Here’s some good news to start the new year – the MacroSystems Biology (MSB) program, which was on hiatus in 2015, just released a new solicitation for proposals under the revised program title “MacroSystems Biology and early NEON Science”. You can find the program summary here with a link to the solicitation (NSF 16-521).

The solicitation invites innovative proposals to detect, understand, and forecast the consequences of climate and land use change and invasive species on the biosphere at regional to continental scales. The program also supports planning, training, and development activities to enable groups to conduct research at macrosystem scales.

The solicitation includes three tracks, two of which provide special opportunities for early career scientists and for researchers proposing to make use of or develop tools to enhance use of early NEON data, samples or collections.

Past projects funded through the program have focused on a wide variety of topics including, for example, regional-scale carbon dynamics; climate change impacts on forest biodiversity; extinction risks for lizards, amphibians, fishes and plants; the ecological homogenization of urban America; adaptive evolution of tree species and pathogens; and training the next generation of scientists to conduct multidisciplinary team science.

Funds for the MacroSystems Biology and Early NEON Science program reside in BIO’s Division of Emerging Frontiers and the program is managed by Drs. Tim Kratz and Liz Blood, Program Directors in the Division of Biological Infrastructure. Tim is a rotator from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Some of you may remember that he did a rotation from 2010-2012 in the DEB Ecosystems Studies program. His main duty during his current rotation is to manage the MSB and Early NEON Science program. Liz is a permanent Program Director who has managed the development, construction and early operation of NEON. Liz also served as a managing Program Director for the MacroSystems Biology program for its initial five year run.

Both Liz and Tim encourage you to read the program summary page and solicitation carefully and contact them with any questions.

The due dates for proposals are March 15 and October 17 in 2016 and the third Monday in October thereafter.