The National Ecological Observatory (NEON) Brian Wee, Ph.D. Chief of External Affairs, NEON, Inc. 1

NEON Goal The goal of NEON is to enable understanding and forecasting of the impacts of climate change, land use change and invasive species on continental-scale ecology by providing infrastructure to support research, education and environmental management in these areas. NEON Cause and Effect paradigm

June 2009NEON PDR3 NEON, Inc. is a 501c(3) non-profit scientific organization with: ~80 employees (as of July 2010) 54 member institutions (universities and Federal entities) 16 member Board of Directors HQ in Boulder, CO with a government relations office in Washington, DC NEON is an observatory managed by NEON, Inc. and funded by the National Science Foundation. NEON, Inc. the Organization

Cascade of multi-scaled information from observations through analyses to users Models

A National Observatory: 20 Eco-climatic Domains

Typical NEON Site 6

7 Site Schematic Soil Array Keep Out Boundaries Instrumentation Hut Meteorological Tower

NEON Data Biodiversity in terrestrial and aquatic taxa Ecological genomics Population dynamics and demography Productivity and carbon fluxes Phenology Infectious disease Systematics (Barcoding and BioArchive) Stoichiometry and nutrient limitation Ecohydrology Lab Breakdown

Notional Flight Plan for Standard Observations of NEON Core and Relocatable Sites Assumes 2 payloads in operation from roughly April to Sept Notional flight plan for payload 1 (blue dots) and payload 2 (orange diamonds). The location of the vicarious ground site is indicated by the *. This flight plan has been optimized to survey each domain at its period of peak greenness and when cloud cover is expected to be minimal.

End-to-end information processing 10

Information for Resource Management DOI – Department of the Interior CSC – DOI Regional Climate Science Center LCC – DOI Landscape Conservation Cooperative

NEON A new major Facility Basic discovery mission: To understand and predict the responses of living systems to environmental change Research-to-operations mission: Develop usable information for mission responsibilities from NEON observations. Develop interoperability on key measurements to allow extrapolation from NEON sites nationally and globally Identify key new observations for extensive monitoring, transfer to operations.

END Brian Wee June 2009NEON PDR13