There is an increasing recognition of the need for greater integration in terrestrial ecosystem studies so that the interactions between global change, human land management and ecosystem processes can be investigated, understood and modelled. The ANAEE project has been established to consider the potential for a European research infrastructure that brings together people, data and facilities to address experimental ecosystem research, both in ecotrons and in the field. It is a two year project, funded as a Design Study by the EU, reporting in early 2010.

ANAEE is conducting a series of focussed workshops addressing different aspects of the infrastructure; field scale experiments, ecotrons, and analytical resources. This workshop is the fourth of these, that addresses data management, sharing and ecosystem modelling. The objective is to provide recommendations about whether there is a need for data and model integration, and if so, what form it should take. These recommendations will then be reported back to the EU and will help shape the development of research infrastructure for ecosystem science.

The meeting will be held at the University of Padova