Print PageThe goal of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is to enable understanding and forecasting of the impacts of climate change, land use change, and invasive species on continental-scale ecology. One of the major components of the NEON design is ecological terrestrial sampling (the Fundamental Sentinel Unit, FSU). Sampling at this scale is unprecedented and the design is complicated given that it must meet the criteria of the observatory - consistent methods, calibrated measurements, open-access, long-term data collection, and fully documented protocols and data processing. In developing the design, we face key challenges such as: How do we standardize sampling across different biomes to get interpretable and comparable data? How do we best concentrate certain sampling to maximize efficiency and use of resources?
Results/Conclusions
The FSU will contribute to our understanding of ecosystem forcings and responses as represented by plants, small mammals, mosquitoes, ground beetles, microbes, and soil. The FSU is designed to bridge scales from organism to plant stand scales and from daily to multidecadal time scales. The spatial extent of the FSU is large and the goal is to describe biological dynamics throughout sites that can vary in area from 10km2 up to 500km2. The locations of the biological sampling plots are co-located with each other and with environmental sensors so that measurements will have maximum scientific utility. While the Observatory sites will take advantage of existing monitoring programs whenever possible and seek creative ways of coordinating NEON activities with existing programs, the standardization of protocols across all sites is key to the success of NEON and must be maintained at all sites. Here we present the current design strategies for the terrestrial sampling.
