Sevilleta LTER | Core Site Long-Term Ecological Monitoring

Lauren Baur, Program Manager for the Sevilleta Long Term Ecological Research program at the University of New Mexico, leads a research team in ecological data collection that monitors population dynamics, community structure, and ecosystem processes. At sites representative of the major ecosystem types of the southwestern U.S.A., the team monitors plant species biomass, plant phenology, the abundances of small mammals, grasshoppers, and bees. These data inform our understanding of species abundances and ecological processes over time in response to environmental change and disturbances. This work is important because only through long-term data collection can we fully understand how the world is changing around us. This work is part of the Sevilleta LTER project funded by the National Science Foundation.