Researchers protest end of NSF grants to program using data from its $1 billion ecology network

U.S. ecologists are protesting a decision by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to abruptly end funding for studies that rely on its one-of-a-kind network of 81 ecological research sites that debuted just 4 years ago. They believe the move undermines the emerging field of macrosystems biology and limits the potential of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). And after getting the cold shoulder from the research directorate that made the decision, scientists are taking the unusual step of pleading with NSF’s director to reverse the decision. “NSF is jeopardizing its investment in NEON,” leaders of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) asserted in a 28 November letter to NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, referring to the $1 billion that NSF has spent to build and operate NEON. “NSF has created a research community, who now refer to themselves as macrosystems biologists, and with no warning is leaving them without dedicated support.” The canceled program, called Macrosystems Biology and NEON-Enabled Science (MSB-NES), “is the only governmental-funded program to support biological research at the continental scale,” says Patricia Soranno, a landscape limnologist at Michigan State University. That work goes beyond traditional small, place-based field studies to examine phenomena such as climate change, exotic invasives, and species extinction at a larger scale and over long time periods. Conceived in 2000 by then–NSF Director...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news