A LONG-TERM ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH STRATEGY FOR POLAR ENVIRONMENTAL-RESEARCH

The Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research site was established in the vicinity of Palmer Station, Antarctica in 1990. It is the eighteenth and most recent addition to the LTER Network funded by the National Science Foundation of the United States. The Palmer LTER expands the geographical and habitat coverage of the LTER Network to southern polar regions and offers unique opportunities for ecological synthesis and the study of long-term ecological phenomena in the Antarctic marine ecosystem. The central hypothesis of the Palmer LTER is that many significant biological processes in the Antarctic marine environment are strongly affected by physical processes, particularly interannual variability in the annual extent and dynamics of pack ice and variations in ocean currents. The Palmer LTER Studies Group is multidisciplinary and seeks to understand and model interactions between key species from different trophic levels and the physical environment. It is recognized that anthropogenic impacts in Antarctica cannot be adequately evaluated without understanding the underlying natural variability in Antarctic ecosystems.