Corresponding author: Eric R Sokol (
Academic editor:
Two programs that provide high-quality long-term ecological data, the
we have developed a flexible intermediate data design pattern for ecological community data (L1 formatted data in Fig. we provide tools to work with data packages in which this design pattern has been implemented.
The ecocomDP format provides a data pattern commonly used for reporting community level data, such as repeated observations of species-level measures of biomass, abundance, percent cover, or density across multiple locations. The
Eric R. Sokol
TDWG 2021
The National Ecological Observatory Network is a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation and operated under cooperative agreement by Battelle. This material is based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation through the NEON Program.
Generalized flow of data in ecological synthsis. Level 0 (L0) are incoming, original data, ideally, already archived in the repository with complete metadata and contributed by those close to the research. Level 1 (L1) data packages (also in the repository) are formatted according to a predefined model, in this case, ecocomDP. Researchers are able to use L1 as inputs with its code to speed their analyses and generate Level 2 (L2) data. An archive of the L2 data package in the same repository is recommended. Data sources and sinks may be a repository (e.g., EDI) another data provider (e.g., NEON) or aggregator (e.g., GBIF). Reproduced from
The ecocomDP model shown with relational database notation for foreign keys and relationships (e.g, lines ending in crows-foot indicate 1:many relationships). Semi-transparent tables are optional. Medium green fields in each table are the primary key. Yellow/hashed fields are a combined unique constraint. IDs (suffixed, “_id”), must be unique within a table, as in an relational database. Full documentation can be found