Modeled with Mohid

The site of Botanic Garden Meise is a 92 ha domain near Brussels. It has been assembled from parts of two historic castle parks. For more than 75 years it has been home to a collection of plants, as well as a research institute dedicated to botany, forming one of the largest botanic gardens in Europe but also an important tourist attraction close to Brussels. Some habitats get a high degree of disturbance, either due to garden maintenance, or from the large number of visitors. There are also managed and more natural areas. A variety of terrestrial and aquatic habitats occur, among which valuable woody (semi-)natural areas, and also managed meadows. The study of biodiversity in the park has relealed an exceptional species richness in many taxonomic groups. More than 600 wild vascular plant species have been found since 2002, including rare species that were inadvertently introduced during the 19th century, so called wood lawn neophytes . Since 1993 the ectomycorrhizal fungi have been monitored, and there are observations of 52 Red List species in the domain. The park is also the richest Belgian site for Laboulbeniales (Ascomycetes), obligate ectoparasites of Arthropoda. Especially the wet ash-alder forests hold a number of rare and unique taxa and host-parasite combinations, some of them with only a few localities known worldwide. Moreover, the domain is a biodiversity hotspot for lichens and lichenicolous fungi, among other factors as a result of management, such as the regular maintenance of the undergrowth which has a positive effect on light-loving epiphytic lichens, and also due to the diversity of habitats and the large range of different substrates of varying age and of ecological conditions. Another well represented group are diatoms (Bacillariophyta), of which a mere survey in a small pond already yielded two species which have been described as new to science. The site is also rich in fauna, for example rare bat species that overwinter in our historical underground ice cellars. The diverse range of cultivated species also attracts an enormous range of arthropods and plant pathogens, which we know exceeds what we know of it.

Gobabeb is a Research Centre with accommodation, conference, laboratory and teaching facilities in Namibia's Namib-Naukluft National Park, about 65km from the coast on the northern bank of the ephemeral Kuiseb River. It is located at a point where three main habitats meet (ephemeral river, gravel plain and the Namib erg) and lies within the inland edge of the fog zone. It is the designated monitoring and research centre for the Namib Sand Sea World Heritage Site.

Desert grassland, shrubland, woodland, forest and riparian habitats in central New Mexico, USA

The Connell Rainforest Plot Network is a member of Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTERN), Australia (http://www.ltern.org.au), a facility of the Australian Government's Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), (http://www.tern.org.au). The long-term forest dynamics plot at O'Reilly's is located in the subtropical rainforest near O’Reilly’s Guest House in Lamington National Park, 65 km south of Brisbane. It consists of two 1-ha plots spaced approximately 600 m apart, but for analyses they have always been treated as a single unit. This plot has never been logged, but some selective logging has occurred just outside the plot boundary. Temporal visits occur between 1 to 6 years.

Sokolov post-mining ecosystems represent a unique LTER study area comprising forest and non-forest ecosystems developing after reclamation or by spontaneous revegetation on heaped overburden from brown coal mining. Several 1 ha sites are studied since 1992 (10 sites intensively and over 50 sites occasionally). Research has been focused on interactions between soil, plants and soil organisms and their role in soil formation and biogeochemical cycles restoration. Great attention has been paid to comparison of long-term development of reclaimed and non-reclaimed sites and to the effect of different tree species, types of substrates and heaping technique used during reclamation. Series of sites of known age (15–70 years) developing on similar substrate represent a great opportunity for ecological research using a chronosequence approach.

Except for minor disturbances associated with selective logging on two plots, the Tropical Rainforest Plot Network plots were established in old growth forest and all plots have thereafter been protected. Plots have been regularly censused and at each census the diameter at breast height of all stems is recorded. The data collected from the 20 plots provides an insight into the floristical composition, structure and long term forest dynamics of Australian tropical rainforests and allows direct comparisons to be made with long-term monitoring plots at a global scale. Temporal visits were initially conducted every 2 years, then every 5 years from 1990. Between 2012 and 2018 the Tropical Rainforest Plot Network is a member of Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTERN), Australia, a facility of the Australian Government's Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN).

Norway Spruce-Fir-Red Beech Forest on Limestone The experimental site Mühleggerköpfl is located on the northern edge of the Alps and receives air pollutants that are transported over long distances, by predominant westerly winds; local emissions from rural settlements are low. The LTER site has an area of 20 hectares. It is a privately owned mature montane forest rich in Norway spruce in the Northern Limestone Alps at 920 m a.s.l. on a north–north-east facing slope of a mountain (47° 34’ 50” N; 11° 38’ 21” E). The site on an isolated calcareous outcrop in the valley of Achenbach represents a watershedsmall catchment. Routinely measured parameters over the years have included climate (air temperature, precipitation, and air humidity), soil temperature, soil water content, soil solution chemistry, nutrient content of Norway spruce needles, air quality, deposition of N, and surface runoff. The climate is cool and mesic with maximum precipitation in summer and a snow-free period from April/May to November/December. The mean annual air temperature and precipitation from on-site measurements are 6.8°C and 1580 mm, respectively. The annual variability of the precipitation is small. Moist conditions are also evident from the high relative air humidity.

The first 500 acres of CCESR were acquired in the early 1940s with the understanding that they would be kept in their natural condition and used for scientific and educational purposes. Funds for acquisition of additional land, development of permanent buildings and preparation of accurate maps became available from a variety of sources including personal contributions, the National Science Foundation, the Max Fleischmann Foundation, the Minnesota Natural Resources Commission and the US Land and Water Conservation Program. Cedar Creek lies at the boundary between prairie and forest. It is a mosaic of uplands dominated by oak savanna, prairie, hardwood forest, pine forests, and abandoned agricultural fields and of lowlands comprised of ash and cedar swamps, acid bogs, marshes, and sedge meadows. Large tracts of the pre-agricultural ecosystems of the region are preserved within its boundaries as is a successional chronosequence of more than 80 old fields of known history. A program of prescribed burns, begun in 1964 in a large tract of native oak savanna, has 12 blocks with fire frequencies ranging from one per year, to one per 7 years, to unburned controls. These have diverged dramatically in their vegetation and soils in response to fire frequency and some areas are now exhibiting characteristics not seen in this region since settlement in the 1800s. The soils of Cedar Creek, derived from a glacial outwash sandplain, span five of the ten soil orders. Upland soils are nitrogen poor: numerous nutrient addition experiments performed in both old fields and native savanna have shown that nitrogen is the major soil resource that limits plant growth. Cedar Creek has a continental climate with cold winters, hot summers, and precipitation (66 cm/yr) spread fairly evenly throughout the year. The mean July temperature is 22.2OC while the mean January temperature is -lOoC.

The Hölstein site is located in in the eastern part of the Swiss Jura mountains (47°26’16.4’’, 7°46’31.1’’; 540 m a.s.l.), in a mixed, temperate forest with an exceptionally high biodiversity and a vigorous tree regeneration. The research plot has a size of 1.6 ha and comprises 540 mature trees. The main tree species are Fagus sylvatica and Picea abies with an admixture of Abies alba, Quercus petraea, Pinus sylvestris, Acer pseudoplatanus, Carpinus betulus, Fraxinus excelsior and Sorbus torminalis. A canopy crane is installed in the center of the research area to access the tree canopies for in situ measurements and for sampling of leaf material. Rainout shelters will be installed in 2019 for conducting a long-term throughfall exclusion experiment.