The Virginia Coast Reserve Long-Term Ecological Research (VCR/ LTER) project is funded by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

. The VCR/LTER project's research activities focus on the mosaic of transitions and steady-state systems that comprise the barrier-island/lagoon/mainland landscape of the

Eastern Shore of Virginia The Eastern Shore of Virginia consists of two counties ( Accomack and Northampton) on the Atlantic coast detached from the mainland of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The region is part of the Delmarva Peninsula and is s ...

. Research is conducted in mainland marshes, the lagoon system behind the barrier islands, and on the islands themselves, particularly Hog Island. The VCR/LTER began operation in 1987. It initially focused on geophysical controls (e.g., storms) on coastal ecosystems. In 1992-1994 it broadened that focus to address the concept of ecological state change, which was linked in 1994-2000 to relationships between free surfaces (land, sea, freshwater table). More recent work (2000-2006), added a hypsometric perspective, which provides an alternate way of examining ecological patterns on the coastal landscape. It makes extensive use of the

Virginia Coast Reserve The Volgenau Virginia Coast Reserve (prior to August 2020 known as the Virginia Coast Reserve) is a biosphere reserve created by The Nature Conservancy in the early 1970s. It consists of 40,000 acres across 14 of the Virginia Barrier Islands along ...

The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. Founded in 1951, The Nat ...

. The VCR/LTER is a member of the

Long Term Ecological Research Network The Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTER) consists of a group of over 1800 scientists and students studying ecological processes over extended temporal and spatial scales. Twenty-eight LTER sites cover a diverse set of ecosystems. It is par ...

, and is administered by the Department of Environmental Sciences of the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

. Its field research headquarters is at the

Anheuser-Busch Coastal Research Center Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC is an American brewing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2008, it has been wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev), now the world's largest brewing company, which owns multiple gl ...

of the

in Oyster, Virginia. The research site received new funding from the National Science Foundation in 2018 which will allow the research team of Karen McGlathery, Michael Pace, Patricia Wiberg, John Porter, and to continue research projects into the impact of climate change on coastal barrier oceans.

References

External links

Virginia Coast Reserve Long-Term Ecological Research website
Ecological experiments {{ecology-stub