Standardization of key instrumentation and protocols among NEON and other agencies and networks

Background/Question/Methods

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Ecology is increasingly tackling questions of great intellectual difficulty, critical for developing a sustainable world.  NEON links ecology to the physical sciences to address climate impacts and feedbacks, and atmospheric and hydrological transport.  NEON also links ecology to the human sciences, observing land use and land management practices directly, integrating with key human data sets and deploying infrastructure into cities, farms and production forestry.  

Part of NEON’s design is the standardization of approaches and technologies to enable a consistent scaling strategy.  But because approaches and technologies are rapidly changing, challenges NEON to develop an adaptive and dynamic structure.  Moreover, collaboration with other networks will expand NEON’s sphere of influence and data products.  Hence, as NEON science continues to mature, it becomes increasingly important to expand our understanding globally and assure standardization and the compatibility of data products through cooperation with International and national entities.  How best to achieve the standardization of measurements and protocols within NEON and among Networks?

Results/Conclusions

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Here, we present overall philosophy and specific strategic details achieve this goal, and demonstrate large diversity of partner organizations and ecological disciplines. We demonstrate new initiatives in standardization and leadership with; Genomic Standards Consortium, World Meteorological Organization and World Climate Reference Program, DOE ARM, International Atomic Energy Association International Bar-Code of Life, NASA AERONET, US Climate Reference Network, Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network, FluxNet, Integrated Carbon Observatory System, and Oklahoma Mesonet.  NEON represents new Observatory scale ecology and how new frontiers can be forged in collaboration with existing Networks.