Mountain Lake Biological Station NEON - United States of America

Mountain Lake Biological Station is located in a remote, but accessible southern portion of the Appalachian Mountain Chain in southwestern Virginia, approximately 20 km northwest of Blacksburg, VA. The Jefferson National Forest is contiguous to the station, with 42.5 km2 of woodland is designated as NFS Wilderness. The relocatable terrestrial NEON site is comprised of three parcels of land, with the northern two segments owned by the US Forest Service and the southern portion hosted by the University of Virginia. The 11.14 km2 site is situated on the elevated divide between the Atlantic and Mississippi drainage basins and is characterized by abrupt changes in environmental gradients and fine-scale variances in ecological niches. It is the only NEON Appalachians & Cumberland Plateau Domain site located in Virginia, as the other four domain 07 sites are found in Tennessee. Remote sensing surveys of this field site collect lidar, spectrometer and high-resolution RGB camera data. The flux/meteorological tower at this site is 94’ with 6 measurement levels. The tower top extends above the vegetation canopy to allow sensors mounted at the top and along the tower to capture the full profile of atmospheric conditions from the top of the vegetation canopy to the ground. The tower collects physical and chemical properties of atmosphere-related processes, such as humidity, wind, and net ecosystem gas exchange. Precipitation data are collected by a tipping bucket at the top of the tower and a series of throughfalls located in the soil array. This site has five soil plots placed in an array within the airshed of the flux tower. Field ecologists collect the following types of observational data at this site: Terrestrial organisms (birds, ground beetles, mosquitoes, plants, small mammals, soil microbes, ticks), Biogeochemical data, and soil data. Total data products planned for this site: 115