NEON Operations and Maintenance: Evolving from a Strong Foundation

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The future health, welfare, and security of the U.S. depend upon diverse natural systems that can be altered by the changing world. The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), the first continental-scale facility of its kind in the world, addresses the nature of these changes and their causes by acquiring standardized biological and environmental measurements from the local to continental scale. It provides key data to enable scientists to understand and predict the changes and enable policy makers potentially to lessen detrimental effects. NEON is democratizing access to this area of science in unprecedented ways by providing high-quality data free of charge to anyone interested in pursuing advanced ecological and climate research. NEON provides outreach nationwide in each of its 20 ecological regions to build a diverse, inclusive, and interdisciplinary next generation of researchers. With its partners, NEON provides data skills training and educational materials to a wide variety of stakeholders. The NEON mission is to enable better understanding and prediction of the drivers of, and responses to, ecological changes by providing freely available, high-quality continental and decadal-scale ecological data and samples informed by broad scientific engagement. The managing entity for this project realizes this mission and advances the potential for discovery by providing rapid and broadened access to high-quality NEON data and samples through robust, secure, and accessible cyberinfrastructure, educational and outreach programs, findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable - FAIR - data partners, and the NEON Biorepository. The robust NEON cyberinfrastructure that provides free and open access to data and analytic tools will continue to empower a community of practice to develop open-source code, analytic tools, standardized protocols, and derived ecological data products. NEON infrastructure is continuously operated at 81 sites in 20 distinct ecological regions spanning the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Over 180 data products are collected using a sensor network, airborne remote sensing, and manual field observations and collections. These free and openly available data are provided to scientists, educators, and the public for societal benefit through the NEON data portal (https://data.neonscience.org/). Physical samples are collected and made available for use through the NEON Biorepository (https://biorepo.neonscience.org/portal/). NEON provides customized access to many parts of its infrastructure, including personnel, through a cost-recoverable Assignable Assets program. Centralized planning drives efficient management with consistency and quality in data; decentralized execution across the 20 NEON Domains accommodates the diversity of environments in the US. The potential for NEON to advance interdisciplinary knowledge will be amplified by engaging in extensive strategic partnerships. NEON will build a diverse, inclusive, and interdisciplinary next generation of researchers and workforce by providing training in the use of NEON data, supporting NEON ambassadors and partners, and conducting training in standardized ecological field sampling protocols. Continual improvement of NEON operations, including training and outreach activities, will be driven by regular external evaluation against Observatory performance metrics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.