Topics covered include: (1) An emergent emphasis of the need for cross-cutting, interdisciplinary research in climate change adaptation. (2) The vision for an integrated research approach incorporating modeling, experiments, and observations, and implications for how science needs to be managed within and between disciplines. (3) Language in FY2010 US House of Representatives Appropriations report about LTER, NEON, soil science, metagenomics, and use of distributed networks of sensors.