Why does experimentation matter in teaching ecology

The next section of each standard is a Guide to the Content Standard, which. Content is fundamental if it. Three criteria influence the selection of science content. The first is an obligation to the domain of science. The subject matter in the physical, life, and earth and space science standards is central to science education and must be accurate.

The presentation in national standards also must accommodate the needs of many individuals who will implement the standards in school science programs. The standards represent science. The second criterion is an obligation to develop content standards that appropriately represent the developmental and learning abilities of students. Organizing principles were selected that express meaningful links to direct student observations of the natural world.

The content is aligned with students' ages and stages of development. This criterion includes increasing emphasis on abstract and conceptual understandings as students progress from kindergarten to grade These tables provide an overview of the standards for elementary-, middle-, and high-school science programs.

The third criterion is an obligation to present standards in a usable form for those who must implement the standards, e. The standards need to provide enough breadth of content to define the domains of science, and they need to provide enough depth of content to direct the design of science curricula.

The descriptions also need to be understandable by school personnel and to accommodate the structures of elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as the grade levels used in national standards for other disciplines.

Many different individuals and groups will use the content standards for a variety of purposes. All users and reviewers are reminded that the content described is not a science curriculum.

Content is what students should learn. Curriculum is the way content is organized and emphasized; it includes structure, organization, balance, and presentation of the content in the classroom. Although the structure for the content standards organizes the understanding and abilities to be acquired by all students K, that structure does not imply any particular organization for science curricula.

Persons responsible for science curricula, teaching, assessment and policy who use the Standards should note the following. For instance, students should have opportunities to learn science in personal and social perspectives and to learn about the history and nature of science, as well as to learn subject matter, in the school science program.

No standards should be eliminated from a category. For instance, "biological evolution" cannot be eliminated from the life science standards.

Science content can be added. The connections, depth, detail, and selection of topics can be enriched and varied as appropriate for individual students and school science. However, addition of content must not prevent the learning of fundamental concepts by all students. The content standards must be used in the context of the standards on teaching and assessment. Using the standards with traditional teaching and assessment strategies defeats the intentions of the National Science Education Standards.

As science advances, the content standards might change, but the conceptual organization will continue to provide students with knowledge, understanding, and abilities that will improve their scientific literacy. The National Science Education Standards envision change throughout the system. The science content standards encompass the following changes in emphases:.

Studying subject matter disciplines physical, life, earth sciences for their own sake. Learning subject matter disciplines in the context of inquiry, technology, science in personal and social perspectives, and history and nature of science.

Implementing inquiry as instructional strategies, abilities, and ideas to be learned. Individuals and groups of students analyzing and synthesizing data without defending a conclusion. Groups of students often analyzing and synthesizing data after defending conclusions. Doing few investigations in order to leave time to cover large amounts of content. Doing more investigations in order to develop understanding, ability, values of inquiry and knowledge of science content.

This standard presents broad unifying concepts and processes that complement the analytic, more discipline-based perspectives presented in the other content standards. The conceptual and procedural schemes in this standard provide students with productive and insightful ways of thinking about and integrating a range of basic ideas that explain the natural and designed world. The unifying concepts and processes in this standard are a subset of the many unifying ideas in science and technology.

Some of the criteria used in the selection and organization of this standard are. The concepts and processes provide connections between and among traditional scientific disciplines. The concepts and processes are understandable and usable by people who will implement science programs. The concepts and processes can be expressed and experienced in a developmentally appropriate manner during K science education. Each of the concepts and processes of this standard has a continuum of complexity that.

In this standard, however, the boundaries of disciplines and grade-level divisions are not distinct—teachers should develop students' understandings continuously across grades K Systems and subsystems, the nature of models, and conservation are fundamental concepts and processes included in this standard.

Young students tend to interpret phenomena separately rather than in terms of a system. Force, for example, is perceived as a property of an object rather than the result of interacting bodies.

Students do not recognize the differences between parts and whole systems, but view them as similar. Therefore, teachers of science need to help students recognize the properties of objects, as emphasized in grade-level content standards, while helping them to understand systems.

As another example, students in middle school and high school view models as physical copies of reality and not as conceptual representations. Teachers should help students understand that models are developed and tested by comparing the model with observations of reality. Teachers in elementary grades should recognize that students' reports of changes in such things as volume, mass, and space can represent errors common to well-recognized developmental stages of children.

Some of the fundamental concepts that underlie this standard are. Scientists and students learn to define small portions for the convenience of investigation. The units of investigation can be referred to as ''systems.

Systems can consist, for example, of organisms, machines, fundamental particles, galaxies, ideas, numbers, transportation, and education. Systems have boundaries, components, resources flow input and output , and feedback. The goal of this standard is to think and analyze in terms of systems. Thinking and analyzing in terms of systems will help students keep track of mass, energy, objects, organisms, and events referred to in the other content standards.

The idea of simple systems encompasses subsystems as well as identifying the structure and function of systems, feedback and equilibrium, and the distinction between open and closed systems. Science assumes that the behavior of the universe is not capricious, that nature is the same everywhere, and that it is understandable and predictable. Students can develop an understanding of regularities in systems, and by extension, the universe; they then can develop understanding of basic laws, theories, and models that explain the world.

Newton's laws of force and motion, Kepler's laws of planetary motion, conservation laws, Darwin's laws of natural selection, and chaos theory all exemplify the idea of order and regularity. An assumption of order establishes the basis for cause-effect relationships and predictability.

Prediction is the use of knowledge to identify and explain observations, or changes, in advance. The use of mathematics, especially. Order—the behavior of units of matter, objects, organisms, or events in the universe—can be described statistically.

Probability is the relative certainty or uncertainty that individuals can assign to selected events happening or not happening in a specified space or time. In science, reduction of uncertainty occurs through such processes as the development of knowledge about factors influencing objects, organisms, systems, or events; better and more observations; and better explanatory models. Types and levels of organization provide useful ways of thinking about the world. Types of organization include the periodic table of elements and the classification of organisms.

Physical systems can be described at different levels of organization—such as fundamental particles, atoms, and molecules. Living systems also have different levels of organization—for example, cells, tissues, organs, organisms, populations, and communities. The complexity and number of fundamental units change in extended hierarchies of organization. Within these systems, interactions between components occur.

Further, systems at different levels of organization can manifest different properties and functions. Using evidence to understand interactions allows individuals to predict changes in natural and designed systems. Models are tentative schemes or structures that correspond to real objects, events, or classes of events, and that have explanatory power. Models help scientists and engineers understand how things work. Models take many forms, including physical objects, plans, mental constructs, mathematical equations, and computer simulations.

Scientific explanations incorporate existing scientific knowledge and new evidence. As students develop and. Different terms, such as "hypothesis," "model," "law," "principle," ''theory," and "paradigm" are used to describe various types of scientific explanations. As students develop and as they understand more science concepts and processes, their explanations should become more sophisticated.

That is, their scientific explanations should more frequently include a rich scientific knowledge base, evidence of logic, higher levels of analysis, greater tolerance of criticism and uncertainty, and a clearer demonstration of the relationship between logic, evidence, and current knowledge. Changes might occur, for example, in properties of materials, position of objects, motion, and form and function of systems. Interactions within and among systems result in change.

Changes vary in rate, scale, and pattern, including trends and cycles. Energy can be transferred and matter can be changed. Nevertheless, when measured, the sum of energy and matter in systems, and by extension in the universe, remains the same. Changes in systems can be quantified. Evidence for interactions and subsequent change and the formulation of scientific explanations are often clarified through quantitative distinctions—measurement. Mathematics is essential for accurately measuring change.

Different systems of measurement are used for different purposes. Scientists usually use the metric system. An important part of measurement is knowing when to use which system. For example, a meteorologist might use degrees Fahrenheit when reporting the weather to the public, but in writing scientific reports, the meteorologist would use degrees Celsius.

Scale includes understanding that different characteristics, properties, or relationships within a system might change as its dimensions are increased or decreased. Rate involves comparing one measured quantity with another measured quantity, for example, 60 meters per second. Rate is also a measure of change for a part relative to the whole, for example, change in birth rate as part of population growth. The general idea of evolution is that the present arises from materials and forms of the past.

Although evolution is most commonly associated with the biological theory explaining the process of descent with modification of organisms from common ancestors, evolution also describes changes in the universe. Equilibrium is a physical state in which forces and changes occur in opposite and off-setting directions: for example, opposite forces are of the same magnitude, or off-setting changes occur at equal rates. Steady state, balance, and homeostasis also describe equilibrium states.

Interacting units of matter tend toward equilibrium states in which the energy is distributed as randomly and uniformly as possible. The form or shape of an object or system is frequently related to use, operation, or function. Function frequently relies on form. Understanding of form and function applies to different levels of organization. Students should be able to explain function by referring to form and explain form by referring to function. As a result of activities in grades K-4, all students should develop.

From the earliest grades, students should experience science in a form that engages them in the active construction of ideas and explanations and enhances their opportunities to develop the abilities of doing science. Teaching science as inquiry provides teachers with the opportunity to develop student abilities and to enrich student understanding of science.

Students should do science in ways that are within their developmental capabilities. This standard sets forth some abilities of scientific inquiry appropriate for students in grades K In the early years of school, students can investigate earth materials, organisms, and properties of common objects. Although children develop concepts and vocabulary from such experiences, they also should develop inquiry skills. As students focus on the processes of doing investigations, they develop the ability to ask scientific questions, investigate aspects of the world around them, and use their observations to construct reasonable explanations for the questions posed.

Guided by teachers, students continually develop their science knowledge. Students should also learn through the inquiry process how to communicate about their own and their peers' investigations and explanations.

There is logic behind the abilities outlined in the inquiry standard, but a step-by-step sequence or scientific method is not implied. In practice, student questions might arise from previous investigations, planned classroom activities, or questions students ask each other. For instance, if children ask each other how animals are similar and different, an investigation.

Full inquiry involves asking a simple question, completing an investigation, answering the question, and presenting the results to others. In elementary grades, students begin to develop the physical and intellectual abilities of scientific inquiry. They can design investigations to try things to see what happens—they tend to focus on concrete results of tests and will entertain the idea of a "fair" test a test in which only one variable at a time is changed.

However, children in K-4 have difficulty with experimentation as a process of testing ideas and the logic of using evidence to formulate explanations. Fundamental abilities and concepts that underlie this standard include. This aspect of the standard emphasizes students asking questions that they can answer with scientific knowledge, combined with their own observations. Students should answer their questions by seeking information from reliable sources of scientific information and from their own observations and investigations.

In the earliest years, investigations are largely based on systematic observations. As students develop, they may design and conduct simple experiments to answer questions. The idea of a fair test is possible for many students to consider by fourth grade. In early years, students develop simple skills, such as how to observe, measure, cut, connect, switch, turn on and off, pour, hold, tie, and hook.

Beginning with simple instruments, students can use rulers to measure the length, height, and depth of objects and materials; thermometers to measure temperature; watches to measure time; beam balances and spring scales to measure weight and force; magnifiers to observe objects and organisms; and microscopes to observe the finer details of plants, animals, rocks, and other materials.

Children also develop skills in the use of computers and calculators for conducting investigations. This aspect of the standard emphasizes the students' thinking as they use data to formulate explanations.

Even at the earliest grade levels, students should learn what constitutes evidence and judge the merits or strength of the data and information that will be used to make explanations.

After students propose an explanation, they will appeal to the knowledge and evidence they obtained to support their explanations. Students should check their explanations against scientific knowledge, experiences, and observations of others. Students should begin developing the abilities to communicate, critique, and analyze their work and the work of other students. This communication. Scientific investigations involve asking and answering a question and comparing the answer with what scientists already know about the world.

Scientists use different kinds of investigations depending on the questions they are trying to answer. Types of investigations include describing objects, events, and organisms; classifying them; and doing a fair test experimenting. Simple instruments, such as magnifiers, thermometers, and rulers, provide more information than scientists obtain using only their senses. Scientists develop explanations using observations evidence and what they already know about the world scientific knowledge.

Good explanations are based on evidence from investigations. Scientists make the results of their investigations public; they describe the investigations in ways that enable others to repeat the investigations. Scientists review and ask questions about the results of other scientists' work.

As a result of the activities in grades K-4, all students should develop an understanding of. During their early years, children's natural curiosity leads them to explore the world by observing and manipulating common objects and materials in their environment. Children compare, describe, and sort as they begin to form explanations of the world. Developing a subject-matter knowledge base to explain and.

Young children bring experiences, understanding, and ideas to school; teachers provide opportunities to continue children's explorations in focused settings with other children using simple tools, such as magnifiers and measuring devices. Physical science in grades K-4 includes topics that give students a chance to increase their understanding of the characteristics of objects and materials that they encounter daily.

Through the observation, manipulation, and classification of common objects, children reflect on the similarities and differences of the objects. As a result, their initial sketches and single-word descriptions lead to increasingly more detailed drawings and richer verbal descriptions. Describing, grouping, and sorting solid objects and materials is possible early in this grade range. By grade 4, distinctions between the properties of objects and materials can be understood in specific contexts, such as a set of rocks or living materials.

The context for the investigation is one familiar to the students—a pet in the classroom. She teaches some of the important aspects of inquiry by asking the students to consider alternative explanations, to look at the evidence, and to design a simple investigation to test a hypothesis. She understands what is developmentally appropriate for students of this age—she chooses not to launch into an abstract explanation of evaporation. She has a classroom with the resources she needs for the students to engage in an inquiry activity.

George is annoyed. There was plenty of water in the watering can when he left it on the windowsill on Friday. Now the can is almost empty, and he won't have time to go the restroom and fill it so that he can water the plants before science class starts.

As soon as Ms. Did someone spill it? W asks what the students think happened to the water. Marie has an idea. If none of the children took the water, then it must be that Willie, their pet hamster, is leaving his cage at night and drinking the water. The class decides to test Marie's idea by covering the watering can so that Willie cannot drink the water. The children implement their investigation, and the next morning observe that the water level has not dropped.

The children now have proof that their explanation is correct. Are they sure that Willie is getting out of his cage at night? The children are quite certain that he is. The children devise an ingenious plan to convince her that Willie is getting out of the cage.

They place his cage in the middle of the sand table and smooth the sand. After several days and nights, the children observe that no footprints have appeared in the sand, and the water level has not changed. The children now conclude that Willie is not getting out of his cage at night. Willie can see that the watering can is covered. The water level begins to drop again, yet there are no footprints in the sand. Now the children dismiss the original idea about the disappearance of the water, and Ms.

At Ms. These strips are dated and pasted on a large sheet of paper to create a bar graph. After a few days, the students discern a pattern: The level of water fell steadily but did not decrease the same amount each day. After considerable discussion about the differences, Patrick observes that when his mother dries the family's clothes, she puts them in the dryer. Patrick notes that the clothes are heated inside the dryer and that when his mother does not set the dial on the dryer to heat, the clothes just spin around and do not dry as quickly.

Patrick suggests that water might disappear faster when it is warmer. Based on their experience using strips of paper to measure changes in the level of water and in identifying patterns of change, the students and Ms. The children's experiences with the disappearance of water continue with an investigation about how the size area of the uncovered portion of the container influences how fast the water disappears and another where the children investigate whether using a fan to blow air over the surface of a container of water makes the water disappear faster.

Young children begin their study of matter by examining and qualitatively describing objects and their behavior. The important but abstract ideas of science, such as atomic structure of matter and the conservation of energy, all begin with observing and keeping track of the way the world behaves.

When carefully observed, described, and measured, the properties of objects, changes in properties over time, and the changes that occur when materials interact provide the necessary precursors to the later introduction of more abstract ideas in the upper grade levels.

Students are familiar with the change of state between water and ice, but the idea of liquids having a set of properties is more nebulous and requires more instructional effort than working with solids. Most students will have difficulty with the generalization that many substances can exist as either a liquid or a solid.

K-4 students do not understand that water exists as a gas when it boils or evaporates; they are more likely to think that water disappears or goes into the sky. Despite that limitation, students can conduct simple investigations with heating and evaporation that develop inquiry skills and familiarize them with the phenomena.

When students describe and manipulate objects by pushing, pulling, throwing, dropping, and rolling, they also begin to focus on the position and movement of objects: describing location as up, down, in front, or behind, and discovering the various kinds of motion and forces required to control it. By experimenting with light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and sound, students begin to understand that phenomena can be observed, measured, and controlled in various ways.

The children cannot understand a complex concept such as energy. Nonetheless, they have intuitive notions of energy—for example, energy is needed to get things done; humans get energy from food. Teachers can build on the intuitive notions of students without requiring them to memorize technical definitions.

Sounds are not intuitively associated with the characteristics of their source by younger K-4 students, but that association can be developed by investigating a variety of concrete phenomena toward the end of the K-4 level.

In most children's minds, electricity begins at a source and goes to a target. This mental model can be seen in students' first attempts to light a bulb using a battery and wire by attaching one wire to a bulb. Repeated activities will help students develop an idea of a circuit late in this grade range and begin to grasp the effect of more than one battery.

Children cannot distinguish between heat and temperature at this age; therefore, investigating heat necessarily must focus on changes in temperature. Advances in computer technologies have had a tremendous impact on how science is done and on what scientists can study. We found, however, that some innovations in scientific practice, especially uses of the Internet, are beginning to be applied to secondary.

With respect to future laboratory experiences, perhaps the most significant advance in many scientific fields is the aggregation of large, varied data sets into Internet-accessible databases.

These databases are most commonly built for specific scientific communities, but some researchers are creating and studying new, learner-centered interfaces to allow access by teachers and schools. These research projects build on instructional design principles illuminated by the integrated instructional units discussed above. CENS is currently working on ecosystem monitoring, seismology, contaminant flow transport, and marine microbiology. As sensor networks come on line, making data available, science educators at the center are developing middle school curricula that include web-based tools to enable students to explore the same data sets that the professional scientists are exploring Pea, Mills, and Takeuchi, The interfaces professional scientists use to access such databases tend to be too inflexible and technical for students to use successfully Bell, Bounding the space of possible data under consideration, supporting appropriate considerations of theory, and promoting understanding of the norms used in the visualization can help support students in developing a shared understanding of the data.

With such support, students can develop both conceptual understanding and understanding of the data analysis process. Focusing students on causal explanation and argumentation based on the data analysis process can help them move from a descriptive, phenomenological view of science to one that considers theoretical issues of cause Bell, Further research and evaluation of the educational benefit of student interaction with large scientific databases are absolutely necessary.

Still, the development of such efforts will certainly expand over time, and, as they change notions of what it means to conduct scientific experiments, they are also likely to change what it means to conduct a school laboratory. The committee identified a number of science learning goals that have been attributed to laboratory experiences. Our review of the evidence on attainment of these goals revealed a recent shift in research, reflecting some movement in laboratory instruction.

Historically, laboratory experiences have been disconnected from the flow of classroom science lessons. We refer to these separate laboratory experiences as typical laboratory experiences. Reflecting this separation, researchers often engaged students in one or two.

Some studies compared the outcomes of these separate laboratory experiences with the outcomes of other forms of science instruction, such as lectures or discussions. Over the past 10 years, researchers studying laboratory education have shifted their focus. Students are engaged in framing research questions, making observations, designing and executing experiments, gathering and analyzing data, and constructing scientific arguments and explanations.

The two bodies of research on typical laboratory experiences and integrated instructional units, including laboratory experiences, yield different findings about the effectiveness of laboratory experiences in advancing the science learning goals identified by the committee. The earlier research on typical laboratory experiences is weak and fragmented, making it difficult to draw precise conclusions. The weight of the evidence from research focused on the goals of developing scientific reasoning and enhancing student interest in science showed slight improvements in both after students participated in typical laboratory experiences.

Research focused on the goal of student mastery of subject matter indicates that typical laboratory experiences are no more or less effective than other forms of science instruction such as reading, lectures, or discussion. Integrated instructional units also appear to be effective in helping diverse groups of students progress toward these three learning goals. A major limitation of the research on integrated instructional units, however, is that most of the units have been used in small numbers of science classrooms.

Only a few studies have addressed the challenge of implementing—and studying the effectiveness of—integrated instructional units on a wide scale. Due to a lack of available studies, the committee was unable to draw conclusions about the extent to which either typical laboratory experiences or integrated instructional units might advance the other goals identified at the beginning of this chapter—enhancing understanding of the complexity.

Further research is needed to clarify how laboratory experiences might be designed to promote attainment of these goals. The committee considers the evidence sufficient to identify four general principles that can help laboratory experiences achieve the learning goals we have outlined. Laboratory experiences are more likely to achieve their intended learning goals if 1 they are designed with clear learning outcomes in mind, 2 they are thoughtfully sequenced into the flow of classroom science instruction, 3 they are designed to integrate learning of science content with learning about the processes of science, and 4 they incorporate ongoing student reflection and discussion.

Representations and simulations are most successful in supporting student learning when they are integrated in an instructional sequence that also includes laboratory experiences. Researchers are currently developing tools to support student interaction with—and learning from—large scientific databases. Anderson, R. The experience of science: A new perspective for laboratory teaching.

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Klahr Eds. Lemke, J. Talking science: Language, learning, and values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Linn, M. The role of the laboratory in science learning. Elementary School Journal , 97 , High school science laboratories: How can technology contribute? Using the Internet to enhance student understanding of science: The knowledge integration environment. Here you will find learning games, review games, virtual labs and quizzes that will help you to learn about cells, ecology, genetics, physiology, and much more!

Case It! Molecular biology simulations for case-based learning in biology. DNA from the Beginning An animated primer of 75 experiments that made modern genetics. Evo Ed Case studies in evolution that track the development of traits from their origination in DNA mutation, to the production of different proteins, to the fixation of alternate macroscopic phenotypes in reproductively isolated populations. Gelbox Open source interactive simulation tool for gel electrophorisis.

MacOS only. Geniventure Students level up as they select alleles to control phenotypes, make predictions from genotypes, use meiosis to create gametes, and study inheritance by breeding baby drakes.

Also offers iOS apps. Genetics Offers online lessons in genetics, cell biology, evolution, human health, plant biology, neuroscience, and ecology. Also offers interactive genetics labs. They include diverse topics in conservation science and are designed for the post-secondary level. Neuroscience in the time of Corona Crowd-sourced compendium of resources for teaching neuroscience. Nursing Assistant Resources: Virtual Dissection Virtual dissection labs for studying human and animal anatomy and physiology.

Optical Microscopy Primer Virtual microscopes that offer lessons in specimen focus, illumination intensity, magnification, and translation. StarGenetics Mendelian genetics cross simulator.

Allows students to simulate mating experiments between organisms that are genetically different across a range of traits to analyze the nature of the traits in question. Virtual Fetal Pig Dissection Supplement to laboratory dissections exploring introductory mammalian anatomy and physiology. Whole Frog Project Provides the ability to explore the anatomy of a frog by using data from high resolution MRI imaging and mechanical sectioning, together with 3D surface and volume rendering software.

Jim Allison: Breakthrough Award winning documentary with accompanying toolkit and lesson plans. Offers free educational licensing. Open Neuroscience Education Labs, open data, and other resources for teaching neuroscience. Physical Sciences and Mathematics Algodoo Gives users the opportunity to play with physics.

Use your own hands and simple drawing tools to design, construct and explore the world of physics. Chem1 Virtual Textbook Reference text for general chemistry. In addition, we have importantly increased the use and re-use of data and models generated by each service 10 times increase after 4 years. This was accompanied by an increase in the number of publications including technical publications, and in the performance statistics of training activities.

Current efforts will continue to raise the number of private sectors projects, improve further harmonizing of measurements and methods, and deploy the newly developed information systems. Examples of remarkable, recent studies conducted in AnaEE France include experiments on climate change usually difficult to perform within the realm of a single laboratory.

For example, collaborations between in natura and Ecotrons platforms make it possible to conduct short-term climate simulation experiments on intact pieces of soil-plant ecosystems extracted from long-term study sites. Using this approach, Roy et al. Such extreme weather events are also predicted to increase extinction risks of numerous species on earth, but large scale experimental demonstration are missing and it remains unknown if species can compensate climate warming by means of dispersal Sinervo et al.

There are still too few attempts to network together relevant experimental facilities from the same country in the scientific fields of biodiversity, agronomy and ecology. Learning from grand challenges in ecological research, we propose guidelines for the construction and operation of such a research infrastructure.

In the case of AnaEE France, experimental set-ups were selected from a range of control capacity and a capacity to handle a representative set of ecosystem types. The infrastructure included analytical and modeling platforms, and dedicated information systems. Standardized methods and practices, solutions for data storing and access, modeling platforms, and training activities were developed to increase the quality of all services and promote synergies among existing platforms.

Experimental set-ups and services usually have a limited lifetime. By organizing the life cycle of platforms together with the financial bodies, it is expected that a long term sustained and optimized effort in progressing in the understanding of ecosystems and the management of ecological services will be initiated in France.

Now in its fifth year of life, AnaEE France is fulfilling its initial objectives and the number of projects and researchers using these services is encouraging. Experimental infrastructures are not the only tools which have to be developed in a coordinated way to optimize research in the ecology-environment domain. Long term observations of ecosystems and socio-ecosystems are other important infrastructures, and well-established observational networks do exist.

Links between experimental and observational infrastructures should be established or strengthened if they already exist because they will generate synergies and enable better dialog between observational and experimental approaches in our field.

Such an effort is a key objective to address pressing questions about the state and future of ecosystems. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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