What is socio-ecological research delivering? A literature survey across 25 international LTSER platforms

Jan Dick , Daniel Orenstein E. , Jennifer Holzer M. , Christoph Wohner , Anne-Laure Achard , Christopher Andrews , Noa Avriel-Avni , Pedro Beja (1, 2) , Nadège Blond (3) , Javier Cabello (4) , Chen Chiling , Ricardo Diaz-Delgado (5) , Georgios Giannakis , Simone Gingrich (6) , Zita Izakovicova (7) , Kinga Krauze (8) , Nicolas Lamouroux (9) , Stefan Leca , Melecis Viesturs (10) , Miklos Kertesz , Maria Mimikou , Georg Niedrist , Christophe Piscart (11) , Carmen Postolache (12) , Alexander Psomas , Margarida Santos-Reis , Ulrike Tappeiner (13) , Kristin Vanderbilt , Gunther van Ryckegem (14)

1 CIBIO - Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos
2 Centro de Ecologia Aplicada "Prof. Baeta Neves" (CEABN)
3 LIVE - Laboratoire Image, Ville, Environnement
4 UAL - Universidad de Almería
5 CSIC - Spanish National Research Council
6 Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt [Klagenfurt, Austria]
7 SAS - Slovak Academy of Sciences
8 PAN - Polish Academy of Sciences
9 IRSTEA - Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture
10 LU - University of Latvia
11 ECOBIO - Ecosystèmes, biodiversité, évolution [Rennes]
12 UPB - University Politehnica of Bucharest [Romania]
13 Universität Innsbruck [Innsbruck]
14 INBO

With an overarching goal of addressing global and regional sustainability challenges, Long Term Socio-Ecological Research Platforms (LTSER) aim to conduct place-based research, to collect and synthesize both environmental and socio-economic data, and to involve a broader stakeholder pool to set the research agenda. To date there have been few studies examining the output from LTSER platforms. In this study we enquire if the socio-ecological research from 25 self-selected LTSER platforms of the International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network has produced research products which fulfil the aims and ambitions of the paradigm shift from ecological to socio-ecological research envisaged at the turn of the century. In total we assessed 4983 publically available publications, of which 1112 were deemed relevant to the socio-ecological objectives of the platform. A series of 22 questions were scored for each publication, assessing relevance of responses in terms of the disciplinary focus of research, consideration of human health and well-being, degree of stakeholder engagement, and other relevant variables. The results reflected the diverse origins of the individual platforms and revealed a wide range in foci, temporal periods and quantity of output from participating platforms, supporting the premise that there is a growing trend in socio-ecological research at long-term monitoring platforms. Our review highlights the challenges of realizing the top-down goal to harmonize international network activities and objectives and the need for bottom-up, self-definition for research platforms. This provides support for increasing the consistency of LTSER research while preserving the diversity of regional experiences.

Keywords: Socio-ecology; Transdisciplinary; Sustainability; ILTER; Place-based; LTER

Domains: Environmental Sciences; Biodiversity and Ecology

Jan Dick, Daniel Orenstein E., Jennifer Holzer M., Christoph Wohner, Anne-Laure Achard, et al.. What is socio-ecological research delivering? A literature survey across 25 international LTSER platforms. Science of the Total Environment, 2018, 622-623, pp.1225-1240. ⟨10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.11.324⟩. ⟨hal-01769658⟩