Data publication: A perspective based on long-term whole-ecosystem experiments

Expectations and ethics for publication of data from whole-ecosystem experiments affect (1) those who design, lead, and conduct the experiments, (2) users of the data, (3) graduate programs responsible for educating scientists in information management practices, and (4) funders of research who must support IM and other aspects of scientific practice. These points will be discussed in the context of whole-lake experiments that began in 1982 with pencils and paper notebooks and continues today with automated sensors and cutting edge information management.