Toolik Field Station Vision Workshop
Portland, OR 2-4 August 2012

A CONTINENTAL-SCALE
OBSERVATION SYSTEM
30 year period of observation

… 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
Causes of Change
Climate
Land Use
Invasive Species
Response to Change
Biodiversity
Biogeochemistry
Ecohydrology
Infectious Disease

An Integrated
Observing System A 30 year period of Observation
REMOTE
SAMPLING
NAT. DATA SETS
ONSITE
SAMPLING
DATA PRODUCTS
Individual
Team
Community
Managers &
Policy-makers

Where will NEON observe?

• Representative sampling
• Replication of gradients
• Detecting/attributing change over decades
• Standardized and transparent protocols
• Comprehensive set of observations
• Terrestrial and aquatic
• Sentinel taxa
• Field and lab analyses state-of-the-art
• QA/QC -- data quality and uncertainty
Free and open access to all NEON data*
* Unless legislatively protected

•
~ 1600 Level 0 data products (primary observations) o o o o
Raw voltages from sensors
Information on collected flora/fauna(e.g. counts)
External DNA or chemical analysis
Raw LiDAR returns
•
~ 75 Level 2 (rectified) & Level 3 (common gridded) o o
Gap-filled one-minute air temp (L2)
Gridded canopy nitrogen estimate (L3)
•
~ 540 Level 1 data (QA/C, minimally processed) o o o
One-minute average air temperature
Site-level species composition
Georectified LiDAR
• ~ 120 Level 4 (high-level, cross-subsystem integrative) o o o o
Net ecosystem exchange
Canopy nitrogen
Microbial diversity
Aquatic nutrient flux

• Terrestrial
• Organismal (TOS)
• Instrumental (TIS)
• Aquatic
• Organismal (AOS)
• Instrumental (AIS)
• Airborne (AOP)
• Research: Stream
Field Sampling
Surface and ground water
Ecological Observation
Airborne Remote Sensing
Network (STREON)
Towers
Satellite
Data

Ecosystem carbon, water and energy balance
• Temperature
• Humidity
• Wind
• Precipitation
• Radiation
• CO 2
• Pollutants – e.g., ozone and reactive nitrogen
Calibration for remotely sensing – Correct AOP for effects of incoming solar radiation, aerosols and water vapor

Physical and carbon cycle responses
• Temperature
• Moisture
• Carbon dioxide flux
(soil respiration)
• Root growth

• Plant biodiversity
• Plant biomass, leaf area, and chemical composition
• Plant phenology
• Birds
• Ground beetles
• Mosquitoes
• Small mammals
• Infectious disease
• Soil microorganisms
• Soil biogeochemistry

Terrestrial
Biological
Field
Sampling

• Algae
• Aquatic macrophytes, bryophytes and lichens
• Aquatic microbes
• Zooplankton
• Aquatic invertebrates
• Fish
• Aquatic habitat
• Sediment chemistry
• Water chemistry

• Aquatic
– Temp water,
DO, turbidity, pH, conductivity
– Chromophoric dissolved organic matter
– Chlorophyll
– Discharge/water level
– Nutrient Analyzer – nitrate, phosphate, ammonia
– Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR)
Sensor Design
Testing
• Bank-side – Micrometeorology
– Temp air
, precipitation, barometric pressure, PAR, net radiation
– Wind speed and direction
– Camera
• Groundwater
– Temperature, level and conductivity

Experiment – STREON
I Instrument station, water sampling site
NEON control reach
X
O
Experimental units (baskets )
I water flow
Consumer exclosure
(electrified barriers )
Nutrient addition station
STREON treatment reach
X
E
I
I
Basket incubation
(e.g. streamside flume or in situ recirculation chamber)

Spectrometry
• Vegetation biochemistry & biophysical properties
• Cover type & fraction
LiDAR altimetry
• Vegetation structure
• Sub-canopy topography
• Plant biomass
High resolution photography
• Land use & land cover
3 X Twin Otter aircraft
2014: Toolik, Barrow, Caribou-Poker, & Healy

 Continuous wvl coverage from 380 to 2510 nm
 High signal-to-noise ratio
 (2x improvement over AVIRIS)
 5 nm spectral sampling
 1 mrad IFOV (1m GSD @ 1000 m flight altitude)
 High degree of uniformity across wvl‘s and field
 SWIR coverage provides information on
 canopy moisture & nitrogen
 discrimination of non-photosynthetic components
Status
• NISDVU delivered and operational
• NIS-1 due 4/13; NIS-2 due 8/13

Nitrogen Lignin
Leaf area index
Scaling
Terrestrial
Observations
Canopy height

• 3 Airborne remote sensing systems
• 10 Mobile Deployment Platforms
• Sensor Infrastructure
• Biological Measurements
• Cyber-infrastructure
• CAL/VAL Lab
• Collections

NEON – Generated Natural History Collections
• Voucher collections of sentinel taxa
• Analytical samples
– Replicates for future re-analysis
– For external PI-driven research needs
– Storage in case of funding shortfalls
• Vascular plants and algae
• Animal tissues and genomic extracts
• Microbial communities
• Soils and sediments

AQUATIC
CORE SITE
AQUATIC / STREON

• Construction mobilization & staging Feb 2015
• Civil infrastructure complete Jul/Aug 2015
• Field operations deployment May 2015 earliest
• Terrestrial instrumentation Sep 2016
• Aquatic/STREON instrumentation Sep 2016
**Tentative and subject to change

• Tower: 2m x 2m x 6 m (L-W-H)
• Boardwalk: ≤ 1 m at ground level
• Instrument hut: ~20’ x 9’ x 8’ (L-W-H)
– Instrumentation, equipment, tools, safety equip & non-haz gas cylinders
• Soil array: 5 arrays, ~ 25m apart
• Power Supply: generators – fuel storage at parking & staging area
• COMM: could be tied into the GCI fiber line
• Security : a gate at the top of the first flight of stairs
• Site Access:
– Summer access: Boardwalk to instrument tower
– Winter access: Access via snowmobile and snowshoes
• Site Remediation:
– Site Decommissioning and Restoration Plan
– Host-specific requirements

• Lab space – 800 to 1,000 square feet
– Higher level of on-site processing
• Lodging (Construction) – NEON personnel and contractors
– Site survey and geotech work – Feb/Mar 2013
– Ground water wells – Feb/Mar 2015
• Lodging (Operations) – peak numbers up to 20
– Crews rotating from Fairbanks
– Full time and seasonal techs
• Garage space (Vehicles) – truck, boat and snow mobile
• Comm at Lake site – possible to tap into WIFI?
– Aquatic band width requirement (Lake Site) ~45Kb/s

• Instrument maintenance: 2-3 days every other week year round
• Organismal sampling:
– Terrestrial: 30-50 plots during summer season
– Aquatic: stream, lake, and STREON
– Observations: Sentinel taxa
– Sample removal – some soil, sediment, water, plant and animal materials
• Airborne Observations: once per year during peak greenness

• drying oven(s)
• refrigerator
• freezer
• ultralow
• high-precision balance
• not so high precision balance
• grinding mill
• centrifugal mill
• muffle furnace
• fume hood
• microscope? (may transport samples back to Fairbanks)
• temporary sample storage
• field equipment storage
• flammables storage
• corrosives storage
• biohazard/hazardous waste storage
• gas cylinder storage ? maybe
• dry ice readily available (may need a machine to make this)
• DI water readily available (may need a DI water system)

The National Ecological Observatory Network is a project sponsored by the National
Science Foundation and managed under cooperative agreement by NEON Inc.