Science in the Choco: Developing infrastructure for research and education at the FCAT Research Station

An award is made to Tulane University for development of an integrated data collection and management system designed to enhance U.S. scientific research, education, and training capacity. The project improves the coordination, consolidation, and sharing of field data collected from Chocó rainforest habitat in northwest Ecuador, a ‘biodiversity hotspot’. It also enhances the breadth and depth of data collected, by installing a network of automated sensors. In doing so, the project helps to ensure that ongoing and future data collection, curation, and sharing meets gold standards for quality and access. The project makes new, high-quality data available to US researchers; builds technical capacity via hands-on workshops and training; and helps to protect a threatened habitat type. The Chocó Biogeographic Zone is an exceptionally biodiverse but understudied region with few biological field stations. The FCAT Station in northwest Ecuador is an active research hub where longitudinal environmental data, including biotic inventories (e.g., botanical, faunal), ecological processes (e.g., phenology, frugivory), abiotic environmental conditions (e.g., rainfall, hydrology, temperature), and habitat change (e.g., aerial imagery) are all collected. Improvements to the quality and quantity of this data collection and its management and sharing will enable researchers from the U.S. and around the world to access this valuable information, which would not otherwise be feasible for them to collect or steward independently. The project will directly benefit in-progress and future research projects in the Chocó biogeographic zone and enable comparative research currently hindered by a lack of data from the project area. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.