5  Example: Ecological Research Sites

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) operates 20 core research sites spanning the continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Each site represents one of 20 eco-climatic domains — from tundra at Toolik Lake on Alaska’s North Slope to tropical forest at Olaa on the Big Island of Hawaii. These sites form the backbone of a continental-scale ecological monitoring program designed to run for 30 years.

Plotting the 20 core sites on Google Earth reveals the spatial logic of NEON’s design: the domains tile the continent, and each core site sits within its domain’s characteristic ecosystem. The distances between sites, and their positions relative to terrain, coastlines, and climate gradients, are immediately visible in a way that a table of coordinates cannot convey.

5.1 The data

library(gePoints)
library(readr)
library(dplyr)
library(gt)

neon <- read_csv(
"Domain, Domain_Name,              text,                                      lat,        lon
1,       Northeast,                Harvard Forest,                            42.53690,  -72.17266
2,       Mid-Atlantic,             Smithsonian Conservation Biology Inst,     38.89292,  -78.13950
3,       Southeast,                Ordway-Swisher Biological Station,         29.68927,  -81.99343
4,       Atlantic Neotropical,     Guanica Forest,                            17.96955,  -66.86870
5,       Great Lakes,              UNDERC,                                    46.23388,  -89.53725
6,       Prairie Peninsula,        Konza Prairie Biological Station,          39.10077,  -96.56390
7,       Appalachian/Cumberland,   Oak Ridge,                                 35.96412,  -84.28260
8,       Ozarks Complex,           Talladega National Forest,                 32.95046,  -87.39327
9,       Northern Plains,          Woodworth,                                 47.12802,  -99.24133
10,      Central Plains,           Central Plains Experimental Range,         40.81554, -104.74543
11,      Southern Plains,          Caddo/LBJ National Grassland,              33.40123,  -97.57000
12,      Northern Rockies,         Yellowstone Northern Range,                44.95350, -110.53914
13,      Southern Rockies,         Niwot Ridge/Mountain Research Station,     40.05421, -105.58217
14,      Desert Southwest,         Santa Rita Experimental Range,             31.91068, -110.83549
15,      Great Basin,              Onaqui-Ault,                               40.17759, -112.45244
16,      Pacific Northwest,        Wind River Experimental Forest,            45.82049, -121.95191
17,      Pacific Southwest,        San Joaquin,                               37.10872, -119.73156
18,      Tundra,                   Toolik Lake,                               68.66109, -149.37047
19,      Taiga,                    Caribou Creek - Poker Flats Watershed,     65.15401, -147.50258
20,      Pacific Tropical,         Olaa,                                      19.55479, -155.26418"
)

gt(neon) |>
  tab_caption(caption = "NEON Core Research Sites") |>
  tab_source_note(source_note = "Source: NEON Strategy Document, 2011")

5.2 Basic KML

For a first pass, use default styling:

create_kml(neon, "neon_core_sites.kml")

Open neon_core_sites.kml in Google Earth. Twenty red pushpins span the continent from Puerto Rico to the Arctic. The spatial coverage is striking — this is a network designed to capture the full range of North American ecosystems.

5.3 Styled version

Color-coding by broad region makes the geographic pattern clearer:

neon_styled <- neon |>
  mutate(
    color = case_when(
      Domain <= 4  ~ "green",     # Eastern
      Domain <= 8  ~ "blue",      # Central-east
      Domain <= 11 ~ "yellow",    # Plains
      Domain <= 15 ~ "red",       # Western
      Domain <= 17 ~ "purple",    # Pacific
      TRUE         ~ "lightblue"  # Arctic/Tropical
    ),
    symbol       = "paddle",
    symbol_scale = 1.5,
    comment      = paste0("Domain ", Domain, ": ", Domain_Name)
  )

create_kml(neon_styled, "neon_styled.kml")

gePoints::preview_map(neon_styled, radius = 5000)

Now the domain structure is visible: green paddles cluster in the east, yellow across the plains, red through the mountain west, purple along the Pacific coast, and light blue at the high-latitude and tropical extremes. The popup balloon for each site shows its domain number and name.

5.4 What the map reveals

The eastern domains are geographically smaller — higher ecosystem diversity packed into less area. The western domains are vast, driven by topography rather than latitude. Alaska’s two sites (Toolik Lake and Caribou Creek) are separated by hundreds of kilometers of roadless terrain, and the Hawaiian site sits in isolation in the middle of the Pacific.

This is a 20-point dataset that takes five minutes to process. The visual payoff is substantial.