Just over 40 years ago, the National Science Foundation (NSF) posited a visionary idea: the establishment of a national network of Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites. Today, these 28 sites carry an unprecedented database of decades-long ecological observations and experiments. Michigan State University’s LTER site, located at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) near Battle Creek, Mich., was founded in 1988 to employ and understand the ecology of Midwest cropping systems and agricultural landscapes. Researchers study interactions among plants, microbes,