Bringing more Tropical data to the table through the NGEE-Tropics data archive

Large quantities of quality data and metadata are vital to the understanding of tropical ecosystems. The Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE) Tropics project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy generates and utilizes ecological, hydrological, and meteorological data from tropical forests for scientific advances and to improve current models. A main goal of the NGEE-Tropics project is to provide data that can be utilized by future research teams, and approved data is made available to the public with custom digital object identifiers (DOIs). Since 2016, scientists on the NGEE-Tropics team have collected data from 21 sites across the tropics, data which was foundational to studies at site, regional, and pantropical scales. To showcase the interdisciplinary efforts of the NGEE-Tropics team, we have assembled a summary of available data that can be accessed and used by the public. Currently, the NGEE-Tropics archive contains 86 public data packages with 45 data variables represented. Leaf related data, including variables such as leaf mass area, leaf respiration, phenology, and water potential, make up about 45% of available public data, while soil data encompassing soil chemical composition, water content, and temperature variables are included in 22% of public datasets. Other available datasets include variables related to sap flow, meteorological measurements, tree mortality, root data, and model codes and outputs. Datasets are reviewed to ensure the quality of metadata provided. Additionally, our metadata reporting templates (FRAMES) allow researchers to provide file-, measurement-, and experiment-level metadata to accompany their data. Several of these datasets are already being used to investigate the impacts of drought on tropical forests, and for ecosystem modeling efforts through the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator (FATES) model. By publishing diverse and extensive high quality data, the NGEE-Tropics project is helping decrease the gap in quality data available for tropical ecosystem research, and providing a lasting resource for the community as a whole.