NEON Celebrates National STEM Day: NSF Providing Grants for eDNA Research in Streams, Linking Ticks and Pathogens and Utilizing NEON Data in Student Research Projects

Since 2016, Battelle has had the privilege of managing and operating the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) for the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

Originally conceived at the turn of the millennium and designed to collect measurements for three decades, NEON is a U.S.-wide network of 81 field sites that offers the global scientific community access to rich, continent-scale datasets that are driving ecological research.

National STEM Day was on November 8, and we find it important to celebrate not only the day but NEON’s vast role in accelerating environmental research. The STEM community is central to what makes NEON such a valuable resource, and free data will only enable more innovation and projects to come to life.

This month, we are highlighting three examples of NEON’s essential role in innovation and advancement in STEM. The latest news from NEON includes: 

1. NSF Grant Awarded to Focus on eDNA in NEON-Monitored Streams
   Dr. Daniel Allen, an assistant professor of aquatic ecology at Penn State, and his team were awarded a $1.95 million five-year grant to study how environmental DNA (eDNA) moves in streams. Allen and his team will focus on the factors impacting eDNA using 24 NEON-monitored streams across the U.S. “Data provided by the NEON streams will allow us to understand ‘eDNA spiraling,’ a term that has been used to describe the fate of eDNA as it flows downstream, where it can be degraded by microbes, deposited in streambed sediments, resuspended from the streambed and transported further downstream,” Allen said. They will then replicate the eDNA experiments in two streams to assess if eDNA from some species lasts longer in one stream than the other. Allen and his team also plan to participate in the NSF-funded Emerge Program, meant to increase participation in freshwater science through training undergraduate, graduate and early career scientists from underrepresented groups in data analysis and visualization.


2. NEON Used to Explore Connections Between Ticks and Pathogens
   Two tick species that transmit pathogens to humans have expanded both geographically and in numbers in recent years. Researchers used NEON data to sample the two species – Ixodes scapularis and Amblyomma americanum – and their associated bacterial pathogens to test whether the species are impacted by environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, precipitation, etc. Three pathogens in Amblyomma americanum were tested, and there was nonrandom distribution in at least one of the environmental conditions. This species and one pathogen have similar patterns in terms of minimum temperature and vapor pressure. There were six pathogens tested in Ixodes scapularis and prevalence for one pathogen was high in this species, however there was contrast in terms of patterns when it came to environmental conditions of each, suggesting that pathogens may not always be affected by the same conditions as their tick host.


3. NEON Utilized in Student Summer Research Project to Assess Biodiversity
   This summer, Subash Sapkota, a biology major in the Honors Program at the University of Louisiana Monroe, led an independent study to evaluate biodiversity in a forest in Michigan. He utilized the University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center forest plot, where he was able to engage in fieldwork and get hands on experience using remote sensing technology. Sapkota and his team used hyperspectral data from NEON so he could further understand the forest’s biodiversity, while also measuring the effectiveness of remote sensing data methods. He found that the data and biodiversity measures had a positive relationship, and that remote sensing data have potential when it comes to more efficient biodiversity monitoring.

Sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by Battelle, NEON is a continental-scale ecological observatory network dedicated to providing high-quality, consistently generated, standardized data that are free and available to all users. By enabling scientists, researchers, and students to address critical questions and understand ecosystem changes over time, the NEON program allows the ecological community to tackle questions and problems at a scale that was not possible before.