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  1. Impact
  2. Case Studies

Case Studies

Outside researchers collecting data at NEON field sites

Case studies exemplify the impact that NEON can make on ecological research. Follow these stories that describe how our user community have made new, exciting discoveries about how our natural systems function.

Case Study

Sorting Out the Taxonomy of North American Diatoms

December 23, 2020

An investigation into freshwater diatoms from the NEON aquatic field sites in Puerto Rico led to a reclassification of diatom taxa in the region, and the possible discovery of a new diatom species. A paper recently published in Phytotaxa details the results of the research, which was enabled by samples from the NEON Biorepository.

Live marine diatoms from Antarctica (magnified)
Case Study

Soil Moisture Validation Project Highlights Synergies Between Battelle, NASA Programs

December 4, 2020

NASA monitors soil moisture levels and freeze/thaw conditions across the globe using a satellite orbiting 426 miles (685 km) above the Earth. To help validate and calibrate these satellite data, NASA relies on direct measurements taken by partners on the ground. Through a new collaboration with Battelle, soil moisture data collected at the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) field sites will now be part of those validation efforts.

NEON SMAP graphic
Case Study

Where Does the Water Go? Partitioning Evaporation and Transpiration

November 5, 2020

How much of the water that enters terrestrial systems is used by plants for growth, and how much simply escapes back into the atmosphere unused? Chris Adkison, a researcher at Texas A&M University, used data from the NEON program to compare the accuracy of different methods of partitioning evaporation and transpiration in a Texas oak woodland.

Case Study

Getting More Dirt on Soil Organic Matter

October 21, 2020

A new study published in Nature Geoscience uses soil from NEON field sites across the continent to look for insights into how climate and ecosystem variables impact the formation and composition of SOM.

Case Study

The Answers (to Fungal Spore Dispersal) Are Blowing in the Wind

September 2, 2020

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are found in nearly every ecosystem, quietly helping plants absorb nutrients from the soil. Dr. Bala Chaudhary wants to build a better model of how these vital ecosystem players disperse across the continent. She is using NEON’s Assignable Assets program to examine the role of aerial dispersal in AM fungal movement.

Bala Chaudhary, 2020 AA installation tour
Case Study

What Can a Hurricane Tell Us About Soil Health Metrics?

August 26, 2020

Dr. Zachary Kayler , an assistant professor in the Department of Soil and Water Systems at the University of Idaho, used NEON soil samples to test the ability of a widely-used soil health metric to detect changes from an extreme weather event - Hurricane Maria - in Puerto Rico.

Case Study

Mapping the Aftermath of a Hurricane

July 15, 2020

Jeffery Cannon, a Forest Management Scientist at The Jones Center, is using remote sensing data from the NEON program to understand how longleaf pine forests are impacted by and recover from major weather events. He and his colleagues will use the results to develop tools to help forest managers plan restoration and conservation efforts.

Case Study

What’s That Tree? This Neural Net Can Tell You

June 17, 2020

Andrew Fricker, used remote sensing data from the NEON Airborne Observation Platform to train a neural net to classify tree species in a Sierra Nevada forest. He and his coauthors describe their approach in Remote Sensing: “A Convolutional Neural Network Classifier Identifies Tree Species in Mixed-Conifer Forest from Hyperspectral Imagery.”

Andrew Fricker trained a Convolution Neural Network (CNN) to identify trees at TEAK
Case Study

Examining the Drivers of Forest Productivity

June 11, 2020

Chris Gough, an associate professor of biology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), is using data from the NEON program to explore relationships between forest structure, biodiversity, and other characteristics and their ability to sequester carbon. His collaborative work with PIs from the University of Connecticut and Purdue University was recently published in Ecology: “High Rates of Primary Production in Structurally Complex Forests."

Cove forests of Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Case Study

Modeling the Spread of Ticks—And the Diseases They Carry

May 27, 2020

Understanding why tick populations are increasing, and why some species are spreading into new geographic areas, is of critical importance to public health. In a recent study, researchers used NEON data to develop a model of tick population dynamics at the Ordway Swisher Biological Station field site.

Field technician conducting a tick drag amongst trees
Case Study

Mapping Tree Mortality in the Pacific Southwest

May 20, 2020

A team led by NEON scientists David Hulslander and Jessica Bolis has developed a method to map tree mortality with an unprecedented level of detail using hyperspectral remote sensing data from the NEON Airborne Observational Platform and a novel imaging algorithm.

Canopy at the terrestrial SOAP site
Case Study

A Big Idea for Small Mammal Diversity Modeling

February 10, 2020

A new modeling approach could allow researchers to use remote sensing lidar data to predict small mammal biodiversity based on the structure of vegetation in an area. The study was led by Sarah Schooler, now a Ph.D. candidate at State University of New York (SUNY)–Syracuse, and Harold Zald of the Humboldt State University Department of Forestry and Wildland Resources. Lidar Prediction of Small Mammal Diversity in Wisconsin, published in Remote Sensing, explores how measurements of vegetation structure created with lidar data could be used to predict the diversity of small mammal communities.

Sarah Schooler, SUNY graduate student
Case Study

Mapping Patterns of Biodiversity

January 9, 2020

Dr. Phoebe Zarnetske, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at Michigan State University (MSU), is using data from the NEON sites to investigate patterns in biodiversity and species traits across the continent. Her goal is to better understand the drivers that influence species distributions and community assembly.

Annie Smith and Phoebe Zarnetske
Case Study

Looking for Missing Carbon in the Forest Canopy

December 11, 2019

Kyla Dahlin and her team are using Airborne Remote Sensing data from five NEON sites to develop detailed 3D maps of forest structure. Their work, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), could provide new insights into the carbon storage potential of forests.

Trees at MLBS
Case Study

Studying Relationships Between Forest Structure and Bird Biodiversity

December 6, 2019

Land use changes and habitat loss have resulted in an overall loss of biodiversity across much of the country. Luis Carrasco, a post-doctoral fellow at NIMBioS, is leveraging NEON data to better understand the relationships between vegetation structure and density and bird biodiversity in forested ecosystems.

Sunlight through the trees at the ABBY field site
Case Study

How a Tree’s Life can Change an Ecosystem: Plant Phenology, Gypsy Moths, and Heat Accumulation

November 20, 2019

Imagine walking through the deciduous forests in Massachusetts early one spring, a gentle rain falling down on you. Taking a closer look, you now see thousands of hairy caterpillars in the trees.

Gypsy moth caterpillar eating leaves
Case Study

Introducing Adlafia neoniana: A New Species Named for NEON

November 7, 2019

Adlafia neoniana (Naviculaceae) may be tiny, but it's got a big name to live up to. It's the first new species to be discovered on a NEON field site and named after the NEON program. So what is this newly discovered organism? A single-celled aquatic alga with a cell wall made of silica, known as a diatom.

Adlafia neoniana
Case Study

Understanding the Drivers of Community Assembly

October 29, 2019

The exact composition of each local community is influenced by variables that include evolutionary history, current climate and interspecies competition or codependence. A new study led by Will Pearse of Utah State University is using NEON data to quantify the roles of these different variables in the assembly of ecological communities.

Cactus in the field
Case Study

A Mouse is a Mouse is a Mouse? Guess Again

October 16, 2019

Michael Cramer, a small mammal researcher and the Assistant Director of the University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center (UNDERC), has spent much of his career studying the ecology and behavior of mice and other small mammals. His latest research leverages NEON data to document how mouse populations are changing over time—and how these small fries may be changing the ecosystems around them.

Selfie with a mouse
Case Study

Digging Up the Dirt on Soil Organic Matter

September 6, 2019

How are ecosystems across the continent changing over time? What are the relationships between climate, ecosystem composition and soil organic matter? And how are soil composition and carbon storage potential likely to change in the future? The answers lie under our feet.

Soil Samples
Case Study

Students Test Ecology Concepts With NEON Data

July 17, 2019

It's one thing to read about ecological concepts in a textbook. It's another to see them revealed by real-world data. Students at Ball State University recently explored key ecological concepts using data from the NEON program.

Mouse
Case Study

What's All This Dew Doing? Maybe More Than You Think.

July 10, 2019

A new study led by François Ritter, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois–Chicago Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, provides important insights into the frequency of dew formation across the U.S.

Dew on tree branch
Case Study

Answering Burning Questions About Wildfire Fuel and Emissions

May 15, 2019

A new study funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Rapid Response to Funding (RAPID) Grant program attempts to answer critical questions about the correlations between biomass burned from wildfires and the emitted quantities of trace gases and aerosols.

Wildfire on ridge
Case Study

Detecting Changes in Biodiversity

April 10, 2019

How do you measure the biodiversity of an ecosystem? A paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution examines the use of species traits as Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs)—and how data products from NEON and other large-scale observatory networks can be used to monitor changes in biodiversity over time.

Be on flower
Case Study

What Role Do Deep Soil Minerals Play in Carbon Storage?

February 26, 2019

An estimated 600 megatons of carbon are currently held by reactive minerals deep within terrestrial soils around the world —more than twice the amount of carbon that humans have added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution began. Understanding the pathways and variables that influence carbon sequestration in soil could lead to new ideas to combat climate change and protect vulnerable ecosystems.

Soil Samples
Case Study

Calibrating Remote Sensing Data with Field Observations in the East River Watershed

December 12, 2018

To build better models of watershed processes and calibrate remote sensing data with observations on the ground, a diverse team of researchers spent two weeks this summer gathering soil and vegetation data from hundreds of individual sites within the East River watershed near Crested Butte, CO.

Field ecologists from the Rocky Mountain Biological Station collecting data
Case Study

What's Missing From Our Environmental Models? The NSF-Funded CHEESEHEAD Project Aims to Find Out

September 14, 2018

A new study out of the University of Wisconsin—nicknamed "CHEESEHEAD19," for Chequamegon Heterogeneous Ecosystem Energy-balance Study Enabled by a High-density Extensive Array of Detectors 2019—seeks to explore and resolve some of the inconsistencies between local observations and the data that drive our environmental models.

Windmills near farm for wind speed story
Case Study

NEON Remote Sensing Flights Over Crested Butte Gather Data for LBNL Watershed Study

August 16, 2018

A study led by Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL) has used the NEON assignable assets program to gather airborne remote sensing data near Crested Butte, Colorado. They will use the data to study plant community distributions and canopy biochemistry to shed light on watershed systems.

AOP photo of landscape in Crested Butte Colorado
Case Study

Remote Sensing Data Science Challenge Yields Positive Results

July 2, 2018

The NEON project is producing a vast treasure trove of open access airborne remote sensing data. Can computer algorithms help ecologists make sense of it all? A team of ecologists and data scientists at the University of Florida thought so. To accelerate the process, they initiated a data science challenge.

Case Study

Regional Deforestation Has Continental-Scale Consequences

May 24, 2018

Tree die-offs have a tremendous impact on local ecosystems. But could the consequences extend beyond the surrounding area? New research suggests the answer is yes.

Image of tree die off taken by the US Forest Service

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Copyright © Battelle, 2019-2020

The National Ecological Observatory Network is a major facility fully funded by the National Science Foundation.

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.