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The US National Science Foundation's Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) network was established in 1980 to provide the scientific expertise, research platforms, and long-term data sets necessary to document and analyze environmental change (http://www.lternet.edu). There are currently 25 sites in the US LTER network representing a range of ecosystems, including deserts, prairies, forests, tundra, lakes, urban areas, estuaries, coastal reefs, the pelagic ocean, and production agriculture. Although the research questions being addressed vary across the network, each site collects data on primary production, population dynamics, the cycling of both organic and inorganic matter, and disturbance patterns. Long-term data in these core areas enable changes in critical ecological processes to be tracked over time and facilitate comparisons among different ecosystem types.

How will changing environmental drivers, such as a warming ocean and sea level rise, affect diverse coastal ecosystems over time? Can ecosystems perturbed by infrequent but major disruptions, such as hurricanes or oil spills, return to their pre-disturbance state? How will ocean acidification affect ecosystem functioning and biological processes in coastal systems? How do human activities interact with climate and environmental drivers over time? The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) coastal sites are well positioned to contribute the scientific knowledge needed for informed decision making in tackling these questions and the challenges the answers may bring. Many of the coastal LTER science objectives address goals of the NSF-wide Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) effort, providing an opportunity for the LTERs to increase the scope of their activities and to contribute to the growing climate, environment, and sustainability portfolio at NSF.