The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)
Balancing Life and Ecosystems
Since we assumed management for NEON from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2016 we:
- Completed the construction of the entire Observatory.
- Transitioned all 81 field sites to successful operation.
- Established NEON as a crucial source of knowledge of the dependencies between life and environment.
- Enabled workforce development and safe operations.
Battelle’s expertise in large research infrastructures has proven to be invaluable to the successful launch and continuation of NEON. Our unique knowledge is critical to ensure the longevity of one of the world’s most ambitious ecological data endeavors.
NEON’s Mission
As ecosystems in the United States change, NEON plays a fundamental role in our ability to characterize and understand our nation's ecosystems and support environmental science.
National Ecological Observatory Network:
- Provides trusted, freely available, high quality, national-scale, critical data and samples that are easily accessed and made rapidly available for use by researchers around the world to enable an informed and predictive understanding of ecological responses to environmental changes.
- Is a respected platform that integrates with the environmental and ecological research community through collaboration, community-adopted standards, data usage, linked data, measurement methods, curriculum content, or assets.
- Adapts to frontier science needs to provide an optimized, forward-looking technological and observational platform to be used as a catalyst for research and innovation and inspire an expanding global scientific landscape of environmental monitoring infrastructure.
- Delivers the educational and training resources to the next generation of ecologists and environmental scientists for effective use of NEON data, samples, and technology.
NEON's Impact
Monitoring Disaster Recovery From the Air with NEON
The NEON Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) gives detailed remote sensing data at field sites both before and after a natural disaster, providing insights into impacts and recovery.
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Battelle NEON at Premier International Research Infrastructure Meeting
Dr. Paula Mabee, Director of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), and other NEON leaders attended and presented at the International Conference on Research Infrastructures in Australia in December 2024.
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AccelNet Award Enables Global Drought Research
A recent award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the AccelNet Program will support efforts to harmonize international, drought-related ecological data across several networks in different countries.
Read The blogNEON Data and Samples
Data
NEON delivers hundreds of data products including organismal counts and measurements, water quality, energy fluxes, and remotely sensed vegetation indices. Data is free and open for all.
Samples and Specimens
Our field ecologists collect soil, organismal and water samples as well as specimens throughout the year. A large proportion of these are available for your research, archived in a variety of collections around the U.S.
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Biorepository
Find data on the archived physical samples and information on how to request a loan at the Arizona State University Biorepository, our primary sample and specimen collection.
Answering the Big Questions in Ecology
With 81 field sites that span 20 ecoclimate Domains, the NEON program delivers open access, free data to available to research and answer to our most pressing questions in ecology over more than 30 years. Its massive geographic and temporal scale allows scientists to study critical dependencies
that impact our ecosystem, such as:
- How is biodiversity changing over time across different ecosystems?
- What role do minerals in the soil play in soil carbon storage?
- How are wildfire spread and emissions related to vegetation type and abundance?
- What factors impact the spread of ticks into different ecoclimate zones?
Researchers are actively chasing the answers to such questions through NEON’s infrastructure — and capabilities that have never been available before.
The data we collect is used to:
- Inform natural resource and land management decisions.
- Update ecosystems models and forecasts.
- Monitor how different ecosystems are responding to invasive species, disturbances and land use.