LTER-LIFE aims to study and predict how global change affects ecosystems. LTER stands for Long-Term Ecosystem Research, an international network of research facilities that research specific ecosystems, of which: De Hoge Veluwe and the Wadden Sea are the most important ecosystems being researched in the Netherlands. The LTER-LIFE research environment allows ecologists to link scattered long-term data on plants, animals and the environment, share methods for data analysis, modelling and simulation, and build digital replicas (Digital Twins) of entire ecosystems. These Digital Twins make it possible to understand and predict how ecosystems react to, for example, prolonged drought or the arrival of exotic plants and animals.
LTER-LIFE only works if large amounts of well-structured data are available long term. Data from ongoing research programmes, but also historical data collected sometimes more than 40 years ago that are in danger of being lost due to lack of resources and good infrastructure.
In LTER-LIFE, DANS shares its knowledge and expertise in the field of long-term archival of research data and the optimal reuse of these data. LTER-LIFE is coordinated by the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO), a KNAW institute which DANS already collaborates with in various ways. Other partners include the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), the University of Amsterdam (UvA), and Wageningen University & Research (WUR).
