Earth Stewardship, Socioecosystems, the Need for a Transdisciplinary Approach and the Role of the International Long Term Ecological Research Network (ILTER) - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 224

transdisciplinary research in the network. Forest biome dominates ILTER sites
(40 % of the sites), but aquatic sites are also well represented: fresh water (25 %),
costal (7 %) and marine sites (5 %). There are also mountain sites (10 %), deserts
(6 %), and grasslands (6 %). We even have a few urban LTER sites (less than 2 %).
On top of this ecosystems diversity, there are also diverse socio-economic condi-
tions, bringing important heterogeneity of socioecosystems types and arrangements,
which makes ILTER a very profi table platform for earth stewardship and sustain-
ability research. However, it is also important to recognize that ILTER does not
differ from other International Programs in which there is an important unbalance
of North/South research effort. Rozzi et al. ( 2012 ) have pointed out the Northern
hemispheric research dominance, and highlighted a particularly notorious gap of
ILTER research sites in the temperate and sub-Antarctic regions of South America
(between 40° and 60° south). In fact, only 3 % of the current ILTER's research sites,
listed on its webpage, are located on the southern hemisphere and only 8 % of the
sites belong to the inter-tropical zone (between 23°N and 23°S). A similar gap has
been detected in the Northern Africa and Middle East region, as well as in the North
of Asia. It does not necessarily mean that no one is working in these regions, but the
fact is that there are very few groups associated with ILTER there. However, ILTER
is taking actions to revert this situation, fostering the participation of new partners
though a new type of membership called “associated sites”. Under this admission
category, a research group from a country without a formal ILTER national-level
network will be able to join ILTER through an affi liation process with an already
accepted member. The associated sites will have the commitment to participate in
building their national-level network. With this mechanism, ILTER is expecting to
incorporate good research groups, which are already making individual efforts to
conduct LTER research in developing countries.

14.4.6 The Bottom Up Approach

In very large organizations like ILTER, with a highly heterogeneous membership, it
is diffi cult to coordinate research activities in which all members participate. Our
approach has been to standardize methods (to facilitate data sharing and compari-
son), foster diversity (to increase collective intelligence), identify common interest
(to induce collaboration), facilitate the communication between groups (to generate
opportunities), and allow for self-organization of activities through what we call
“bottom up” initiatives. By scooping from the bottom, ILTER not only increase the
possibility of getting new and exciting ideas, but also is facilitating the integration
process within the network. Since “bottom up” initiatives can come from any net-
work group, the member's participation is encouraged, the commitment is self-
imposed, the sense of community is amplifi ed, and the effort of running the network
is distributed. “Bottom up” initiatives are very good for dealing with local limita-
tions and identifying good opportunities for collaboration. They may also promote
redundancy and bring stability to the network (Csermely 2006 ; Ahn et al . 2010 ).