referring to the same GC classifications:

● “EC”: European Commission’s Societal Challenges for Europe 2020

(http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/societal-challenges)

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● “NRC”: US National Research Council Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences

(http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9975/grand-challenges-in-environmental-sciences)

● “ICSU”: ICSU Earth System Science for Global Sustainability: The Grand Challenges.

(http://www.icsu.org/news-centre/press-releases/2010/scientific-grand-challenges-identified-to-address-

global-sustainability)

EC and US-NRC challenges are ‘topical’, with a more societal/political focus for the EC Grand Challenges and a

stronger research/development aspect for the US-NRC classification. The ICSU GC classification reflects a

‘workflow’ view (observing, forecasting, confining, responding and innovating). A matrix framework was

developed overlaying topical/challenge aspects (EC, US-NRC) with the workflow view (see Fig. 2). This allows for

cross-referencing all relevant topics/challenges of an RI with where in the scientific process chain (ICSU) the RI is

engaged regarding a given topic/challenge.

Fig. 2. Integrated matrix framework of Grand Challenges classification systems combining topics of challenges (EC

for the societal focus and US-NRC for the science focus) with the scientific and technical workflow from

observation to forecasting, confining, responding and innovation.

Key experts from about 20 Research Infrastructures provided an assessment of the infrastructures relevance for each

individual topical and societal Grand Challenge and the specific role in the ICSU workflow. This resulted in the

identification of the following six societal and research Grand Challenges of major relevance for LTER: (1)

Environmental protection, sustainable management of nat. resources, water, biodiv & ecosystems (Societal/ EC); (2)

Develop global environmental observation and information systems (Societal/ EC); (3) Biogeochemical Cycles

(Research/ NRC); (4) Biological Diversity and Ecosystem Functioning (Research/ NRC); (5) Climate Variability

(Research/ NRC) and (6) Land-Use Dynamics (Research/ NRC).

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The ICSU scientific workflow focussed GC classification comprises (1) Observation: Develop, enhance, and

integrate observation systems to manage global and regional environmental change; (2) Forecasting: Improve the

usefulness of forecasts of future environmental conditions and their consequences for people; (3) Confining:

Determine how to anticipate, avoid and manage disruptive global change; (4) Response: Determine institutional,

economic, and behavioural changes to enable effective steps toward global sustainability; and (5) Innovation:

Encourage innovation (and mechanisms for evaluation) in technological, policy, and social responses to achieve

global sustainability. The LTER activities either contribute, or are an indispensable prerequisite, to all of the above,

but the clear focus lies on observation and, secondly, contributions to modelling and forecasting.

9 The “ILTER Futures” surveyThe survey was carried out in 2015 amongst the entire global LTER community with the explicit targets of

revisiting goals and activities in an increasingly competitive research environment and bridging the gap between

vision and achievable goals, considering two decades experience and the challenges ahead. Out of 1,100 addressees

307 ILTER experts from 37 countries responded, representing the major roles within the network. The biggest

groups were ILTER researchers (40%) and ILTER site coordinators (30%).

Fig. 3. Composition of respondents to the “ILTER Futures” survey in 2015.

Respondents were explicitly asked to provide answers focusing on the desired activities of ILTER as a globally

acting platform organisation as opposed to distributed activities of its component elements. 10 categories were

offered for a ranking and additional priorities could be added. Setting the top rank to 100% resulted in the following

relative ranking of fields of activities with above 50% (respondent of all roles considered):

85-100 %

● Be a network of data to enable high-level global cooperation, analyses and syntheses (interoperability, sharing)

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● Represent a globally distributed research infrastructure: lobbying/support for excellent research sites (and their

PIs)

● To network member networks (providing a framework, better organization, streamlining)

65-85 %

● Provide a framework for global scientific bottom-up initiatives (e.g. N-initiative)

● Act as strategic partner of other global networks (to provide framework for mirrored regional and national

partnerships)

● Networking the scientific community (at the level of individual researchers)

● Develop/suggest standards for parameter sets (standard monitoring) and foster harmonization

50-65 %

● Carry out education and training activities

● Dissemination of results (own mechanism/format for dissemination besides scientific publishing and the ongoing

dissemination by regional groups, member networks and sites)

● Conceptualizing ecosystem research (e.g. the ongoing expansion by socio-ecology)

Already at the 2015 global LTER conference in Italy, the results of the survey gave guidance in (1) preparing for the

Open Science Meeting 2016 (e.g. call for the “scientific bottom-up initiatives” competition), (2) streamlining of

2016 activities (e.g. priorization of collaboration partners) and (3) planning of the further strategy building process.

10 Glossary & acronymsACTRIS - Aerosols Clouds and Trace gases Research InfraStructure

Aichi Targets – Targets agreed by the CBD Community in respect of Biodiversity management

ALTER-Net – European Commission funded (FP6) Network of Excellence, which facilitated the development of LTER-Europe. Now a self-financing network of 27 institutions in the field of biodiversity & ecosystems research

AnaEE - Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems ESFRI preparatory project on a RI for ecosystem experimentation (2013-2016)

AQUACOSM - Network of Leading European AQUAtic MesoCOSM Facilities Connecting Mountains to Oceans from the Arctic to the Mediterranean

Belmont Forum - High level group of the world's major and emerging funders of global environmental change research and international science councils

BiodivERsA - Network of national funding organisations promoting pan-European research for the conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity (ERA-NET)

BioFresh - The Global Freshwater Biodiversity Information Platform

BISE - Biodiversity Information System for Europe (single entry point for data on biodiversity

CBD - Convention on Biological Diversity

CERN - Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (LTER China)

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ClimMani (COST Action ES1308) – Climate change manipulation experiments in terrestrial ecosystems: Networking and outreach (2014-2018)

CLRTAP - Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution in the UNECE

COOPEUS - Co-operation project among scientists and users involved in Europe’s major environmental related research infrastructure projects with their US counterparts. COOPEUS continues as COOP+

COP - Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Copernicus - a European system for monitoring the Earth consisting of a complex set of systems which collect data from multiple sources

CRITEX - National network for the spatial and temporal study of the French Critical Watershed Zone

CSW - Catalogue Service Web (OGC Standard); service based publishing of metadata

CZ, CZO - Critical Zone concept; CZ research sites are Critical Zone Observatories

DANUBIUS - International Centre for Advanced Studies on River–Sea Systems

DataONE - Data Observation Network for Earth (US)

DEIMS - Dynamic Ecological Information Management System operated by ILTER, US-LTER and LTER-Europe and providing a web client interface for documenting metadata and data from research sites

DiSSCo – Distributed System of Scientific Collections; a pan-European Research Infrastructure proposal

DMP - Data Management Plan

DOI - Digital Object Identifier (ISO 26324)

Drought-Net - A global network to assess terrestrial ecosystem sensitivity to drought

EC - European Commission

EcoPAR - Interactive web tool “Parameters and Methods for Ecosystem Research & Monitoring”

ECSA - European Citizen Science Association

EEA - European Environment Agency

EEF - European Ecological Federation

EF - INSPIRE data theme Environmental Monitoring Facility

EFI - European Forest Institute

EGI - European Grid Infrastructure

ELIXIR - A distributed infrastructure for life-science information

eLTER DIP - eLTER Data Integration Platform, providing interoperable data from different data nodes

eLTER DN - eLTER Data Node, the IT infrastructure providing service-based access to metadata and data

eLTER ESFRI - process to formally place the eLTER RI on the European RI roadmap to be implemented

eLTER H2020 - Research and technological development project (Horizon2020/ Infraia project; 2015-2019) to support the design of the eLTER RI funded by the European Commission´s H2020 framework programme.

eLTER RI - eLTER Research Infrastructure envisioned at the end of the Preparatory Phase Project

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eLTER Site - Category of the eLTER RI distributed in situ component (comprising Master Sites, Regular Sites and Satellite Sites)

eLTER-S2 - eLTER Software Suite, the set of tools and services needed to set up an eLTER Data Node

eLTSER Platform - Category of the eLTER RI distributed in situ component dedicated to Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research on humans-environment interactions at the regional/landscape scale

EMBRC - European Marine Biological Resource Centre

EMEP - European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme under the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP)

EML - Ecological Metadata Language, a standard metadata schemata for observation data

ENOHA - European data platform for hydrological observation and experimentation

EnvEurope - European Life+ Project “Environmental quality and pressures assessment across Europe: the LTER network as an integrated and shared system for ecosystem monitoring”

ENVRI, ENVRI+ - FP7 project “Common Operations of Environmental Research infrastructures”, a collaboration in the ESFRI Environment Cluster. ENVRI+ is successor under H2020

ENVRIplus - H2020 project bringing together Environmental and Earth System Research Infrastructures

EnvThes - Environmental Thesaurus. A multilingual thesaurus developed in the framework of the projects Life + EnvEurope and ExpeER

EOSC – European Open Science Cloud

EPBRS - European Platform for Biodiversity Research Strategy

ERA - European Research Area

ERIS - Environmental Research Infrastructures Strategy (a product of ENVRI)

ERIS - European Environmental Research Infrastructure

ESFRI - European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures

ESFRI SWG - ESFRI Strategy Working Group

ESFRI SWG Env - ESFRI Strategic Working Group on Environment

ESFRI ENV - ESFRI ENV concerns environmental research

EU NEC directive - Proposal for a directive on National Emission Ceilings

EUBON - European Biodiversity Observation Network (FP7)

EUDAT - European Collaborative Data Infrastructure (FP7)

EFTEON - Expanded Freshwater and Terrestrial Observation Network (South Africa; RI component strongly related to LTER South Africa, see → SAEON)

ExpeER - (FP7 I3) Experimentation in Ecosystem Research, European Infrastructure project 2010-2015

FAIR – data management principles. To be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable

FluxNet - Network of regional networks to measure the exchanges of carbon dioxide

FOAF - Friend of a Friend (FOAF) metadata schemata

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Future Earth - research initiative on global environmental change and global sustainability

GAW - Global Atmosphere Watch programme of WMO

GEO - Group on Earth Observations

GEO BON - Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (part of GEOSS)

GEO DAB - GEO Discovery and Access Broker

GEOSS - Global Earth Observation System of Systems

GCI - GEO Common Infrastructure

GIS - Geographic Information Systems

GLEON - Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network

GLORIA – Global observation network for climate change impact in high alpine areas

GRI - Global Research Infrastructure

H2020 - EU Research and Innovation programme 2014 to 2020

I3 - Integrated Infrastructure Initiative

ICOS ERIC - The Integrated Carbon Observation System ESFRI Research Infrastructure

ICP - International Co-operative Programs of the UNECE/CLRTAP. Specific monitoring programs are ICP Forests; ICP Integrated Monitoring of Ecosystems, ICP Vegetation

ICP-Forest - The International Co-operative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests

ICSU - International Council for Science

ILTER - International Long Term Ecosystem Research network

INCREASE - Integrated Network on Climate Research (FP7I3, experimentation)

INI - International Nitrogen Initiative

INNGE - International Network of Next Generation Ecologists

INSPIRE - EU Directive, and aims to create an EU spatial data infrastructure

INSPIRE (INSPIRE/OGC) - Infrastructure for spatial information in Europe/Open Geospatial Consortium

InterAct - International Network for Terrestrial Research and Monitoring in the Arctic (FP7 and H2020)

IPBES - International Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

IPCC - International Panel on Climate Change

IPR - Intellectual Property Rights

IS-ENES - RI of the European Network for Earth System Modeling

ISMC - International Soil Modelling Consortium

ISSE - Integrative Science for Society and the Environment

IUCN - International Union for Conservation of Nature

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Jerico - Joint European Research Infrastructure Network For Coastal Observatories (FP 7)

JRA - Joint Research Activities

JRC - Joint Research Centre, the European Commission's in-house science service

LifeWatch - The e-Science and Technology European Research Infrastructure Consortium for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research

LTER - Long-Term Ecological Research

LTER Infrastructure - The integrated ecosystem research infrastructure to be established by eLTER

LTER infrastructure pool - The pool of long-term ecosystem research infrastructures networked by LTER-Europe on which the eLTER RI builds (LTER-Europe network plus Critical Zone Observatory sites)

LTER site - Natural scientific research sites of LTER-Europe

LTER-Europe - European Long-Term Ecosystem Research Network, consisting of 25 formal national LTER networks and representing Europe as ILTER regional group

LTSER - Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research

LTSER platform - Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research Platform; regional infrastructure for socio-ecological research (of the LTER-Europe)

M&T - Mobility and Training

MD - Metadata

MRE - Monitoring, Reporting and Evaluation

NA - Networking Activity

NEON - The National Ecological Observatory Network in the United States of America funded by the National Science Foundation

NGO - Non-governmental organisation

NoE - Network of Excellence

NRI - eLTER National Research Infrastructure

NutNet - Nutrient Network; research network of more than 40 grassland sites worldwide

OGC - Open Geospatial Consortium. 481 companies collaborating on interface standards

O&M - Observations and measurements, is an International Standard which defines a conceptual schema encoding for observations, and for features involved in sampling when making observations.

ORCID - An open, non-profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers.

OZCAR/CRITREX - Observatoires de la Zone Critique Applications et Recherches/ The national innovative technology park for the spatial and temporal study of critical watershed areas in France

PECS - Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society

PEER – Partnership for European Environmental Research

PEEX - Pan-Eurasian Experiment

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PPP - Preparatory Phase Project

RCM - Regional Climate Model

RDA - Research Data Alliance

RI - Research Infrastructure

RPO - Research Performing Organisation

SAEON - South African Environmental Observation Network (= LTER South Africa, see EFTEON)

SDG – United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

SDOCs - Strategic Documents on Collaboration

Sendai Framework - A 15-year, voluntary, non-binding agreement which recognizes that the State has the primary role to reduce disaster risk but that responsibility should be shared with other stakeholders

SensorML - Sensor Model Language (OGC Standard)

SME - Small and medium-sized enterprises

SoilTrEC - Soil Transformations in European Catchments (FP7 project)

SolRad-Net - Solar Radiation Network

SOP - Standard Operating Procedure

SOS - Sensor Observation Service (OGC Standard)

SWE - Sensor Web Enablement (OGC Standard)

TERENO – Integrated “Terrestrial Environmental Observatories”, Germany

TERN - Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (LTER Australia)

TSAP - Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution

UNECE - United Nations Economic Commission for Europe

UNECE ICP - The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe - International Cooperative Programme

UNECE WGE ICP - The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe - Working Group on Effects -International Cooperative Programme

US-NRC - United States National Research Council

VRI - Virtual Research Infrastructure

W3C - World Wide Web Consortium; standardisation organisation

WFD- Water framework directive

WFS - Web Feature Service (OGC Standard)

WMO - World Meteorological Organisation

WMS - Web Map Service (OGC Standard)

WNBR - UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves

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11 Supplementary referencesBrantley, S.L., DiBiase, R.A., Russo, T.A., Davis, K.J., Eissenstat, D.M., Dere, A.L., et al., 2016. Designing a suite of

measurements to understand the critical zone. Earth Surface Dynamics 4, 211.Hugo, W., Hobern, D., Kõljalg, U., Tuama, É.Ó., Saarenmaa, H., 2017. Global Infrastructures for Biodiversity Data and Services.

The GEO Handbook on Biodiversity Observation Networks. Springer, pp. 259-291.Kissling, W.D., Hardisty, A., García, E.A., Santamaria, M., De Leo, F., Pesole, G., et al., 2015. Towards global interoperability

for supporting biodiversity research on essential biodiversity variables (EBVs). Biodiversity 16, 99-107.Mirtl, M., Kutsch, W., Haslinger, F. et al.: European Research Infrastructures relevance for Grand Challenges. ENVRIplus,

technical report 12.1, in preparation.Oggioni, A., 2015. D3.1 eLTER State of the art and requirements, Report submitted as deliverable for H2020-funded project,

GA: 654359, INFRAIA call 2014-2015.Richter, D., Billings, S., 2015. 'One physical system': Tansley's ecosystem as Earth's critical zone. The New Phytologist 206, 900.Turnitsa, C., Tolk, A., 2006. Battle management language: A triangle with five sides. Proceedings of the Simulation

Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) Spring Simulation Interoperability Workshop (SIW), Huntsville, AL, USA. 27.

Vanderbilt, K.L., Lin, C.-C., Lu, S.-S., Kassim, A.R., He, H., Guo, X., et al., 2015. Fostering ecological data sharing: collaborations in the International Long Term Ecological Research Network. Ecosphere 6, 1-18.