The mission of this research network is to help make the explicit consideration of statistical uncertainties a standard component of ecosystem studies. The construction of budgets for whole forest watersheds, for example, has greatly increased our general understanding of how water, carbon, and other substances cycle through ecosystems more generally. However, uncertainty due either to natural variation in observations or measurement error is rarely included in research reports. This makes it difficult to determine actual rates of change over time or to compare with confidence results from different sites or studies. Failure to address uncertainties can lead to wrong conclusions, for example in identifying missing sources or sinks for nitrogen in a forest. Uncertainty analysis can also help improve the efficiency of environmental monitoring by allowing sampling designs to optimize information gained relative to the time and money required to collect and analyze the data. This network will organize working groups to address five topics. Expert statisticians will serve on an advisory board for these working groups and also consider cross-cutting issues, such as evaluating the possible approaches to quantifying uncertainties in making observations and building computer models, demonstrating how uncertainty analysis can be used to evaluate the efficiency of monitoring designs, and determining how changes in ecosystem measurements over time can best be detected.
Building this network will require using several different approaches to coordination and communication, and for providing an effective structure for shared learning, including web meetings, conference calls, email, and annual face-to-face meetings. A broader audience will be reached through quarterly webinars and through the project web site, which will have, in addition to working group wikis, pages for frequently asked questions, educational materials, illustrated step-by-step examples, digital libraries, and a clearinghouse for sharing software and model computer codes, workflows, and other products. The overall goal is to facilitate a cultural change that makes uncertainty analysis an expected and readily attainable practice in ecosystem studies.
