A long list of essential needs and critical questions concerning the effects of LULC change was identified at the workshop. The diversity of landscapes, the complexity of ecosystem processes that occur within these landscapes, the intensity and extent of current and historical change, and the many uncertainties associated with landscape studies made the prioritization of these questions a challenge. This workshop report addresses those issues.

If ecologists are to be successful in distinguishing competing and interacting causes of large-scale ecological changes and associated feedbacks to the atmosphere and hydrosphere, they will need to match the spatial and temporal scales of analysis employed routinely by climatologists. This report identifies and discusses 10 fundamental questions for evaluating ecological implications of climate change at regional-to-continental scales and makes recommendations for the necessary infrastructure to address those questions.

This report addresses the following six questions: 1. What is the current biological diversity of the United States? 2. What are the spatiotemporal patterns regulating evolution? 3. How are key ecological and evolutionary processes regulating biodiversity distributed in space and time? 4. How does ecosystem functioning change as biodiversity changes, and how does biodiversity change as ecosystem management changes? 5. How does changing biodiversity and ecosystem functioning affect human services (e.g., clean water, soil for agriculture) provided by ecosystems? 6.

The principal challenges of the proposed NEON will be to define the past, present, and future states of these elements and resources within the United States and assess the potential impact of biogeochemical changes to the vitality of the American public. Existing biogeochemical networks in the United States are insufficient to provide the synthetic perspective required for addressing these critical national needs. Many of the networks are operated with regional interests in mind, and often databases for the networks are not easily combined across regions or disciplines.

Several broad research challenges of national concern were identified by NRC reports (NRC 2001, 2003). These include biodiversity, species composition, and ecosystem functioning; ecological aspects of biogeochemical cycles; ecological implications of climate change; ecology and evolution of infectious diseases; land use and habitat alteration; and invasive species. A workshop was convened in March to focus on the design of NEON in relation to invasive species, and this report presents its recommendations.

NEON Planning Workshop VII - NEON Coordination and Implementation Conference was a two-part conference to design and govern the National Ecological Observatory Network. September 4-6, 2003 and November 10-11, 2003. Washington, DC Report synthesizes the organizational and governance framework for NEON and a process for implementation

Report to the National Science Foundation from the Sixth Workshop on the Development of a National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON): Information Management held at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA (September 16-18, 2002)

The NEON-V Workshop was held at the Field Museum, Chicago, 14-16 June 2002. It was organized to provide advice to the National Science Foundation regarding the possible involvement, interactions, opportunities, and needs of the biological collections institutions (BCI) community within the NEON program. A NEON-BCI collaboration would present significant and unique opportunities to combine ecological data with specimen/collections data and systematic research, thus bringing vital phylogeographic context to ecological studies.

From 4-5 June 2002 a group of 22 participants and 3 observers (See appendix) gathered in Boulder, Colorado to develop a plan for standardized equipment needs and measurements for all NEON observatories. As in previous workshops, the group enthusiastically endorsed the proposed development of a national network of ecological observatories. This report provides examples of how NEON will expand research capabilities beyond anything current available, which will greatly advance ecological research and our understanding of the environment.

In June 2000, a group of computer scientists, biologists, and natural resource managers met to examine the prospects for advancing computer science and information technology (CS/IT) research by focusing on the complex and often unique challenges found in the biodiversity and ecosystem domain. We refer to this emerging, interdisciplinary field of study as Biodiversity and Ecosystem Informatics (BDEI). This report synthesizes the discussions and recommendations made at the workshop.