**Please Note: If you sync you calendar, sessions will appear in your local time zone. This can be confusing until you arrive on site (when your local time zone will be the correct one).**
How long do we need to sample to determine the presence, direction, and magnitude of long-term trends? Do ecosystem properties interact with our ability to detect patterns? Can we use LTER data to understand where short-term studies fit? We developed a data mining approach that bridges short and long-term trends using automated, systematic resampling that allows us to evaluate the trajectory of a system, the amount of observation required to find a trajectory in similar systems, and a means of evaluating the confidence of our conclusions. After illustrating the approach with several successes with population data, we will break out into facilitated discussions examining the application of the method to other ecological domains and LTER sites, as well as analytical expansions of the approach. Our overarching goal is to develop a robust collaboration of LTER scientists, supporting the development of a system and model ‘agnostic’ software tool and subsequent synthesis study.