The National Ecological ObservatoryNetwork (NEON) is a national-scale research platform for analyzing andunderstanding the impacts of climate change, land-use change, andinvasive species on ecosystems. Soil microbes (bacteria, archaea, andfungi) play key roles in many of the processes that constitute NEON'sgrand challenges. To determine cost effective strategies for measuringthe critical microbial variables in the observatory, the NEON SoilMicrobe Prototype was designed to measure temporal and spatialvariability in microbial community composition within and among fourdomains over an annual cycle.

Results/Conclusions

Phylogenetic and functional gene analyses wereconducted on environmental soil core samples collected five times overan annual cycle from four NEON domains. Sequences and analyses of 16Sand 18S rRNA genes to identify soil bacterial, archaeal and fungaldiversity and community structure were generated through 454pyrosequencing. Concurrent analyses exploring functional nifH gene(for nitrogenase) abundance and soil biogeochemistry will help relatecommunity composition with specific functions and inform decisions oncandidate sites for metagenomic analyses. Together, these data willhelp constrain the extent of spatial and temporal sampling necessaryto capture long-term trends in microbial communities.