TERICA

TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH INITIATIVE CONCERTED ACTION

Coordinator : Professor J.H. Lawton

TERI (Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Initiative) is part of the Environment and Climate Programme of the European Commission, in the Fourth Framework Programme. Its aims are to improve the ability of ecosystem science to predict the consequences and interactive effects of changes in land-use, climate and atmospheric composition and physics on three areas of primary concern for European terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems:

• carbon, nutrients and water pools and fluxes, and related trace gas emissions;
• biodiversity in terms of its significance for ecosystem functioning;
• future landscape patterning constrained by changes in the above.

TERI research is organised through 20 individual projects,TERI projects, each involving several partners and networks of research sites throughout Europe.

TERI-CA is not a research programme. It is a structure which helps to bring together European ecosystem research to make it more coherent, and to make the ideas and results of this research available to politicians at all levels. Its specific objectives are to:

• ensure synergy between European ecosystem research projects
• organise thematic meetings and workshops to improve interaction between projects
• provide a forum for discussing ecological theory and experimental research in order to provide the scientific framework for future research and environmental monitoring activities
• stimulate the development of environmental models - and in particular models suited to assist in the difficult question of generalising from limited experiments (scaling up)
• make the results of ecosystem research available to stakeholders.

TERI-CA activities are open to all European scientists working on TERI projects, and related, ecosystem research. TERI-CA is run by a steering committee, responsible for the implementation of its activities.

contact :

TERI-CA secretariat
Dr. S. Struwe
Department of General Microbiology
Sølvgade 83 H DK
1307 Copenhagen K
Denmark
Tel: 45 33 32 20 50
Fax: 45 35 32 20 40
struwe@mermaid.molbio.ku.dk

Professor J.H. Lawton
NERC Center for Population Biology
Imperial College at silwood Park,
Ascot, Berkshire
United Kingdom
Tel : 44 01 344 294 346
j.lawton@ic.ac.uk

web site :