Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “shrubs”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 235 records · Page 13
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Assisted migration in a warmer and drier climate: less climate buffering capacity, less facilitation and more fires at temperate latitudes?

Assisted tree migration has been proposed as a conceptual solution to mitigate lags in biotic responses to anthropogenic climate change. The rationale behind this concept is that tree species currently growing under warmer and drier climates will be more resistant and resilient to the new climatic conditions than tree species naturally growing in currently wetter and colder climates. However, we hypothesize that, by being more stress‐tolerant to warmer and drier conditions, translocated species should exhibit different functional attributes, which could induce important ecological and societal costs and overcome the desired benefits of maintaining wood production and other ecosystem services. We used principal component analysis (PCA) to analyze variation in seven traits of 106 tree and tall shrub species from contrasting latitudinal distributions in western North America and Europe to predict the potential functional changes of forest ecosystems due to the translocation of tree species from low to high latitudes. We show that species from both continents differed primarily by their position on the leaf economy spectrum (LES) and their size traits. Even though, in Europe, differences in LES were significantly correlated to species southern latitudinal positions, in both continents differences in size traits were significantly correlated to latitude. These results suggest that assisted migration by translocating more conservative species of shorter stature in currently cooler climates should decrease the buffering capacity of forest canopies, decrease facilitation for understory species, and increase wildfire risks, whose effects have the potential to accelerate climate warming through negative atmospheric feedback processes. As an alternative solution to assisted migration that may accelerate rather than mitigate climate change, we recommend that foresters gradually diversify the vertical structure and layering of the existing forest canopy to maintain a sustainable water cycle and energy balance between the soil, the tree and the atmosphere without increasing the wildfire risk.

Environmental Sciences & Ecology↗
DOE OSTI2023

The first two chromosome‐scale genome assemblies of American hazelnut enable comparative genomic analysis of the genus Corylus

Summary The native, perennial shrub American hazelnut ( Corylus americana ) is cultivated in the Midwestern United States for its significant ecological benefits, as well as its high‐value nut crop. Implementation of modern breeding methods and quantitative genetic analyses of C. americana requires high‐quality reference genomes, a resource that is currently lacking. We therefore developed the first chromosome‐scale assemblies for this species using the accessions ‘Rush’ and ‘Winkler’. Genomes were assembled using HiFi PacBio reads and Arima Hi‐C data, and Oxford Nanopore reads and a high‐density genetic map were used to perform error correction. N50 scores are 31.9 Mb and 35.3 Mb, with 90.2% and 97.1% of the total genome assembled into the 11 pseudomolecules, for ‘Rush’ and ‘Winkler’, respectively. Gene prediction was performed using custom RNAseq libraries and protein homology data. ‘Rush’ has a BUSCO score of 99.0 for its assembly and 99.0 for its annotation, while ‘Winkler’ had corresponding scores of 96.9 and 96.5, indicating high‐quality assemblies. These two independent assemblies enable unbiased assessment of structural variation within C. americana , as well as patterns of syntenic relationships across the Corylus genus. Furthermore, we identified high‐density SNP marker sets from genotyping‐by‐sequencing data using 1343 C. americana , C. avellana and C. americana × C. avellana hybrids, in order to assess population structure in natural and breeding populations. Finally, the transcriptomes of these assemblies, as well as several other recently published Corylus genomes, were utilized to perform phylogenetic analysis of sporophytic self‐incompatibility (SSI) in hazelnut, providing evidence of unique molecular pathways governing self‐incompatibility in Corylus .

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

The genome of jojoba ( Simmondsia chinensis ): A taxonomically isolated species that directs wax ester accumulation in its seeds

Seeds of the desert shrub, jojoba ( Simmondsia chinensis ), are an abundant, renewable source of liquid wax esters, which are valued additives in cosmetic products and industrial lubricants. Jojoba is relegated to its own taxonomic family, and there is little genetic information available to elucidate its phylogeny. Here, we report the high-quality, 887-Mb genome of jojoba assembled into 26 chromosomes with 23,490 protein-coding genes. The jojoba genome has only the whole-genome triplication (γ) shared among eudicots and no recent duplications. These genomic resources coupled with extensive transcriptome, proteome, and lipidome data helped to define heterogeneous pathways and machinery for lipid synthesis and storage, provided missing evolutionary history information for this taxonomically segregated dioecious plant species, and will support efforts to improve the agronomic properties of jojoba.

Sturtevant, Drew↗
DOE OSTI2020

A willow sex chromosome reveals convergent evolution of complex palindromic repeats

Background: Sex chromosomes have arisen independently in a wide variety of species, yet they share common characteristics, including the presence of suppressed recombination surrounding sex determination loci. Mammalian sex chromosomes contain multiple palindromic repeats across the non-recombining region that show sequence conservation through gene conversion and contain genes that are crucial for sexual reproduction. In plants, it is not clear if palindromic repeats play a role in maintaining sequence conservation in the absence of homologous recombination. Results: Here we present the first evidence of large palindromic structures in a plant sex chromosome, based on a highly contiguous assembly of the W chromosome of the dioecious shrub Salix purpurea . The W chromosome has an expanded number of genes due to transpositions from autosomes. It also contains two consecutive palindromes that span a region of 200 kb, with conspicuous 20-kb stretches of highly conserved sequences among the four arms that show evidence of gene conversion. Four genes in the palindrome are homologous to genes in the sex determination regions of the closely related genus Populus , which is located on a different chromosome. These genes show distinct, floral-biased expression patterns compared to paralogous copies on autosomes. Conclusion: The presence of palindromes in sex chromosomes of mammals and plants highlights the intrinsic importance of these features in adaptive evolution in the absence of recombination. Convergent evolution is driving both the independent establishment of sex chromosomes as well as their fine-scale sequence structure.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Riparian vegetation composition and diversity shows resilience following cessation of livestock grazing in northeastern Oregon, USA

Riparian ecosystem restoration has been accomplished through exclusion of livestock using corridor fencing along hundreds of kilometers of streams in the western United States, for the benefit of riparian-obligate wildlife and endangered fishes. Yet, there are limited scientific studies that have evaluated more than short-term shifts in vegetation composition and diversity at a single location or handful of locations following grazing. We sampled riparian vegetation composition along 11-paired grazed and ungrazed (exclosed) stream reaches in northeastern Oregon. Exclosure ages ranged from 2 to >30 years and grazing treatments varied from light grazing every one out of three years to heavy season-long grazing. Species richness and diversity was higher in the ungrazed reaches (p = 0.002). The abundance of native sedges ( Carex spp.) and broad-leaved forbs were also significantly (p ≤ 0.05) greater in ungrazed areas. In contrast, exotic species adapted to grazing such as Poa pratensis and Trifolium repens were more abundant in grazed stream reaches. The prevalence of hydrophytic species significantly increased (p ≤ 0.01) in ungrazed reaches, (based on wetland species indicator scores), indicating that wetland-dominated communities within the ungrazed stream reaches were replacing ones adapted to drier environments. The increased abundance of facultative and wetland-obligate species in ungrazed reaches compared to grazed reaches suggests that livestock grazing exacerbates those climate change effects also leading to warmer and drier conditions. Further, riparian-obligate shrub cover along the streambank was higher in 7 of 8 exclosures that were older than 5 years (p = 0.05). As a restoration approach, the inherent resilience of riparian ecosystems exhibited in ungrazed riparian zones suggest positive feedbacks to other beneficial ecosystem processes such as increased species and habitat diversity, increased carbon sequestration, enhanced allochthonous inputs and greater sediment retention, that would affect the aquatic and terrestrial biota, water quality, and stream morphology.

Kauffman, J. Boone (ORCID:0000000290202815)↗
DOE OSTI2020

Genomic Analysis of Diverse Members of the Fungal Genus Monosporascus Reveals Novel Lineages, Unique Genome Content and a Potential Bacterial Associate

The genus Monosporascus represents an enigmatic group of fungi important in agriculture and widely distributed in natural arid ecosystems. Of the nine described species, two (M. cannonballus and M. eutypoides) are important pathogens on the roots of members of Cucurbitaceae in agricultural settings. The remaining seven species are capable of colonizing roots from a diverse host range without causing obvious disease symptoms. Recent molecular and culture studies have shown that members of the genus are nearly ubiquitous as root endophytes in arid environments of the Southwestern United States. Isolates have been obtained from apparently healthy roots of grasses, shrubs and herbaceous plants located in central New Mexico and other regions of the Southwest. Phylogenetic and genomic analyses reveal substantial diversity in these isolates. The New Mexico isolates include close relatives of M. cannonballus and M. ibericus, as well as isolates that represent previously unrecognized lineages. To explore evolutionary relationships within the genus and gain insights into potential ecological functions, we sequenced and assembled the genomes of three M. cannonballus isolates, one M. ibericus isolate, and six diverse New Mexico isolates. The assembled genomes were significantly larger than what is typical for the Sordariomycetes despite having predicted gene numbers similar to other members of the class. Differences in predicted genome content and organization were observed between endophytic and pathogenic lineages of Monosporascus. Several Monosporascus isolates appear to form associations with members of the bacterial genus Ralstonia (Burkholdariaceae).

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Locations, metadata, and species cover from field sampling survey associated with NEON AOP survey, East River, CO 2018

Locations and descriptions of the sites where field sampling was conducted during the 2018 National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) imaging spectroscopy and lidar surveys in Gunnison County, Colorado. The sampling sites were located across East River, Washington Gulch, Slate River, and Coal Creek watersheds and contained a mixture of meadow, shrub, and tree sampling sites. This data package contains the location, metadata, species composition, and vector files for the sampling sites in this project. Species vouchers that have been preserved in the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory herbarium can be found on the Consortia of Southern Rocky Mountain Herbaria website: http://soroherbaria.org/portal/collections/index.php. Vector files provided here are for areas delineated based on the AOP reflectance data and mosaic developed by Brodrick et al. (doi: 10.15485/1618131), and use with other datasets should be closely evaluated. Subsequent data packages will contain additional biogeochemical, microbial, and geophysical data as they become available for these sampling sites. For full documentation, please see associated reference and additional references will be added here as they become available.

2018 NEON and 2025 CHESS Campaigns↗
DOE OSTI2020

Site-level Foliar C, N, delta13C data from samples collected during field survey associated with NEON AOP survey, East River, CO 2018

Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) weight percent concentrations were obtained from the bulk foliar samples collected across East River, Washington Gulch, Slate River, and Coal Creek watersheds in Gunnison, Colorado during the summer of 2018. These samples were collected from sun-lit leaves of meadow, shrub, and tree vegetation types within 72 hours of the National Ecological Observatory Network Airborne Observation Platform (NEON AOP) hyperspectral survey. These samples were dried and then run on an elemental analyzer coupled to a mass spectrometer for C and N concentrations and delta13C. The intention of these data were to provide ground truth data to develop foliar nutrient models across the imaging spectroscopy domain. Additional associated site metadata and vegetation fractional cover information can be found in the associated data releases (DOI: 10.15485/1618130). Here we provide site level C, N, and delta 13C data in the CN_Results_Foliar.csv. All of these samples were also registered with IGSN codes, and the details from that registration with metadata for the samples is included in foliar_sample_igsn_metadata.csv.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Yakima River Basin Temporal Study: Sensor and Sample Data from Wenas Creek following the Evans Canyon Fire in Washington, USA

The Evans Canyon Fire occurred in Washington in August 2020 and burned 76,000 acres of the semi-arid shrub-steppe landscape at low to moderate severities. This fire burned across the Wenas Creek watershed, allowing for a sampling design that included a portion of the stream within the burned area and a reference site upstream of the burn. Monthly data was collected at an unburned (W10) and burned (W20) site from November 2020 to August 2022 for in situ hydrological and water chemistry sensor data, handheld sensor water chemistry data, general environmental context photos, and field metadata. This dataset is comprised of one folder with field photos and one main data folder containing (1) sensor and sample field protocols; (2) file-level metadata (flmd); (3) data dictionary (dd); (4) international geo-sample number (IGSN) mapping file; (5) field metadata; (6) readme; (7) methods codes; (8) dissolved organic carbon (DOC; measured as non-purgeable organic carbon; NPOC); (9) total nitrogen (TN); (10) total suspended solids (TSS); (11) sensor data (specific conductance, pH, total dissolved solids, temperature, pressure, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity) averages; and (12) sensor installation methods. All files are .csv, .jpg, .jpeg, or .pdf.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Maps of plant functional type (PFT), PFT fractional cover, and uncertainty derived from AVIRIS-NG data, 2019, Seward Peninsula

Remote sensing maps of plant functional type (PFT), PFT fractional cover (fCover), and fCover uncertainty maps derived from NASA’s Airborne Visible / Infrared Imaging Spectrometer – Next Generation (AVIRIS-NG). The AVIRIS-NG imaging spectroscopy data (380 ~ 2510 nm) was collected as a part of the collaboration between NASA’s Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE; Miller et al., 2019) and DOE’s Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment in the Arctic (NGEE-Arctic). This package includes maps for flights over Teller, Kougarok, and Council watersheds created using eight AVIRIS-NG imagery collected in July, 2019. The map data and metadata are provided as image (ENVI, *.png) and text (*.txt, *hdr) formats. Additional supporting map quicklooks are provided as GIS *.kml files. Detailed description of the methods for each map are provided in Yang et al., (2023). These datasets are provided in support of Yang et al., (In revision) “Topography and Functional Traits Control the Distribution of Key Shrub Plant Functional Types in Low-Arctic Tundra”.The Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments: Arctic (NGEE Arctic), was a research effort to reduce uncertainty in Earth System Models by developing a predictive understanding of carbon-rich Arctic ecosystems and feedbacks to climate. NGEE Arctic was supported by the Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research.The NGEE Arctic project had two field research sites: 1) located within the Arctic polygonal tundra coastal region on the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO) and the North Slope near Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska and 2) multiple areas on the discontinuous permafrost region of the Seward Peninsula north of Nome, Alaska.Through observations, experiments, and synthesis with existing datasets, NGEE Arctic provided an enhanced knowledge base for multi-scale modeling and contributed to improved process representation at global pan-Arctic scales within the Department of Energy's Earth system Model (the Energy Exascale Earth System Model, or E3SM), and specifically within the E3SM Land Model component (ELM).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

The Pan-Arctic Vegetation Cover (PAVC) database v1.1

The Pan-Arctic Vegetation Cover (PAVC) database contains synthesized field-data observations of vegetation cover from 978 Arctic Alaska plots with observations from 2010 to 2021. The cover datasets contain plot data at both the plant functional type (PFT) and species-level resolution, with standardized PFT definitions and species names. We synthesized publicly available point-intercept and visual estimate plots from the Arctic Vegetation Archive of Alaska, the Alaska Vegetation Plots Database, the North Slope Science Catalog, and the National Ecological Observatory Network; as well as previously unpublished data from the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments: Arctic (NGEE Arctic).Users will find four synthesized datasets, 4 associated data descriptor (dd) files, and 1 metadata file in the PAVC database:synthesized_species_fcover.csv contains fractional cover (fcover) for unique accepted species names, where names include vegetation identified at the family, genus, species, subspecies, and variety levels, as well as general functional types across all 5 data sources. The synthesized_species_fcover_dd.csv accompanies this dataset with header information.synthesized_pft_fcover.csv contains fcover for the following PFTs: non-vascular plants with lichen and bryophyte subcategories, trees with deciduous and evergreen subcategories, shrubs with deciduous and evergreen subcategories, graminoids (grasses), and forbs (herbaceous flowering plants) measured as total cover. Litter and “other” cover are also included as total cover. Additional “types” include water and bare ground, which were measured as top cover. The synthesized_pft_fcover_dd.csv accompanies this dataset with header information.species_pft_checklist.csv is a lookup table containing the translation from a dataset species name to an accepted species name and to a PFT. This table can be used to clarify our species to PFT adjudications, and to aid users in assigning their own PFTs. Any issues found in this checklist should be reported in the Issues tab of our github.survey_unit_information.csv contains auxiliary information about the plots synthesized in this database. It contains useful information for filtering plots of interest based on temporal, geospatial, and contextual information about the plot surveys.flmd.csv contains metadata information about each file in the database.This research was performed as a part of the NGEE Arctic project. The NGEE Arctic project was a research effort to reduce uncertainty in Earth System Models by developing a predictive understanding of carbon-rich Arctic ecosystems and feedbacks to climate. NGEE Arctic was supported by the Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research.The NGEE Arctic project had two field research sites: 1) located within the Arctic polygonal tundra coastal region on the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO) and the North Slope near Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska and 2) multiple areas on the discontinuous permafrost region of the Seward Peninsula north of Nome, Alaska.Through observations, experiments, and synthesis with existing datasets, NGEE Arctic provided an enhanced knowledge base for multi-scale modeling and contributed to improved process representation at global pan-Arctic scales within the Department of Energy's Earth system Model (the Energy Exascale Earth System Model, or E3SM), and specifically within the E3SM Land Model component (ELM).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Data and scripts from: “Denoising autoencoder for reconstructing sensor observation data and predicting evapotranspiration: noisy and missing values repair and uncertainty quantification”

This data package includes data and scripts from the manuscript “Denoising autoencoder for reconstructing sensor observation data and predicting evapotranspiration: noisy and missing values repair and uncertainty quantification”.The study addressed common challenges faced in environmental sensing and modeling, including uncertain input data, missing sensor observations, and high-dimensional datasets with interrelated but redundant variables. Point-scaled meteorological and soil sensor observations were perturbed with noises and missing values, and denoising autoencoder (DAE) neural networks were developed to reconstruct the perturbed data and further predict evapotranspiration. This study concluded that (1) the reconstruction quality of each variable depends on its cross-correlation and alignment to the underlying data structure, (2) uncertainties from the models were overall stronger than those from the data corruption, and (3) there was a tradeoff between reducing bias and reducing variance when evaluating the uncertainty of the machine learning models.This package includes:(1) Four ipython scripts (.ipynb): “DAE_train.ipynb” trains and evaluates DAE neural networks, “DAE_predict.ipynb” makes predictions from the trained DAE models, “ET_train.ipynb” trains and evaluates ET prediction neural networks, and “ET_predict.ipynb” makes predictions from trained ET models.(2) One python file (.py): “methods.py” includes all user-defined functions and python codes used in the ipython scripts.(3) A “sub_models” folder that includes five trained DAE neural networks (in pytorch format, .pt), which could be used to ingest input data before being fed to the downstream ET models in ‘ET_train.ipynb” or ‘ET_predict.ipynb’.(4) Two data files (.csv). Daily meteorological, vegetation, and soil data is in “df_data.csv”, where “df_meta.csv” contains the location and time information of “df_data.csv”. Each row (index) in “df_meta.csv” corresponds to each row in “df_data.csv”. These data files are formatted to follow the data structure requirements and be directly used in the ipython scripts, and they have been shuffled chronologically to train machine learning models. The meteorological and soil data was collected using point sensors between 2019-2023 at(4.a) Three shrub-dominated field sites in East River, Colorado (named “ph1”, “ph2” and “sg5” in “df_meta.csv”, where “ph1” and “ph2” were located at PumpHouse Hillslopes, and “sg5” was at Snodgrass Mountain meadow) and(4.b) One outdoor, mesoscale, and herbaceous-dominated experiment in Berkeley, California (named “tb” in “df_meta.csv”, short for Smartsoils Testbed at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab).- See "df_data_dd.csv" and "df_meta_dd.csv" for variable descriptions and the Methods section for additional data processing steps. See "flmd.csv" and "README.txt" for brief file descriptions.- All ipython scripts and python files are written in and require PYTHON language software.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Foliar element determination from field survey in association with the National Ecological Observatory Network Airborne Observation Platform survey, East River, Colorado 2018

The purpose of this dataset is to support research aimed at understanding the coupling between hydrologic and biogeochemical processes at watershed scale, particularly the relationship between aboveground vegetation characteristics and subsurface soil properties. These data are intended to inform and calibrate models of catchment-scale biogeochemical fluxes, including rock-derived nutrient cycling, and they were procured to address the following questions: (1) What is the distribution of vegetation characteristics across the study catchments? (2) Are foliar concentrations of rock-derived nutrients related to underlying lithology and soil availability, or are these signals masked by biotic nutrient cycling and retention processes?This data package contains foliar elemental data collected during the 2018 National Ecological Observatory Networks (NEON) Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) imaging spectroscopy and lidar surveys in Gunnison County, Colorado. Folair samples were collected across the East River, Washington Gulch, Slate River, and Coal Creek watersheds and contain a mixture of vegetation including meadow, shrub, and tree foliar samples. The samples were processed using aqua regia digestion and analyzed for elemental determination on inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES).The data package includes: (1) raw foliar elemental data files in CSV and PDF formats, (2) quality control certificates in PDF format, and (3) an aggregated CSV file containing all elemental measurements compiled across samples. No specialized software is required to access or use these files.

2018 National Ecological Observatory Network Campa↗
DOE OSTI2025

Soil Temperature and Moisture within the Kougarok Fire Complex, Kougarok Road Mile Marker 86, Seward Peninsula, Alaska, 2019-2023

Daily averages of soil temperature and moisture measured once every hour at different heights located at Intensive Monitoring Stations within the Kougarok Fire Complex, Kougarok Road Mile Marker 86 site. Data were retrieved annually from 2019-2023. Package contains 21 *.CSV data files plus a file level metadata *.CSV, data dictionary *.CSV, data file inventory *.CSV, and sensor location site map *.JPG. Data files have header rows, NaN fields indicate invalid or missing data, and negative vertical offsets are above ground.The Kougarok tundra fire complex (KFC) is located north of Nome and the Kigluaik Mountains, near Quartz Creek and the Kougarok River. The site is accessed by foot from the end of the Nome-Taylor Highway (mile marker 86; also called the Kougarok or Beam Road). The KFC burned in six major fires in the decades since 1950 (Alaska Interagency Coordination Center, unpublished data). Lightning ignited five of these fires (1971, 1997, 2015, and 2019) and one was human caused (2002). The mosaic of overlapping fire scars allows for the study of repeat fires in the tundra which, until recently, was not a common phenomenon outside the boreal forest in Alaska. Our reference unburned tundra fire site is south of the KFC located at mile marker 80 of the Nome-Taylor Highway.The two most recent fires are the Mingvk Lake (2015; 21,698 acres burned from 7/27/2015 to 9/28/2015) and Garfield Creek (2019; 422 acres burned from 7/31/2019 to 8/20/19). The Mingvk Lake fire scar includes areas that burned 1-4x (1971, 1997, 2002), while the entirety of the Garfield Creek fire scar has burned 2x previously (1971, 2002).Previous research at the KFC focused on permafrost (Liljedahl et al. 2007; Narita et al. 2015; Iwahana et al. 2016; Tsuyuzaki, Iwahana, and Saito 2017) and vegetation (Narita et al. 2015; Hollingsworth et al. 2021) response to fire. The central Seward Peninsula is characterized by continuous permafrost with a thickness of 15 to 30 m and a mean active layer thickness of 56 cm (Hinzman et al. 2003). Sloping hills with mixed shrub–tussock tundra and tussock tundra vegetation in the uplands are characteristic of the region. Three micrometeorological towers near the Kougarok field site recorded a mean annual temperature of −2.4°C, mean January temperature of −23.1°C, mean July temperature of +11°C, and mean summer rainfall (June–August) of 94 mm from 2000 to 2006 (Liljedahl et al. 2007).The Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments: Arctic (NGEE Arctic), was a research effort to reduce uncertainty in Earth System Models by developing a predictive understanding of carbon-rich Arctic ecosystems and feedbacks to climate. NGEE Arctic was supported by the Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research.The NGEE Arctic project had two field research sites: 1) located within the Arctic polygonal tundra coastal region on the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO) and the North Slope near Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska and 2) multiple areas on the discontinuous permafrost region of the Seward Peninsula north of Nome, Alaska.Through observations, experiments, and synthesis with existing datasets, NGEE Arctic provided an enhanced knowledge base for multi-scale modeling and contributed to improved process representation at global pan-Arctic scales within the Department of Energy's Earth system Model (the Energy Exascale Earth System Model, or E3SM), and specifically within the E3SM Land Model component (ELM).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

SPRUCE Aboveground Vegetation Coverage in Root Ingrowth Core Plots, Marcell Experimental Forest, Minnesota, August 2022

This dataset contains vegetation survey measurements from root ingrowth core plots (Määttä et al. 2025) inside SPRUCE Experiment plots at the Marcell Experimental Forest in northern Minnesota. Vegetation surveys were conducted in 0.25 meter2 plots containing root ingrowth cores on August 8th and 9th, 2022 (2022-08-08 to 2022-08-09). The warming and elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) treatments in the dataset include the full treatment gradient: +0 degrees Celsius (C) (+0 and +500 parts per million (ppm) elevated CO2), +2.25 degrees C (+0 and +500 ppm), +4.5 degrees C (+0 and +500 ppm elevated CO2), +6.75 degrees C (+0 and +500 ppm) and +9 degrees C (+0 and +500 ppm elevated CO2) for both hummocks and hollows. This dataset includes measurements of the height and absolute coverage (%) for each vascular plant and moss species, as well as organic litter and dead overstory vascular plants, and the distance from the grid center to the nearest tree and the species of the nearest tree. These data were used as species-specific aboveground plant metadata for assessing the warming and elevated CO2 response of fine roots across different peatland microtopographical features (hummocks and hollows) and plant functional types (shrub, spruce and larch). This dataset contains one data file in comma separate (.csv) format. Additional metadata are provided: one data dictionary and a file-level metadata file in comma separate (.csv) format and a user guide in PDF (*.pdf) format.

ESS-DIVE CSV File Formatting Guidelines Reporting ↗
DOE OSTI2025

SPRUCE Measurements of Fine Root Production and Chemistry from Root Ingrowth Cores, Marcell Experimental Forest, Minnesota, 2022-2023

This dataset contains fine root production and tissue chemistry measurements from root ingrowth cores. Ingrowth cores were deployed in peat from June 28, 2022 to June 24, 2023 (2022-06-28 to 2023-06-24) inside SPRUCE Experiment plots at the Marcell Experimental Forest in northern Minnesota. The warming and elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) treatments in this dataset include +0 degrees Celsius (C) (+0 and +500 parts per million (ppm) elevated CO2), +4.5 degrees C (+0 and +500 ppm elevated CO2) and +9 degrees C (+0 and +500 ppm elevated CO2) for both hummocks and hollows, as well as +2.25 degrees C (+0 and +500 ppm) and +6.75 degrees C (+0 and +500 ppm) for hollows from minimum 10 cm depth from the peat surface. Measurements include root average diameter, root length, root biomass, and root tissue nitrogen (%N and δ15N) and carbon (%C and δ13C) concentration per plant functional type and microtopographical feature. Root length and biomass are standardized to 10 cm depth. These data were used to assess the warming and elevated CO2 response of fine roots across different peatland microtopographical features (hummocks and hollows) and plant functional types (shrub, spruce and larch). This dataset contains one data file in comma separate (.csv) format. Additional metadata are provided: one data dictionary and a file-level metadata file in comma separate (.csv) format and a user guide in PDF (*.pdf) format.

ESS-DIVE CSV File Formatting Guidelines Reporting ↗
DOE OSTI2026

CHESS 2025: Location data for field observations and sampling

This dataset represents geolocation data associated with field observations and sampling from the Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study (CHESS) during June and July of 2025. Location data were collected using Trimble DA2 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers with Trimble Catalyst 2 centimeter (cm) positioning service and the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) Field Maps mobile app. Files in this data package include meadow site polygons, shrub site polygons, tree site polygons and stem point locations, and Leaf Area Index (LAI) plot polygons (.geojson). The geojson files can be opened with open-source GIS software (e.g, QGIS). A csv file is also provided with point coordinates for all locations. CHESS Project Description: The Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study (CHESS) comprised a multi-week airborne remote sensing and field observation campaign in the Upper Gunnison Basin, Colorado, conducted in June and July of 2025. Airborne remote sensing was conducted by the National Ecological Observatory Network Airborne Observation Platform (NEON AOP), concurrent with a field campaign run by the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Watershed Function Science Focus Area (SFA), and NASA-JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) program. Between June 10 and July 18, 2025, the NEON AOP flight team collected high-resolution aerial imaging spectroscopy and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data over three domains: the Upper East River (CRBU), Almont Triangle (ALMO), and the Upper Taylor Basin (UPTA). In coordination with the flights, a field campaign acquired ground-truth observations, including observations of vegetation composition, foliar traits, forest demography, and subsurface properties in 18 core sampling areas within the domains. Additional surface water observations were taken at over 380 point locations. All CHESS campaign datasets can be found within the CHESS ESS-DIVE data portal: https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/portals/chess. Funding Acknowledgment: Field and remote-sensing data acquisition was performed under a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NSSC24K1005). This work was also supported by the Watershed Function Science Focus Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

2018 NEON and 2025 CHESS Campaigns↗