Previous conceptual frameworks are available for VCRLTER VII (2018-2025) and prior research from LTER I through LTER VI.
The VCR VIII conceptual framework focuses on: ecosystem state change dynamics (Theme 1); the connectivity of water, sediments and carbon between ecosystems that couple state change dynamics of individual ecosystems (Theme 2); and the consequences for landscape-scale changes across the coastal barrier landscape (Theme 3). We continue to investigate ecological processes within each ecosystem area (transitional forest-marsh, intertidal, subtidal, barrier island) and propose new studies to address how connectivity alters state change and ecosystem function across the VCR. Ecosystem state change and connectivity affect broader spatial dynamics, including the spatial stability of ecological processes, and influence ecosystem function across the landscape. Within each theme, we summarize how and where we quantify the core areas of primary production, organic matter, nutrient movements, populations and disturbance.
Projecting the long-term response of coastal ecosystems to climate change requires understanding how climate drivers affect ecosystem state change and connectivity across the entire coastal landscape. The overarching goal for VCR LTER VIII is to understand, quantify and predict how variation and trends in climate drivers change ecosystem states and functions from local to landscape scales. To accomplish this, we organize our research around three themes: 1) mechanisms and consequences of state change within ecosystems; 2) connectivity and coupled dynamics between ecosystems; and 3) landscape-scale dynamics. VCR LTER research continues to focus on identifying biophysical feedbacks that either maintain or facilitate transitions in ecosystem states and threshold responses to climate drivers, developing mechanistic models, calibrated and validated with long- and short-term data, and using these to project state change and its ecological consequences and investigating consequences of state transitions and their interactions for ecosystems attributes, including biodiversity, organic matter, nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration, that represent core areas of LTER research . Extending our research to ecological patterns and processes at the scale of the entire landscape is a new focus for VCR VIII. This integrated long-term research informs management and conservation of coastal ecosystems at the VCR, and extends regionally and globally through comparative studies and syntheses. Our research has an empirical and mechanistic focus on coastal ecosystems, and at the same time tests theories and contributes general models related to state change and thresholds.