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Observatory Blog

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Observatory Status

August 8, 2022

COVID-19-related changes to operations across the Observatory, updated each Monday.

We are committed
Data Notification

Final Update: Delay in external lab particulate carbon and nitrogen data

August 4, 2022

This is an update to the previous post concerning the delay in external lab particulate carbon and nitrogen data. Due to low sample size for some

Spotlight

AGU-TEX Project Update: Supporting Wildland Restoration in Colorado

August 3, 2022

Janelle Hakala, a NEON instrument technician and a NEON-TEX Community Science Fellow, worked with Wildlands Restoration Volunteers in Colorado to develop a long-term monitoring plan modeled on the NEON plant protocols.

Data Notification

Protocol Change for Reaeration Field and Lab Collection (DP1.20190.001)

July 22, 2022

The original sampling design for NEON gas exchange measurements included simultaneous volatile gas tracer and conservative salt tracer constant-rate

Spotlight

Meet Some NEON Airborne Sensor Operators!

July 20, 2022

As they fly around the U.S. collecting data from Domain to Domain, our Airborne Sensor Operators (ASOs) take some pretty good photos! Here we introduce you to three of our ASOs and showcase some pictures taken aboard NEON's Airborne Observation Platform (AOP)—along with some other fun photos of life as a NEON ASO.

AOP D18 Deadhorse, Alaska

NEON and LTER: A Long-Term Partnership for Ecological Observation

July 6, 2022

NEON and LTER have worked closely together since the initial design phase of the NEON Observatory. In fact, a number of NEON sites were deliberately colocated with established LTER sites across the country. These shared spaces add value for both networks and for the research community at large.

Flux tower at the NIWO field site
Data Notification

No longer redacting relative humidity (DP1.00098.001) above 102%

June 28, 2022

The quality control algorithm for relative humidity (DP1.00098.001) has been modified to retain readings that fail the range test (> 102%) rather than remove them prior to averaging.

Spotlight

AGU-TEX Project Update: Forecasting Berry Futures in Alaska

June 22, 2022

NEON field staff are monitoring fruiting and ripening of five species of berries at four terrestrial field sites in Alaska to support the Alaska Berry Future Project. Lori Petrauski, a NEON Senior Field Ecologist for Domains 18 and 19 (Tundra and Taiga), planned and set up the new berry monitoring protocol as part of her Thriving Earth Exchange (TEX) fellowship.

Alaska blueberries harvested in a yellow basket.
Case Study

Building a Forecasting Community: The EFI-RCN NEON Forecasting Challenge

June 9, 2022

Teams and individuals are creating ecological forecasts around five themes, including terrestrial water and carbon fluxes, beetle communities, tick populations, aquatic ecosystems, and plant phenology using NEON data.

Submerged aquatic plants at D10 ARIK (photo by Stephanie Parker)
Spotlight

Domain Digest No. 5: ESA's SEEDS students visit Puerto Rico

May 25, 2022

Students participating in ESA's SEEDS program receive engaging and hands-on ecological experiences developed for mainly undergraduates. The goal is to enable diverse students to learn more about ecological sciences and the many ways in which they could pursue Ecology as a career path. SEEDS students visited the NEON GUAN site in March 2022, their first trip since the pandemic.

D04 staff and students from the ESA's SEEDS chapters at NEON's GUAN site in Puerto Rico. The field trip was held in March 2022.
Data Notification

Measurement depths incorrect for the soil water content and salinity data product

May 20, 2022

Measurement depths (zOffset in the sensor positions file) are currently reported incorrectly in the Soil water content and salinity data product (DP1.00094.001) at all terrestrial sites; however, the moisture and salinity measurements themselves are not impacted by this issue.

Case Study

When Permafrost Thaws—Over and Over Again

May 18, 2022

As the Arctic climate warms, many areas where soils were previously frozen year-round are now experiencing cycles of freezing and thawing. Researchers set out to discover how these cycles are changing the physical structure of Arctic soils—using soil cores from NEON's Toolik Field Station (TOOL). The study is published in Geoderma.

Oksrukuyik Creek aquatic field site in Alaska
Data Notification

Corrections to wind speed and direction above water on buoy product (DP1.20059.001)

May 12, 2022

Corrections were made to wind direction statistics in provisional data (collected Jan 2020 and after). Corrections to the full dataset will be released in January 2023 as part of RELEASE-2023.

Spotlight

Voices in Ecology - Jeb Timm, NEON Domain 18/19

May 11, 2022

In our second of this blog series highlighting the many diverse backgrounds and paths in ecology, we talked to NEON's Jeb Timm, who grew up in and works in semi-remote Alaska, about his current role and any advice he has for the next generation of ecologists—particularly those pursuing technical or vocational paths into the field.

Jeb Timm
Data Notification

Update 1: Delay in external lab particulate carbon and nitrogen data

May 9, 2022

This is an update to the previous post concerning the delay in external lab particulate carbon and nitrogen data. Sample analysis for the pilot study

Case Study

NEON Data Provides Insights for Invasion Ecology

May 4, 2022

Understanding how biological invasions start, the factors that allow invasive species to thrive, and their impact on native ecosystems are critical questions for ecology. A paper published in Ecosphere highlights the ways in which data from the NEON program could help ecologists explore the impacts and mechanisms of invasion.

invasive cheatgrass
Case Study

Measuring the Impact of Nature-Based Climate Solutions with Flux Towers

April 20, 2022

Interest in Nature-based Climate Solutions is growing, in large part due to carbon markets that provide incentives to landowners. A new paper explores the use of eddy covariance flux towers and other measurement methods to get a better understanding of the impact of leveraging nature for addressing climate change.

Wind River Tower in D16
Data Notification

New version of neonUtilities (2.1.4)

April 18, 2022

neonUtilities 2.1.4 is now available on CRAN! Updates in this new version: New function getNeonDOI() enables quick access to DOIs for data products

Case Study

Two New Beetle Species Identified at Pu'u Maka'ala

April 6, 2022

At Pu'u Maka'ala Natural Area Reserve (PUUM) in Hawai`i, researchers have verified the discovery of two previously undescribed species of carabids (ground beetles). The two new species are both members of Mecyclothorax, a genus of ground beetles most diverse on volcanoes in the Hawaiian Islands and the Society Islands of French Polynesia.

Male M. brunneonubiger

Domain Digest No. 4: Fire, Field Sites, and Recovery

March 30, 2022

NEON field sites are no stranger to the effects of increasing wildfires. Field sites that have experienced burning provide a unique window for research on wildfire in small ecosystems, and on how a site may recover and change post-fire. A few of our field ecologists share how their sites have been affected by fire over recent years.

Photos of wildfire damage at GRSM. Associated article "NEON's Great Smoky Mountains Data will capture Tennessee fire impacts on local ecology"
Spotlight

Women in Ecology – Shalane Frost

March 28, 2022

We spoke with Shalane Frost, one of NEON's assistant Domain managers for field operations in Alaska, about her unique career path and balancing her ecology studies with her athletic career. Frost believes that a career in ecology should not be one-size-fits-all, and that people in STEM—especially women—should feel empowered to explore a variety of paths that incorporate ecology into their academic and professional journeys.

Shalane Frost
Spotlight

PR Data Jam Brings Data Science Methods to K-12 Students -- El PR Data Jam trae métodos de ciencia de datos a estudiantes de K-12

March 23, 2022

Six teachers and more than 50 students across Puerto Rico had the opportunity to explore ecological questions using NEON data as part of the 2021 PR NEON Data Jam. The event, coordinated by Forward Research and sponsored by Battelle, was built on the LTER model using NEON data from the Guánica Dry Forest (GUAN) site in Puerto Rico (D04).

Flux tower at the Lajas Experimental Station field site
Data Notification

AOP Data Now Available in RELEASE-2022

March 22, 2022

AOP data that were erroneously not included in RELEASE-2022 are now available in that release as well as searchable with LATEST AND PROVISIONAL release tag. For these data products, RELEASE-2022 supersedes RELEASE-2021. Read on to learn more.

Data Notification

Corrected distorted flow quality metrics in 2D wind speed and direction product

March 17, 2022

A previous data notification warned of an error remaining in the computation of the distorted flow quality metrics in the 2D wind speed and direction

Data Notification

Resolution of aquatic macroinvertebrate and zooplankton metabarcoding data

March 11, 2022

Macroinvertebrate metabarcoding (DP1.20126.001) and Zooplankton metabarcoding (DP1.20221.001) bioinformatics data in the inv_metabarcodeTaxonomy and

Case Study

Automating Biodiversity Surveys at NEON Field Sites

March 10, 2022

Modern instrumentation and machine learning methods are increasingly used in the ecology community to supplement human effort. Could some of these methods be applied at the NEON field sites? A recent paper in Ecosphere explores the possibilities.

AudioMoth recorder in a Ziploc bag

Aquatic Sensor Infrastructure Design Improves Uptime at "Flashy" Stream Sites

March 2, 2022

NEON collects aquatic data in wadeable streams. A study shows that measurements taken by stream sensors mounted on an overhead cable are as good as measurements taken using the standard in-water monopod design. The new overhead cable mounting infrastructure provides improved sensor uptime and reliability in streams prone to extreme flow changes and shifting channel morphology.

Overhead aquatic sensor design
Data Notification

Water Quality fDOM Values are Sometimes Artificially Low

March 1, 2022

During data review to troubleshoot negative fDOM values, NEON discovered that some fDOM values published in the Water quality (DP1.20288.001) data

Data Notification

Incorrect Depths Associated with Lake and River Temperature Profiles: Update #1

February 25, 2022

This is an update regarding incorrect sensorDepth values at BARC and CRAM for some time ranges in provisional and RELEASE-2022 data for Temperature at specific depth in surface water (DP1.20264.001). The previous post contains information on how to fix the issue in downloaded data.

Want a Faster Way to Process Microbial DNA data? Try the neonMicrobe R Package

February 17, 2022

Thanks to the neonMicrobeR package, researchers can now automate much of the work of downloading, processing, and assembling microbial data from NEON terrestrial field sites.

Field technician sampling soil microbes at the PUUM field site

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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.