2022 LTER All Scientists' Meeting

This workshop will focus on envisioning a future for biocollections designed to facilitate coordinated monitoring and forecasting efforts associated with long-term ecological networks, including collaboration between the LTER Network and National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). We will briefly present on the current operations of the NEON Biorepository at Arizona State University including: (1) NEON organismal and environmental sampling methods; (2) the history, holdings, and services of the NEON Biorepository; and (3) how the NEON Biorepository facilitates access to existing NEON samples and archival of new samples. We will stress the breadth and depth of collections management and informatics expertise and the service culture needed to make such repositories successful. This will provide background for discussing lessons learned for centralized ecology-focused biocollections and potential NEON-LTER synergies to preserve records of ecological change for future research.