2024 was yet another impressive year for NEON in terms of both the breadth and scale of research that it has enabled. As we turn the calendar to 2025, here’s a look back at some of the most exciting research and news involving the NEON program last year.
The NEON Program is tasked with collecting and providing high-quality, open-access environmental data from across the U.S. that can be used to characterize and understand our nation's ecosystems. A key component is the people who make this endeavor possible, no matter the season. As 2024 draws to a close, here’s a look back at science in action (plus a little fun!) across the Observatory.
Dr. Paula Mabee, Director of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), and other NEON leaders attended and presented at the International Conference on Research Infrastructures in Australia. During the visit, they engaged with Australia’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), a fellow member of the Global Ecosystem Research Infrastructure (GERI).
Dr. Paula Mabee, Observatory Director and Chief Scientist for the Battelle-managed NSF National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), spoke in late October at the G7 Italia Science & Technology Conference on LRIs. The conference was co-organized by the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR) with the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) and held in Sardinia.
BeetlePalooza 2024, hosted by the Imageomics Institute at OSU, brought together a diverse group of biologists, ecologists, and computer scientists to develop and refine AI tools for beetle identification and trait measurement. These AI tools could save substantial time for field ecologists and enable new discoveries, made possible only with very large image-based datasets.
Summer 2024 saw record-breaking heat and humidity. Across the Observatory, when temperatures rise, field staff safety is a priority. Take a look at how NEON staff beat the heat this summer in this photo blog.
NEON's Ambassador Program empowers and connects a group of researchers and educators who are eager to enhance NEON’s engagement with diverse communities, getting NEON resources into the hands of those making strides in the field of ecology. The newest cohort of Ambassadors is a fantastic selection of applicants of people from all backgrounds, expertise, and with diverse passions – learn a bit about them in this blog.
The NEON Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) gives detailed remote sensing data at field sites both before and after a natural disaster, providing insights into impacts and recovery. The AOP is also available through NEON Research Support Services to gather remote sensing data for disaster sites outside of NEON field site locations and schedule.
At ESA2024, the NEON booth had lots of traffic, and many people were interested in learning about NEON data. NEON staff and leadership members also participated in several contributed talks, short courses, and workshops. Here are a few highlights.
What drives the evolution of various mosquito traits, including those which make them vectors of disease? Dr. Brian Wiegmann used samples from the NEON Biorepository at ASU and other repositories to investigate the phylogeny of mosquitoes. He and his coauthors published their results in Nature Communications.
This year, surveys are being conducted at field sites representing 10 NEON Domains, including the Northeast (D01), Southeast (D03), Great Lakes (D05), Prairie Peninsula (D06), Ozarks Complex (D08), Central Plains (D10), Southern Plains (D11), Southern Rockies/Colorado Plateau (D13), Pacific Southwest (D17), and Taiga (D19).
In the U.S. Carolinas, where the Piedmont Plateau meets the Coastal Plain, rolling hills and deciduous forests give way to the longleaf pine forests of the Sandhills. This area provides ample opportunity to explore diverse regional habitats and investigate changing ecosystems. Thanks to an internship program supported by the Carolina Wildlands Foundation, students from local colleges and universities have the opportunity to gain fieldwork experience using protocols adapted from the NEON Program.
Arvind Varsani is interested in virus diversity at many scales and across species. He collaborated with Laura Steger and Kelsey Yule at the NEON Biorepository at ASU, along with other researchers, to explore the potential of extracting viral DNA from archived rodent fecal and liver samples. Their work was published recently in Virology.
A recent study using data from NEON aquatic sites shows that across the continent, under the right conditions, freshwater lakes and streams may act as both sources of atmospheric N2O, and as sinks for the gas. This behavior may help to partially offset N2O emissions and is crucial to account for in climate modeling.
Using isotopic data from NEON is one way that scientists can look into markers of ecosystem change and health. An R Package developed by Dr. Rich Fiorella calibrates atmospheric stable isotope data, enabling comparative analysis across NEON sites and the development of derived data products. The NEONiso R Package is available on the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) and GitHub and has been incorporated into the NEON data processing pipeline for the carbon isotope data product.
Every year, NEON hires around 230 seasonal field technicians across the Observatory in addition to its full-time field staff. These staff are tasked with collecting field observations and physical samples at NEON field sites. They receive on-the-job training, develop field science skills that can boost their careers, and get to live and work in some of the continent’s most pristine and beautiful places.
How long does it take for rainwater on land to find its way into streams and waterways? Researchers used stable water isotope data to trace the movement of water through watersheds at NEON field sites; in many cases, paired terrestrial and aquatic sites. The results are published in a recent paper in Hydrological Processes.
Maintaining a 30-year, continental-scale observatory takes a lot of planning. How do you ensure data consistency and continuity across such large scales of space and time, staying functional and effective even through ecosystem change?
A recent $1.6M award from the NSF through the AccelNet Program will support efforts to harmonize international, drought-related ecological data across several networks in different countries. The three-year AccelNet grant was awarded in September 2023 to Battelle. This "network of networks" approach will enable researchers to study the drivers and impacts of drought on a global scale.
A recent paper in Environmental Research: Ecology explores the potential for using air- and spaceborne lidar to monitor biodiversity on a global scale. The study used NEON airborne laser scanning (ALS) data with NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) spaceborne lidar to validate a unique approach that uses "characteristic" forest structure to infer biodiversity for areas difficult to directly sample.
The availability of large, open data sets is changing the way ecologists conduct research and the way ecology is taught. Open data from the NEON program and other large ecology networks are a potential goldmine for undergraduate and graduate educators.
Fall arrives at different times and in different ways across the Observatory. Here's a glimpse at how autumn is unrolling across NEON field sites, viewed through phenocams at our field sites, and how 2023 looks compared to 2022.
The NEON Great Lakes User Group brings people together in the Great Lakes region to foster collaborative research opportunities. In September, the first in-person meeting of GLUG was held, a workshop supported through an NSF award.
NEON has weathered several unexpected events. Through it all, the Observatory team, managed by Battelle, has responded with ingenuity, resilience, and a positive spirit to ensure the safety of our people and maximize data continuity and availability.
In July, the NEON Ambassadors convened a virtual workshop focusing on NEON derived data products. Participants are now working on a summary paper to outline best practices in creating, validating, and using derived data products. It's one more way the NEON Ambassadors are helping to make NEON data more usable and understandable for the wider research community.
Can water quality be forecast just like the weather? For Dr. Quinn Thomas, that is the ultimate goal. He and fellow researchers tested a model for forecasting lake temperatures at six NEON lake sites. Their results were recently published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Thomas is also the Principal Investigator for the EFI-RCN NEON Forecasting Challenge, which seeks to create a community of ecological forecasters using NEON data to test forecasting models.
2023 marks the 10th anniversary of operations for NEON's Airborne Observation Platform (AOP)! The effort that goes into making the flight schedules, calibrating the instrument payloads, making sure everything goes smoothly, and collecting high-quality data requires a dedicated team. The AOP team consists of many moving parts and a myriad of brilliant staff. Meet some more of the team here!
A unique and endangered ecosystem is nestled in the midst of the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The Oak Ridge Barrens (The Barrens) is home to some of the few remaining pockets of natural prairie left in the state. Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning (TCWP) wanted to perform a scientific inventory of the species composition in the cedar barrens. Margaret Cumberland, ecologist at NEON's Appalachians and Cumberland Plateau Domain (D07), facilitated an AGU-TEX community project to make this happen.
The 2023 EFI Unconference, hosted by the Ecological Forecasting Initiative Research Coordination Network (EFI RCN) and supported by the National Science Foundation, brought together 45 passionate individuals at the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) headquarters in Boulder, Colorado on June 21-23, 2023. The group fostered a unique environment for participants to exchange knowledge, generate new approaches, and advance the field of ecological forecasting.
A recent paper in the Journal of Ecology explores correlations between tree species composition, fungal communities, and the relative abundance of different types of carbon in soil at seven NEON eastern forested field sites. Understanding these complex relationships could help researchers build better models of the carbon cycle in forested terrestrial ecosystems.
