Data Notification
Modification of Select NEON Data Products
January 29, 2026
Each year, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) conducts an annual planning process to align priorities with its budget. As the operator of the Observatory and in close coordination with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), we ensure responsible stewardship of these resources. In 2026, a key priority is enhancing the capacity of the NEON Biorepository, i.e., dedicating funds to ensure the needed storage for the biological and environmental samples that are an essential resource for the research community and have significant potential for commercial users. The nation-wide array of physical samples, including microbes, are intimately linked in space and time to over 180 data products through NEON’s leading cyberinfrastructure. Together they enable new questions to be addressed and long time-scale discoveries to be made. We are proud to support this unique archive and augment the capacity for even greater use in the future.
A second priority this year is upgrading the sensors and infrastructure and associated data pipelines to enhance data quality, improve information security, and address technological obsolescence. These efforts are multi-faceted, including new hardware and software for logging sensor data, transmitting the data to the cloud, and processing the data using algorithms that are being made open to the user community as they are developed. Of note, in 2026, we are initiating the replacement of two critical sensor suites – soil temperature and moisture and weighing gauge precipitation - across the Observatory. As an indication of the magnitude of these efforts, replacing the soil temperature and moisture sensors includes >1,300 sensors in 230 soil plots at NEON’s 46 terrestrial sites. These efforts are necessary to initiate to ensure the robust collection of these critical environmental data through time.
To support these improvements, NEON is discontinuing nine of its approximately 180 data products (<5%) and modifying an additional 14 data products (<8%) across all data collection systems (i.e., airborne, instrumented, and observational systems). These decisions, in addressing both near-term and long-term program health, were made thoughtfully, with input from the NEON Science, Technology, and Education Advisory Committee and after discussion and concurrence of the NSF. When evaluating priorities, we considered several factors: the level of data product use to date, the scientific value for the user community, and the cost to continue data collection.
Here we summarize the data products selected for modification and the associated changes and rationale for their selection. Additional details about the nine discontinued data products are provided in a separate data notification, with all changes documented in the issue log for each affected data product. Please visit our FAQs and reach out with any questions.
Table 1. Summary of Modified Data Products (n = 14)
| Data Product Group | Data Products Impacted | Summary of change and rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Terrestrial plants – annual collections (2) | DP1.10058.001 - Plant presence and percent cover DP1.10055.001 - Plant phenology observations |
These data products will not be collected per the intended design in 2026 to reduce labor costs; plant presence and percent cover will not be collected at any terrestrial site (2026 only), while plant phenology will only be collected at the 20 core terrestrial sites. During this suspension, NEON is collaborating with partners to pilot new collection methods for these products that would leverage imagery and AI-based analyses to potentially realize collection efficiencies in the long-term. |
| Terrestrial plants and soils – 5-year collections (9) | DP1.10017.001 - Digital hemispheric photos of plot vegetation DP1.10026.001 - Plant foliar traits DP1.10033.001 - Litterfall and fine woody debris production and chemistry DP1.10067.001 - Root biomass and chemistry, periodic DP1.10086.001 - Soil physical and chemical properties, periodic DP1.10104.001 - Soil microbe biomass DP1.10010.001 - Coarse downed wood log survey DP1.10023.001 - Herbaceous clip harvest DP1.10098.001 - Vegetation structure |
Each of these products involves data that is designed to only be collected every 5 years; in 2026, the planned collections will be deferred until 2027, resulting in a 6-year sampling interval. A 5-year interval was chosen because the TOS data generated are either (a) closely linked to data collected by the AOP, such that AOP data can fill in the gaps (e.g., plant foliar traits, leaf area index); or (b) are associated with ecosystem components that are not likely to change significantly over shorter time scales (e.g., coarse downed wood volume, woody biomass, site-level herbaceous biomass). These considerations mean that introducing an additional year into the sampling interval for these protocols is not likely to affect the inference that end-users can draw from these data products. |
| Aquatic geomorphology (1) | DP4.00131.001 - Stream morphology map | These data were designed to be collected at each NEON stream site every five years or after an extreme event. Data collected to date have indicated that this frequency can be reduced, as significant changes have yet to be detected even after extreme events (e.g., Hurricane Maria in 2018). Given these factors and the intensive time investment required, the sampling frequency for this product is planned to be significant reduced, with a minimum of one sampling event per site in the first 10 years of NEON operations and another during the last 10 years of NEON operations, approximately 20 years apart, unless significant observable changes are detected sooner. |
| Aquatic microalgae (1) | DP1.20166.001 - Periphyton, seston, and phytoplankton collection | Taxonomic identification of micro-algae (including diatoms and soft algae) is challenging given the state of their taxonomy and available taxonomic resources. Consequently, we have suspended taxonomic identification of collected samples since 2021 after observing inconsistencies in identifications across different expert taxonomy labs. Efforts over the past three years have been made to harmonize identification through development of a voucher flora approach, with a pilot study completed in 2025 that demonstrated the ability to generate harmonized identifications across two labs. However, full implementation remains a labor-intensive task as it requires building, maintaining, and making available to users a continental-scale algal voucher flora and regular quality assurance analyses and audits. Combined, these efforts are expected to exceed available budget resources. Thus, microalgae taxonomic identification will no longer be conducted, and microalgae slides will no longer be created for archive at the Biorepository. However, sample collection will continue for Periphyton, seston, and phytoplankton chemical properties (DP1.20163.001). We will also continue to collect and freeze samples for storage at the Biorepository to enable generation of genomic data once the scientific community has generated the requisite reference libraries. Collected samples could therefore enable future sequence-based taxonomic identification to fill the time series gap. |
| Aquatic and terrestrial instruments (1) | DP1.00038.001 - Stable isotopes in precipitation | The water samples analyzed for stable isotopes in precipitation at select NEON sites have been collected in a bottle adjacent to the wet deposition chemical analysis sample using the same N-Con Systems wet deposition collector. Discontinuation of wet deposition chemical analysis DP1.00013.001, as described in another notification, allows NEON to redesign the precipitation isotope collector without needing to meet the additional requirements of the wet deposition chemistry and thereby eliminates the need to address long-standing issues with the current collector. Therefore, this product will be suspended for 1-2 years to allow NEON to identify a more cost-effective collector. |
