Project Office News: November 2005

Dear Friends of NEON,

As NEON enters its second year of formal planning, the Senior Management Team wants to keep you apprised of developments in the process. We hope this update will serve that purpose.

The NEON National Network Design Committee (NNDC) has completed several meetings and made substantial progress integrating the recommendations made during the first half of the year by the committees of the NEON Design Consortium. As a result, we can now report specifics about NEON science and the deployment of sensors, systematic biotic sampling, and cyberinfrastructure.

NEON will support systematic study of seven US ecological priorities: invasive species, infectious disease, climate change, land-use change, biogeochemical cycles, biodiversity, and aquatic ecosystems. These elements are reflected in three overarching questions that the Observatory will address:

1. How are ecological systems affected by changes in land use, climate, and biogeochemistry across a range of spatial and temporal scales?

2. How do changes in the availability and distribution of the Nation's water affect ecological systems and what are the feedbacks that in turn affect water resources?

3. How do the patterns and movement of genes and organisms across the continent affect biodiversity, ecosystem function, and the spread of infectious diseases and invasive species?

A standardized set of sensor technologies, Biotic survey protocols, and cyberinfrastructure will enable continuous, long-term data collection, storage, and dissemination. NEON will deploy sensors, systemaic biotic sampling, and cyberinfrastructure within 20 distinct climatic domains across the United States (including two distinct domains in Alaska (tundra/taiga), Hawaii/Pacific Tropical, and Atlantic Neotropical). The domain boundaries were determined using a cluster analysis of climate state variables, combined with air mass seasonality data. (For more on the climate domains, see http://www.neoninc.org/archive/2005/08/first_draft_yie_1.html)

Within each domain, infrastructure will be deployed in three land-use/land-cover types: wild, managed, and urbanized, each of which will contain transition zones between terrestrial and aquatic systems. Every NEON site will feature a range of standardized instruments deployed at three fixed locations to provide critical data streams related to the ecological priorities and to sample a suite of key organisms that are sensitive to ecological change. Biotic measurements will be based on sampling of organisms as different as soil microbes and deer mice as well as many forms in between. In addition, mobile capacity will be deployed to enable classic campaign-style investigations and to respond to sudden ecological events, such as the outbreak of an infectious disease.

At its October 17-21, 2005 meeting in Washington, DC, the NNDC focused much attention on the ongoing task of defining the generalized instrument arrays to be deployed in NEON. On the issue of experiments: The NNDC decided that experiments will be described as unique scientific opportunities that are only possible with the NEON infrastructure in place, but that the experiments will not be implemented in the first phase of NEON construction.

On October 18th, the NNDC briefed the NEON Advisory Board and received input from the Board on a range of issues, including design, the climate domain structure, potential experiments, partnership opportunities, and progress toward the final draft of the Integrated Science and Education Plan (ISEP). Drafts of both the ISEP and the Network and Informatics Baseline Design (NIBD) have been submitted to NSF. We are currently revising the ISEP in response to initial input from the Foundation and reviewers from the ecological community. Early next year we expect to be able to circulate an ISEP that elaborates the specifics of the NEON design. Both documents will undergo independent reviews coordinated by NSF.

Another notable NEON milestone is now at hand: NEON, Inc. will soon be incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. NEON, Inc. is designed to be a participatory entity offering institutional memberships across the full spectrum our community. In addition to refining bylaws and articles, the NNDC agreed that the NEON Senior Management Team will serve as the initial Board of Directors, and that Board rotation and election by the membership will begin one year after the start of NEON construction. Incorporation will codify NEON, Inc. as the legal entity for receiving NSF startup funding for the Observatory. Incorporation documents and bylaws will be posted for review before the year's end.

The coming year will obviously be a crucial one for our community. Much of the work ahead will consist of fully developing the engineering blueprint for NEON, finalizing the important details of NEON, Inc's relationship to ecological researchers and educators across the nation, exploring collaborative relationships with federal agencies and other partners, and mobilizing support for NEON.

The NNDC anticipates several important steps in the near future:

1. We will work with the community to identify sites to house instruments and serve as experimental areas for use by investigators.

2. The NNDC is drafting siting requirements that define the characteristics of sites to ensure a cohesive national measurement system.

3. Some details related to site characteristics will be in the ISEP. Others are being developed as recommendations to NSF.

4. The exact process by which the community will recommend sites has not been determined by NSF and probably will not be determined until after the ISEP is reviewed next year.

5. Whatever the process, the NNDC will strongly recommend that the community have adequate time to respond.

We are encouraged by the positive community input we have received during NEON's challenging first phase of planning. We look forward to working closely with you throughout the rest of the process.

Sincerely,

NEON Senior Management Team