Ecologists are being challenged to use their accumulated data and insights to solve large-scale problems of resource management and to predict effects of stresses on ecosystems. To meet these challenges we must incorporate knowledge from a wide variety of ecosystems into syntheses that will produce general principles and models. These efforts in comparative ecology will require cooperation among ecologists with a range of perspectives including those specializing in physiological, population, community and ecosystem ecology. Another problem is to develop ways by which ecological data collected at the scale of a square meter or a hectare can be scaled up to describe ecological phenomena for larger areas - landscapes, regions and ultimately the globe. A workshop is proposed that will collect the thought of the scientific community on how to: 1) foster synthesis based on comparative ecology; and 2) address issues of scale. One idea to be considered is a national center for the study of comparative ecology and scale. Ecologists representing population, community and ecosystem ecology will attend the meeting and attempt to reach a consensus about the proposed topic. A series of position paper will be presented and a consensus document will represent the views of the ecological research community. The organizer of workshop are well qualified to run the meeting and write a summary document from the meeting.
