Data Notifications

Beginning in 2025, NEON will begin archiving bloodfed mosquitoes separately and will preserve a maximum of two vials (~200 individuals) from a given site-species-sex-bout.

Beginning with RELEASE-2025, updates have been made to the Level 4 Continuous discharge (DP4.00130.001) data product. These updates have been applied going back to Water Year 2022 (starting Oct 1, 2021) for all sites, and back to Water Year 2021 (starting Oct 1, 2020) for the D17 BIGC site.

NEON's fifth data release, RELEASE-2025, is now available for download.

As part of the upcoming 2025 NEON Annual Release, AOP is in the process of updating data products with known quality issues. Users are recommended to avoid downloading some AOP data until the 2025 Release in late January. This notification lists details of the AOP data availability.

Announcing newly revised data products of Microbe Community Taxonomy, which are revisions of the now-deprecated Microbe Community Composition products. These new products use updated algorithms to infer representative sequences and assign taxonomy across all samples, regardless of sample type, site, or collection date.

NEON measures precipitation at 58 sites using up to three collection methods (primary weighing gauge, secondary tipping bucket, and throughfall tipping bucket). All three methods were published in a single data product. In RELEASE-2025 NEON will begin the process of splitting the Precipitation (DP1.00006.001) data product into three separate products.

A long-standing issue with NEON's weighing gauge precipitation sensors was frequent spurious measurements of trace precipitation. This issue is resolved with the publication of a new data product, DP1.00044.001: Precipitation – weighing gauge.

The Dust and Particulate Size Distribution data product has suffered from low validity since installation. Multiple changes were made to field protocols and data processing to address these issues. Staff guidance was improved for troubleshooting and maintaining the sensor, and software designs were addressed to improve connectivity and limit flow rate problems with external pumps. These changes were implemented throughout 2024 and should improve data quality going forward.

neonUtilities has been updated in both R and Python! Read on to learn more about updates in this version.

The LI-840/850 Infrared Gas Analyzer has had an increased failure rate since July 2024. Root causes have been identified and corrective actions are in progress. Overall, this has led to multiple data gaps and periods of flagged data. Observatory staff are continuing to work on improvements to minimize the impacts and resolve this as quickly as possible.

Air temperature and relative humidity above water on-buoy are measured using the same sensor. The air temperature is already reported in the Relative

Stream morphology map and Bathymetric and morphological maps data products have been restructured to improve the usability of data contained in the download packages.

We previously reported an unusually high number of duplicate records in the fish bulk count data. This issue will be resolved in RELEASE-2025.

In response to a partner laboratory storing foliar subsamples at an incorrect temperature, NEON conducted a small study to compare how short-term storage at -20°C vs -80°C impacts chlorophyll and carotenoid content. There was no significant storage temperature effect on pigment content, which suggests the improperly stored samples are likely suitable for most analyses.

There are an unusually high number of duplicate records in the fish bulk count data. We are working to resolve the issue.

On 2 August 2024 the SYCA site was burned by the Sand Stone Fire. Observational sampling resumed within a few days after fire closure was lifted

The neonutilities code package is now available in Python. Read on to learn more about this new code release.

The following data products have been reprocessed using NEON’s new instrument processing pipeline: Elevation of groundwater (DP1.20100.001), Specific conductivity in groundwater (DP1.20015.001), Temperature of groundwater (DP1.20217.001), and Elevation of surface water (DP1.20016.001).

NEON has added a subset of the Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) ( NEON Airborne Remote Sensing ) data products to Google Earth Engine (GEE), an

Permitting constraints resulted in a partial change to the sampling area at the NEON Domain 04 Lajas Experimental Station site. A subset of plots were decommissioned and new plots were established in a nearby area.

We previously identified issues with how pH, bicarbonate (HCO3) and carbonate (CO3) samples reported in the Chemical properties of surface water ( DP1

Update to the naming convention for Terrestrial Observation System subplots is complete. Published data and spatial metadata reflect the new naming convention.

It was discovered recently that many older NEON metagenomic samples that were sequenced in 2018 – 2019 were not formatted correctly. The fastq files from these sequencing runs are not in error, but the reads in the paired end files are in a different order to each other. The variable formatting prevents automated bioinformatics workflows from interleaving paired reads. These files will be repaired and made available from the NEON website in the 2025 data release. This notification provides details for users to access or generate properly formatted files in the interim.

neonOS 1.1.0 is now available on CRAN! Read to learn more about updates in this version.

Starting on January 1, 2024, several changes were made to the Periphyton, seston, and phytoplankton collection (DP1.20166.001) and Periphyton, seston, and phytoplankton chemical properties (DP1.20163.001) data products to improve data quality. Decisions to change these data products are congruent with the framework for NEON Observational Sampling Design Optimization (https://www.neonscience.org/optimizing-observational-sampling-designs). These changes affect data from all NEON aquatic sites.

The mosquito pathogen survey will close on June 7, 2024. All responses must be received by that date. There is a recorded webinar detailing the rationale for the changes if you would like to review it before completing the survey.

The crown polygons generated during canopy foliage sampling are in the WGS1984 projection. All other NEON remote sensing and spatial data are projected on the UTM grid. Going forward, NEON will project crown polygons in the UTM grid, and will update the existing crown polygons’ spatial projection.

We previously identified an issue with unusually high values for a subset of DOC concentrations published in Chemical properties of surface water. We have completed the investigation and determined that these values are sufficiently suspect to be removed from the data portal, starting with RELEASE-2025.

The strategy for mosquito pathogen testing is being reconsidered due to extremely low numbers of positive mosquito pathogen tests performed over the past decade. NEON staff have been reviewing the data collected to date and discussing options with the Mosquito Technical Working Group in recent months. NEON is inviting feedback through a survey from the broader community to guide the recommendation to the NSF on the preferred future direction for this data product.

There have been many changes in NEON's microbial data products, as were detailed in an earlier Data Notification. This is an update on the status of NEON microbe data.