Report from the 1^st NEON Consortium of Regional Ecological Observatories (COREO), including meeting minutes and future directions

Pat Mulholland (ORNL) and Jake Weltzin (UTK)

Distillation of meeting minutes most relevant to SAPOZEON

A meeting of representatives for all regional NEON groups that have organized was held Oct 18-20 at North Bonneville, WA to define and formalize regional group involvement in NEON. Jake Weltzin (EEB, UT) and I attended as representatives for our region (generally mountainous and upland region from the Southern Appalachians to the Ozarks – referred to as SAPOZEON for now). Regional groups organized as the Consortium of Regional Ecological Observatories (COREO), set up a process to create bylaws, established a vision, and minimum standards for inclusion in the Regional Consortium (currently consisting of approximately 17 regional groups at present covering entire US and territories). This regional Consortium activity is largely parallel to the other NEON design activities led by AIBS and Bruce Hayden et al. and that will be completed within 2 years. These design activities include development of a limited and focused set of science questions that NEON will address and the infrastructure (sensors, deployment and maintenance, data management, etc) needed to address them. These activities are being carried out by a number of committees and subcommittees established by NEONInc (see www.NEONInc.org).

Its still not completely clear what role the regional groups (and collectively COREO) will serve. Several things are becoming clear, though.

1) Much of the NEON project will be prescribed in a top-down manner by NEONInc to ensure uniformity and comprehensive spatial coverage. Individuals and groups can have input to this process by volunteering to serve on committees (although numbers will be limited and final selections will likely be made by early Nov) and commenting on the committee documents produced (go to www.NEONInc.org to nominate yourself or a colleague very soon if you want to be involved).

2) The science questions that are ultimately selected to be the focus of NEON will drive the type of infrastructure selected and, to a large degree, the siting of this infrastructure.

3) NEON will not fund primary science as we generally know it (e.g., scientists and their students and technicians conducting measurements and experiments). NEON will only fund infrastructure (e.g., sensors, dataloggers, laboratory instruments) development, deployment, operation and maintenance, and data managament activites. NSF has committed additional funding available from various programs (e.g., Ecology) for individuals and groups to use NEON facilities, sites, and data once NEON is built.

4) The consensus among the regional representatives was that regional groups should organize and collectively band together to best advise and guide the NEON development process as much as possible. This was supported and encouraged by the national NEON design group (AIBS/Hayden et al.).

COREO has drafted the following roles and responsibilities:

1) Position ourselves to implement the NEON infrastructure deployment (siting, etc) and operation for NEONInc.

2) Outreach (knowledge and research information) to scientists, regional resource managers, policy makers, educators (K-12, college, etc), and the general public.

3) Recruitment and coordination within region

4) Promotion of long-term advisory capacity.

5) Building political support for NEON.

6) Operate and maintain regional platforms and infrastructure.

7) Promote region-specific science beyond NEON.

We also drafted a model to define the minimum level of organization for all regional groups within the Consortium. This model included:

1) Hold one or more open meetings to establish interest in being involved among individuals and institutions within the region.

2) Catalog resources within the region relevant to NEON (including people and institutions, field stations, field sites, available lands, long-term experiments and data, instrumentation centers, networks and partnerships, museums and collections, remote imagery, databases, and information management)

3) Establish a website with some common elements (to be defined)

4) Develop some minimal governance (identification of leadership at a minimum; eventually, each group would share a common set of “governance” bylaws, with flexibility based on region-specific needs and issues)

Detailed minutes of the meeting are being drafted, and will be available on the NEONInc website in the near future.

Future directions for SAPOZEON

We think it’s important to continue to organize a NEON region that includes the generally upland area (mountains and plateaus) from the Southern Appalachians to the Ozarks and Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Missouri (see map of NEON regions).

We anticipate that organization of the SAPOZEON region will require a second meeting (the first was in June 2004 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory) to: (1) communicate information about the national NEON project and the Regional Consortium, (2) identify additional individuals and institutions that want to be involved, (3) discuss important science issues, including the first draft of the science questions developed by the NEON subcommittees (due out by mid January), and (4) discuss governance issues and our relationship to NEONInc, etc. We would like to hold this meeting in mid to late April at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. We hope to obtain some funding for this meeting (perhaps allowing us to defray airfare for those from Arkansas and Missouri), but will likely have to ask most attendees to pay for their own travel. We will let you know the meeting details as soon as we have them.

We will work to establish a regional presence (and move towards meeting the draft minimal model outlined above) by developing a SAPOZEON website over the next several months. As mentioned above, this web-site will contain elements common to all COREO web-sites, which are in various stages of development. Eventually, it is our hope that it will serve as a portal to various levels within the NEON organization hierarchy, and will be a place for sites, individuals, and institutions to register.

For the time being, we will use the registry system on the Middle Atlantic Regional Ecological Observatory (MAREO) web-site, at (www.MAREO.org) to register field stations, field sites, and long-term datasets within the SAPOZEON region. Please go to this website and register field stations or long-term field research sites that you are involved with (note that you should select the SAPOZEON region from the pull-down menu when registering).

Finally, to make sure we have a good database of individuals, addresses and institutions, please complete the form at the following web address: http://eeb.bio.utk.edu/weltzinlab/sapozeon.asp. Also, please forward this message on to any other individuals or representatives of any additional institutions who are not on this email list and who may want to get involved in our regional group.