Maintaining a 30-year, continental-scale observatory takes a lot of planning. How do you ensure data consistency and continuity across such large scales of space and time, staying functional and effective even through climate and ecosystem change?
Beginning in the 2024 field season, there will be a maximum of 4 bouts of small mammal sampling (DP1.10072.001) per year at all sites as well as a maximum of 6 mammal grids per site. We are also introducing a low intensity sampling regime of 1 bout per year at 3 sites (DSNY, LENO, BARR) with extremely low capture rates, diversity, and pathogen infection.
Recent improvements in DNA sequencing technology and laboratory protocols are producing data of overall better quality and greatly expanded size. As a result there have been a lot of changes in NEON's microbial data products, and data released in the coming year will include many updates and new, improved data.
In this latest Women in Ecology interview, we spoke with Dr. Nayani Ilangakoon, a research scientist at the University of Colorado - Boulder (CU Boulder) who received her Ph.D. from Boise State University. Ilangakoon is focused on the impact of wildfires on ecosystems, and pairs her childhood experiences in nature with remote sensing data from NEON to conduct her research.
Beginning in the 2023 field season, the Herbaceous clip harvest (DP1.10023.001) data product is no longer collected at 11 forested sites where herbaceous productivity is less than 10% of aboveground productivity.
Photosynthetically active radiation (quantum line) (DP1.00066.001) has been reprocessed using NEON’s new instrument processing pipeline. Computation of skewness and kurtosis statistics has been updated in the new pipeline.
A recent $1.6M award from the NSF through the AccelNet Program will support efforts to harmonize international, drought-related ecological data across several networks in different countries. The three-year AccelNet grant was awarded in September 2023 to Battelle. This "network of networks" approach will enable researchers to study the drivers and impacts of drought on a global scale.
Primary precipitation (DP1.00006.001) has been reprocessed with an interim algorithm to better show spurious trace precipitation and improve quality flagging.
Data for the Litterfall and fine woody debris production and chemistry data product (DP1.10033.001) were published without data on total cover of qualifying vegetation (woody individual > 2M height). RELEASE-2024 and releases and provisional data thereafter include a new table 'ltr_vegetationCover' that provides cover of qualifying woody vegetation at the scale of the subplot for all deployed traps at all sites.
A recent paper in Environmental Research: Ecology explores the potential for using air- and spaceborne lidar to monitor biodiversity on a global scale. The study used NEON airborne laser scanning (ALS) data with NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) spaceborne lidar to validate a unique approach that uses "characteristic" forest structure to infer biodiversity for areas difficult to directly sample.
Certain AOP data products will be temporarily unavailable or in transition prior to RELEASE-2024. We recommend holding off on downloading AOP data during this transition period, or using the Contact Us form to request the status of any specific AOP data product(s), site(s), and year(s). This process is estimated to be complete by the end of January 2024.
We have discovered an 8-minute timestamp offset in data from all Picarro instruments, beginning 19 September 2023 and ending 30 November 2023. This issue only affects data collected by the instrument, not the valves that control switching measurement levels, which leads to incorrect partitioning of data to each measurement level and validation gas in data processing.
The availability of large, open data sets is changing the way ecologists conduct research and the way ecology is taught. Open data from the NEON program and other large ecology networks are a potential goldmine for undergraduate and graduate educators.
NEON recently discovered two issues with the way an external laboratory was storing samples and reporting quality assurance data for foliar chlorophyll. All impacted records have been flagged in the cfc_chlorophyll table in DP1.10026.001 Plant Foliar Traits.
It was discovered that some sensorDepth values recently published in the Water Quality (DP1.20288.001) data product are incorrect for some lake sites. We suggest users download the expanded data package with the more detailed quality flags to better identify affected data, and then substitute an approximate depth of 0.5 m.
Fall arrives at different times and in different ways across the Observatory. Here's a glimpse at how autumn is unrolling across NEON field sites, viewed through phenocams at our field sites, and how 2023 looks compared to 2022.
The NEON Great Lakes User Group brings people together in the Great Lakes region to foster collaborative research opportunities. In September, the first in-person meeting of GLUG was held, a workshop supported through an NSF award.
At the 32 sites where breeding landbird point counts are conducted in 9-point grids, two-thirds of counts have been reported with incorrect point IDs due to a transposition error when convertingnumeric point labels (1-9) into alphanumeric point IDs (A1-C3) during data ingest.
NEON has weathered several unexpected events. Through it all, the Observatory team, managed by Battelle, has responded with ingenuity, resilience, and a positive spirit to ensure the safety of our people and maximize data continuity and availability.
An error in many of the sensor calibration files means that the reported measurement uncertainty in the soil water content data product (DP1.00094.001) is lower than the actual measurement uncertainty for many locations.
The conductivity timeseries data in Reaeration and Salt-based discharge are being moved into individual files per sampling event. This affects the rea_conductivityFieldData and sbd_conductivityFieldData tables. Users of these data should update neonUtilities to version 2.4.0 or greater to ensure correct data stacking.
The Data Portal and the neonUtilities R package have been updated to default to downloading only data from the most recent Data Release. Provisional data, which are subject to change without notice, are still accessible, but are downloadable on an opt-in basis, rather than opt-out.
A recent paper in Global Ecology and Biology, Habitat–trait interactions that control response to climate change: North American ground beetles, explores the connections between climate change, habitat types, and ground beetle traits. The study could help researchers model which ground beetle species may be at risk and the habitats needing protection to preserve them.
The Data Portal and the neonUtilities R package are being updated to default to downloading only data from the most recent Data Release. Provisional data, which are subject to change without notice, will still be accessible, but will be downloaded on an opt-in basis, rather than opt-out.
Through collaboration with Ameriflux Management Project (AMP), data from 27 NEON sites have been processed using ONEFlux software to generate the AmeriFlux FLUXNET data product.
The NEON naming convention for subplots within Base plots, at which several Terrestrial Observation (TOS) protocols are implemented, is being changed to clarify the location of data collection.