An Anthropologist Joins the Long-Term Ecological Research Network

Environmental science has no room for theoretical or methodological hegemony, and questions cannot be asked in the absence of purposeful design. Education must simultaneously engage students in thinking and doing, ideally in collaboration. Communication is a two-way process in which scientists are challenged to be credible and legitimate in conveying salient results to diverse audiences. Collaboration is about leveraging individual skills toward a common purpose, which can only succeed when trust exists between investigators. I was trained as an ecological anthropologist with an emphasis on behavioral and ecosystem ecology at the University of Montana and the Pennsylvania State University. I have conducted archaeological, behavioral, cultural, and historical research throughout the western and the southeastern United States, as well as in several countries in lowland South America, the Dominican Republic, and southern France. Currently, I am professor and head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Georgia. In 1997, I was invited to join the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program at the Coweeta site (CWT). CWT is based in the eastern deciduous forest of the southern Appalachian Mountains, and I was brought in to collaborate on regionalization of what had been exclusively a site-based project. Just prior to joining CWT, I had been involved for several years in regional conservation activities in Paraguay and Bolivia. Since 2002, I have served as principal investigator of CWT, leading the successful grant renewal efforts in 2002 and 2008. I recently completed the 2014 renewal effort, which was successful. There has been a dramatic shift over the period of my involvement in the LTER program in attitudes within the network to regionalization and participation by scientists from disciplines other than ecology (Gragson and Grove 2006; Robertson et al. 2012). Several colleagues and I have helped to foster this shift through our involvement on the LTER Social Science Standing Committee (1998–present), leadership in the LTER planning activities (2004–2007), and service on the LTER Executive Board (2008–2011). My experiences in the LTER program have influenced my ideas about the nature and conduct of environmental research.