The Lyndon B. Johnson National grasslands (CLBJ) is a core terrestrial within NEON's Domain 7: Southern Plains. CLBJ is located in the Great Plains region of north-central Texas, about an hour drive from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. LBJ occupies approximately 20,000+ acres of public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service. The grasslands are home to Black Creek Lake, which hosts an established recreation site consisting of seven picnic units, seven walk-in camp units, one improved boat ramp and an accessible fishing bridge. There are nearly 75 miles of established trails on site great for hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, photography, and wildlife viewing. Remote sensing surveys of this field site collect lidar, spectrometer and high-resolution RGB camera data.
The flux/meteorological tower at this site is 72 with 5 measurement levels. The tower top extends above the vegetation canopy to allow sensors mounted at the top and along the tower to capture the full profile of atmospheric conditions from the top of the vegetation canopy to the ground. The tower collects physical and chemical properties of atmosphere-related processes, such as humidity, wind, and net ecosystem gas exchange. Precipitation data are collected by a Double Fence Intercomparison Reference (DFIR) near the tower and a series of throughfalls located in the soil array. This site has one phenocam on the top of the flux tower and one near the bottom of the tower.
This site has five soil plots placed in an array within the airshed of the flux tower. Field ecologists collect the following types of observational data at this site: Terrestrial organisms (birds, ground beetles, mosquitoes, plants, small mammals, soil microbes, ticks), Biogeochemical data, and soil data.