SITES focuses on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and recognizes the interactions of biological communities, which drive biogeochemical and ecological processes. As such, SITES collaborates with Project LifePlan – a Planetary Inventory of Life – which collects biological data from 83 global locations, 44 national locations (19 in the Nordic countries and 25 in Madagascar, and two sets (in Sweden and in Madagascar) of hierarchical designs that cover the scales from 0.5 to 500 km. As a participant in Project LifePlan, SITES stations are equipped with Malaise traps, cyclone samplers, cameras and audio samplers (attached to trees). Project LifePlan offers a unique opportunity for new discoveries, for example, here the camera trap placed in the forest of Asa Research Station captured an “opera-singing” Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes).
Photo: Camera Trap at Asa Research Station
The SITES 2024 Calendar theme is “SITES Collaborations”. SITES aims to promote excellent ecosystem research and high-quality data that support this research. This includes collaborations that increase the number of projects that utilize multiple SITES stations and connect between aquatic and terrestrial processes. Further, SITES aims to strengthen the collaborations with relevant research infrastructures and networks across Sweden and internationally, including data infrastructures and services. Each month during 2024, follow along as we highlight a unique SITES collaboration.