NEON data products: Enabling continental-scale ecology

Background/Question/Methods

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a NSF-funded research and facilities initiative designed to address how climate change, land use change, and invasive species affect ecosystems on a continental scale. The standardization of measurement methodologies, engineering practice, and data organization across NEON's twenty domains enables the creation of standardized ecological data products. These data products are free, publicly available, community-approved and Observatory-vetted data covering the breadth of NEON collection activities in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Measurement techniques, analyses, and data handling are coordinated across sites, and are comprehensively documented, to facilitate both cross-site comparison and external collaborations. Data products are designed for use by scientists, students, educators, policymakers, and the general public.

Results/Conclusions

Data products provided by NEON include measurements of physical variables such as water and soil chemistry, and energy and carbon budgets; observations of species, populations, and communities; and airborne hyperspectral and LiDAR remote sensing. Data are available across varying degrees of processing, from quality-controlled raw data (low-level data products), to model outputs and complex metrics requiring several input data streams (high-level data products; e.g., net ecosystem carbon exchange, remotely sensed biomass maps). Here, we discuss the development status of these data product suites, describe how they are constructed and vetted, and provide an example of the data sets and documentation chain feeding into a high-level data product. Further, we discuss the developing framework for stakeholder communities to propose additions to the NEON high-level data product catalog.