Advances in Earth Science ›› 2005, Vol. 20 ›› Issue (5): 578-583. doi: 10.11867/j.issn.1001-8166.2005.05.0578

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UNITED STATES NATIONAL ECOLOGICAL OBSERVATORY NETWORK——WITH SPECIAL REFERENCES TO ITS CONCEPTS, DESING AND PROGRESS

ZHAO Shidong   

  1. (Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China)
  • Received:2004-12-14 Revised:2005-03-01 Online:2005-05-25 Published:2005-05-25

ZHAO Shidong. UNITED STATES NATIONAL ECOLOGICAL OBSERVATORY NETWORK——WITH SPECIAL REFERENCES TO ITS CONCEPTS, DESING AND PROGRESS[J]. Advances in Earth Science, 2005, 20(5): 578-583.

National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), proposed by National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2000, would be a nationwide network that focuses on the pressing environmental challenges at regional and continental scales in the United States. It aims at determining the causes and effects of environmental change, predicting the trends of environmental change and proposing the responses through network-based observation, experiment, research and synthesis analysis. It will also serve as a platform for national ecological study and public education, consisting of 17 regional networks. It will play a significant role in facilitating the ecological development, training ecologists of next generations and maintaining the biological and ecological security of the nation. In 2003—2004, the Committee on NEON nominated by the Board on Life Science of the Division on Earth and Life Studies under National Academy of Sciences, after reviewing the original concept of NEON, strongly endorsed the necessity to build NEON, but proposed some findings and recommendations. According to the new vision of the committee, NEON should be focused on the six critical environmental challenges that the nation faces, including biodiversity, species composition and ecosystem functioning; ecological aspects of biogeochemical cycle, ecological implcations of climate change, ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, invasive species and land use and habitat alteration. NEON would be composed of six observatories that address these issues. It is, therefore, of great importance to explore the concept, design and implementation plans of NEON for the development of national ecological observation and research network in China.

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