MDP Deployment, Konza Prairie biological Station - Manhattan, KS
Channel: NEON Science
Date: 2022-05-25

In the spring of 2022, researchers from Colorado State University deployed NEON’s Mobile Deployment Platform to the Konza Prairie Biological Station in Manhattan, Kansas. 
The objective of this research project was to equip NEON’s MDP tower with edge enabled sensors to conduct responsive and real-time, data driven, soil microbial sampling immediately following fire disturbance. 
This novel deployment of the MDP system, in collaboration with SAGE, (https://sagecontinuum.org/) a midscale project funded by NSF, used thermal imaging cameras to guide soil sample collections across gradients of fire-severity that drive biogeochemical feedbacks.

Deployment of the NEON MDP is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) under Award # 2137769, https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2137769&HistoricalAwards=false

The SAGE Project is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Office of Advanced Cyber Infrastucture (OAC) under Award # 1935984