The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) has been collecting ecological data on coastal ecosystems in the Chesapeake Bay area for more than 50 years. Hosting a NEON field site gives SERC scientists access to new local data as well as important comparative data from across the country to further their research goals.
Laura Leyba-Newton has a big job overseeing the Engineering team, Cal/Val team and Audit Lab for the NEON project. Learn how she found her STEM path in our third interview of the NEON #WomeninSTEM series.
“The time for ecologists to start forecasting is now,” says Michael Dietze. An ecologist at Boston University, Michael is seeking to arm his peers with tools for near-term ecological forecasting, answering crucial questions such as “how will ecosystems change in the near future?” and “how do human decisions affect these outcomes?”
Battelle is pleased to welcome Sharon Collinge as the new NEON Observatory Director and Chief Scientist. Sharon will shape and oversee operations of the project.
Need more NEON news? Now you can keep up with all of the latest happenings at NEON, including activities at the field sites, infrastructure updates and insights from NEON staff.
At NEON, we are all thankful for the opportunity to contribute to the project's mission to gather and synthesize data that could impact ecological research for decades and inspire the next generation of scientists.
The hurricane season of 2017 has been one for the record books with three major hurricanes making landfall on U.S. states and territories within a four-week period leaving devastating impacts that the research community is just beginning to understand.
Battelle employees worked together to help our employees located at various NEON project sites after Hurricane Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico. Learn more in the Inside Battelle Blog.
We at Battelle are saddened by the unexpected death of our colleague, Henry Gholz, a visiting scientist assisting with the NEON project and someone who supported our larger science community engagement efforts.
In late August, aquatic scientists from around the world descended upon Tampa, Florida to attend the American Fisheries Society (AFS) 2017 annual meeting .
Thirty-four children, aged 5-12, participated in the 2017 Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day program. The kids not only were able to see up close where their moms and dads work, but also participate in hands-on activities led by scientists and engineers.
We are excited to be welcoming six undergraduates this summer for the 11-week hands-on program. They will get to work with staff mentors on a wide variety of NEON-related research projects ranging from assisting in the finalization of NEON construction to using the public data provided by the NEON project.
You won’t find any fishing line, hooks or bobbers in NEON’s aquatic technician field gear. Instead, groups of 3-4 technicians utilize a technique called electrofishing to catch fish and collect data related to fish diversity and populations.
Studies have found that ground beetles are an excellent indicator species of arthropod biodiversity, environmental change, land use and land management. Learn more about why and how NEON samples beetles.
We are excited to announce the 2017 flight campaign schedule for NEON’s Airborne Observation Platform. The campaign will run from March to November, covering eighteen NEON domains with forty-three terrestrial sites and twenty-four aquatic sites.
Applications are due March 10, 2017 for the 2017 Data Institute: Remote Sensing with Reproducible Workflows provides a unique opportunity for participants to gain hands-on experience working with open data using well-documented, reproducible methods.
Why sample fish? Not only do fish play a major role in our recreation and food industries, but they are a key part of freshwater aquatic ecosystems. Learn how NEON is collecting fish diversity and population data so researchers can gain a complete picture of the food chain in aquatic ecosystems across the United States.
In mid-November a forest fire started in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, sparking several wildfires that spread uncontrollably. Last week, a safety team ventured out to two impacted field sites to assess the damage.
NEON has published its first undergraduate teaching module aimed specifically at faculty wanting to use data in undergraduate classrooms. The free module, available online, allows students to use real-world ecological data to better understand the causes and effects of natural disturbance events like floods.
In response to suggestions from the scientific community, we’ve expedited the production of some new features to the data portal to help you better navigate the data NEON provides! Test out our newly launched prototype Application Programming Interface (API) as well as the compact view data availability page.
Five Battelle scientists, Stefan Metzger, Cove Sturtevant, Hongyan Luo, Natchaya Pingintha-Durden and David Durden along with software engineering manager Greg Holling recently attended the annual Ameriflux PI meeting to present on NEON project progress and talk shop.
In recent months, NEON has successfully outfitted four aquatic sites with a complete suite of sensors including in-stream sensors, groundwater well sensors and meteorological sensors. Observational samples are also being collected by field staff, making these four sites the Observatory’s first fully operational aquatic sites.
Earlier this summer, we bid farewell to six dynamic and brilliant undergraduate interns who worked at NEON for eleven weeks on a variety of cross-disciplinary projects that ranged from data visualization to analysis of different soil sampling methods.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Biological Sciences has awarded $15.9 million for 12 new MacroSystems Biology and Early NEON Science projects.
In mid-June, 23 early career scientists from far and wide descended upon NEON headquarters for a week-long Data Institute. The inaugural Institute featured NEON remote sensing data and focused on...
In early August, the National Science Foundation (NSF) gave its approval to transition observational sampling to operations at 13 terrestrial field sites bringing the total number of terrestrial sites with observational sampling to 27, representing over 50% of planned sites.
This weekend, thousands of scientists will journey to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for the 101 st annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (#ESA2016) . The theme is“Novel Ecosystems in the Anthropocene,” and the NEON team will be there to talk with scientists about how they plan to use NEON project data in their research and teaching.
A NEON contractor earned a National Excellence in Construction Eagle Award from the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) earlier this year for constructing a NEON tower at the Lenoir Landing (AL) field site.
