Index to NEON Domain Development Web Pages

William W. Hargrove and Forrest M. Hoffman
April 2009

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a continental-scale research platform for discovering and understanding the impacts of climate change, land-use change, and invasive species on ecology. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and managed under cooperative agreement by NEON, Inc., the project was designed to gather long-term data on ecological responses of the biosphere to changes in land use and climate, and on feedbacks with the geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere.

Described below are the research results that served to inform the NEON Domain Development team in creating the 20 NEON domains that are in use today. Based upon a Multivariate Geographic Clustering (MGC) methodology and 1 km² bio-climatic data, the initial divisions represent objectively defined regions that served as a basis for the NEON domains. This delineation effort, contributed by the authors with input from the NEON Domain Development team, makes NEON one of the first sampling networks to be designed in a scientifically rigorous manner.

NEON Domain Development Tests

These pages chronicle the conceptual development and testing of the statistical domain development methodology.

• Statistical Tests for Continental Zonation (May 10, 2005)

• More Statistical Tests for Continental Zonation (June 3, 2005)

• Continuing Statistical Tests for Continental Zonation (July 11, 2005)

• Why 20 NEON Domains? (November 2006)

NEON Within-Domain Representativeness Analyses

These pages describe subsequent analyses of representativeness within the 20 NEON domains.

• Assisting with Sub-Node Deployment: NEON Within-Domain Representativeness (January 19, 2006)

• NEON Within-Domain Representativeness: Quantifying and Mapping Representativeness Gradients in Other Variables (October 10, 2006)

NEON Domain Development-Related Presentations

The following slides are from presentations about the NEON domain development effort made at scientific meetings and conferences.

• Development of a Domain Map for Nodes of the NSF's National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) (International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis — SuperComputing 2006 (SC06), Tampa, Florida, USA; November 15, 2006)

• Development of a Domain Map for Nodes of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) (21^st Annual Symposium of the International Association for Landscape Ecology, United States Regional Association (US-IALE), San Diego, California, USA; March 31, 2006)

• Development of a Domain Map for Nodes of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) (American Geophysical Union (AGU), 2005 Fall Meeting, San Francisco, California, USA; December 7, 2005)

• Quantifying Network Representation of Flux Tower Locations Across the United States (October 12, 2005)

• NEON Network Design: Past, Present and Future (October 12, 2005)

• Statistical Pre-Stratification, Representativeness, and Network Design (June 9, 2005)

• Statistical Pre-Stratification, Representativeness, and Network Design (May 22, 2005)

• Statistical Pre-Stratification, Representativeness, and Network Design (Consortium of Regional Ecological Observatories (COREO) National Meeting, Tucson, Arizona, USA; April 18, 2005)

NEON Domain Development Data

Nine 1 km² bio-climatic map layers were used to statistically create the ecoregion map from which the NEON domains were developed. A Unix/Linux tar archive file of the nine map layers is available here. Contained in this tar file is a raster mapset for the GRASS geographic information system (GIS). All nine maps are in Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area meters, with −100°E longitude and 45°N latitude center point, no false easting or northing.

The nine map layers are:

• Number of Days Above 90°F in the Growing Season [above90integrated.growing]
• Number of Days Below 32°F in the Non-growing Season [below32integrated.growing]
• Total Precipitation in the Growing Season [precipintegrated.growing]
• Total Precipitation in the Non-growing Season [precipintegrated.nongrowing]
• Number of Days with Measurable Precipitation in the Growing Season [wetdaysintegrated.growing]
• Number of Days with Measurable Precipitation in the Non-growing Season [wetdaysintegrated.nongrowing]
• Soil Plant-Available Water Holding Capacity to 1.5 m Depth [awcnew]
• Total Solar Insolation in the Growing Season [solartotal.growing]
• Total Solar Insolation in the Non-growing Season [solartotal.nongrowing]

Additional metadata for these data layers is available within the data development section of A Flux Atlas for Representativeness and Statistical Extrapolation of the AmeriFlux Network.

For additional information contact:

William W. Hargrove

Eastern Forest Threat Assessment Center

USDA Forest Service

Southern Research Station

200 WT Weaver Boulevard

Asheville, NC 28804-3454

(828) 257-4846

(865) 235-4753 (cell)

(828) 257-4313 (fax)

hnw@geobabble.org