Welcome Address

Ho-Joon Lee

President, The Ecological Society of Korea

Professor, Department of Biology, Konkuk University

Distinguished guests, participants, ladies and gentlemen!

It is my honor to host this Korea-U.S. Joint Seminar on LTER and the third International Conference on Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) in the East Asia-Pacific Region together with the Korean LTER committee. On behalf of the Ecological Society of Korea, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all of you who were able to participate in this conference.

As you know, many ecological phenomena such as ecological succession, global climate change and evolution can become evident only after a long time period, sometimes decades, sometimes even millenia. However, most research funds have forced ecological research to finish in one or a few years. I hope this joint seminar and the conference on LTER research can promote long-term ecological research in Korea in terms of the number of researchers on LTER research and of the length of the research funding.

I know this seminar and the conference will contribute in the area of ecological sciences of east Asia-Pacific region and will help to foster collaborations among scientists in this region by sharing information about the problems of long-term ecological research with each other. In this context, your presentations will provide valuable insight for long-term ecological research in the world.

Again, I would like to express my deepest thanks to all of you who are from many different countries, and to all of the Korean colleagues to present papers or to discuss about long-term ecological research. I would like to thank the organizing committee members from the Korean LTER committee and from the Ecological Society of Korea, and I would like to give special thanks to Dr. Eun Shik Kim of Kookmin University, for preparing this conference.

I wish you a very successful seminar and conference, and I hope you enjoy the beautiful weather of Korean autumn and Korean culture, too. I believe this joint seminar and the conference will make a significant contribution to the development of ecological sciences and to the protection of the global environment. Thank you very much!