I had finished a season of working as a field ecologist last year. Ill lay out the fundamentals of the program and then relay my thoughts on the work season
A 30 year ecological data program with 81 sites across US national territories providing open access data to researchers. Observational facilities include both air, water and terrestrial data from 4 distinct teams from each office facility (Lidar plane scans, Instrument towers, water body field ecologists, terrestrial field ecologists observing both fauna and flora)
The Upper Peninsula's NEON domain is named under D-05 which terrestrial sites consists of the surrounding national forest area that is preserved by either Wisconsin DNR or university research facilities. Most of these sites were a mix of decidious and coniferous forests with several marshy bogs that would seam themselves into the lowlands of the terrain. The bogs consisted of huge pillowy sphagnum moss carpeting the entire area but could be sparse with deep waterlogged peat or broken up by criss-crossing young tag alder. The plant biodiversity in these observational sites were vast with everything from stunning sugar maple forests, wild mushrooms the size of volleyballs, carnivorous pitcher plants, and wispering ghost pipe blooms
I had begun my work season as a field ecologist around summer of 2024. I was placed under the position of a mixed team that handled both fauna and flora protocols. I was mostly living out of my car for the 5 months that I worked there until I scored a cabin for my last month of work at the network. It was an interesting experience and I was super fortunate to be able to work at this kind of job with no prior relevant work history or even education pertaining to the job. I got to understand this was mostly because of how severely understaffed the Upper Peninsula domain was and they were happy to take anybody that would want to work in their lonely, tough environments. The extent of my work was vast, work hours were plentiful and while the pay was super lackluster (shouldn't be a surprise to anyone interested in this field of work) the workplace was genuinely a place I enjoyed being in. There was many protocols I had a hand in and ill list them here to give you an idea of the work done by the average field ecologist
Hiking out to a plot with anywhere between 30-50 live trap cages, we would place down these traps along with seed and bedding in a 10x10 grid at flags in a specific site. We would typically lay down traps at 1-3 sites per day during the mammal capture season to collect data on species type, individual, and contracted disease data.
Ten or so canisters filled with dry ice emitting C02 would be placed in specific locations along our sites to attract mosquito populations. A device would capture the mosquitos into catch cups that would be picked up for processing in the mornings. The caught mosquitoes would be frozen then packed into tubes to be shipped off for lab testing. During the peak time frame, it wasn't uncommon for the mosquitos to fill up a catch cup the size of a burger.
Carabid beetle populations are indicative of how the overall insect populations in the area are doing. We place capture cups in secluded areas of our worksites and come back to collect and process our captures. This includes inventory work and pinning of each individual carabid beetle we collect. Having to identify each species of beetle by its minute features before it’s pinned and sent off for archiving.
Using A DSLR camera, we take downward and upward facing photo’s of the ground vegetation and tree canopies in specific spots to observe coverage over time.
Collection of plant roots in specific locations, sorted by diameter and sent for biological makeup analysis
Same as root processing but sorted into specific categories of fallen flora (leaves,twigs,seeds,ect)
The mixed team was tasked with aiding in an additional research project provided by a university. The goal was to study the chemical makeup of rainwater with and without coming in contact with the surrounding tree canopies at our designated sites. It seems like the focus was in looking for amounts of microplastics and fluorinated plastics in rainwater.
Now for a personal introspection on the program. Some things to note beforehand, The NEON program is fully funded by the NSF (National Science Foundation), a federal government agency, and early in its conception it has been audited in 2011 for mismanagement of funds. The management was transferred over to the Battelle Memorial Institute and since has been operational. I'm not sure where this figure is stated but my higher ups have discussed with me that the NEON program is a timely affair. That after the instated 30 years of the program, an audit of sorts would be performed to convene whether the program was proven to provide useful resources to the greater public. Mind you, every time I talked to my higher ups about this, they assured me this was real and also didn’t know by what means whatever organization was to judge the program by it’s performance. However they said for certain that this is a 30 year program, and this year marked its tenth anniversary. Personally I have little faith that government funded environmental programs like this will continue to exist, With current government bodies uninterested in real environmental change (not talking about harking on the individual for their responsibility bullshit) I can imagine that the program could very well be dissolved by its 30 year tenure with it’s instrument towers being sold off to other privatised organizations that would provide the data at exorbitant costs. I hope i'm wrong but either way, it was real work. Good work. Something tangible I hope.
A weekday where all our terrestrial team had made quick work of our weekly protocols, our bosses had planned an organized tour of our instrument towers. Tucked away in the deep mixed forests of the Upper peninsula, past patchy marshes and mossy bogland lay a tall steel tower wrapped in cabled and alien instruments. Shooting high above treeline, its upper deck wavered in the aether of yooperland. A single tree turning golden in its ranks of saturated green. A bumpy car ride back and I talk with my co-workers, “I wonder what this place will be like in 20 years, when it's all over”.
Our mixed team consisted of my co-workers and friends James and Lance. As the season came to a close, we all remarked what was next for us. We had worked together for what felt so long, slept in dark amber lit cabins together, drunk ourselves wobbly in pristine lakes fishing for panfish, and could laugh, smoke, and keep conversation fun for so so long. I think this is what Ill miss the most. There was supreme freedom living in the car sleeping from parking lot to pier, beautiful climbing under full moon silver sparkling, but I think these relationships kept me going in that Upper Peninsula lonelyness. That later winter we had met up for the last time to ski, talk, and reminisce
I plan to continue my work at NEON out west next year. Hopefully in Fresno California. To brace the exhilarating freedom and loneliness of living out of my car again. To embrace and hold on dearly to the friendly relationships with my co-workers. To risk again, to see new, and to grow older and more experienced
