Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology awarded $208,552 to the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) effective August 1, 2026, through July 31, 2030. This collaborative research project will develop the Global Lake Metabolism Repository (GLAMR), a large-scale public data synthesis infrastructure consolidating ecosystem metabolism data from at least 300 globally distributed lakes, representing 1,500 lake-years and 400,000 lake-days of observations. The repository will integrate daily metabolism estimates and associated metadata from multiple long-term research sites, including data from at least six Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites and seven National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) sites.

The project delivers advanced analytical products by applying machine learning, time series clustering, spatial statistics, and other computational methods to characterize lake metabolic regimes—the annual patterns balancing primary production and ecosystem respiration. Key deliverables include a conceptual model of lake metabolic regimes with validated hypotheses addressing drivers of metabolic variability, seasonal decoupling patterns, temperature effects, and spatial clustering of metabolic regimes across diverse lake ecosystems. Additionally, the award supports workforce development through cross-training in biology and data science, establishing transformative research infrastructure that will catalyze broad interdisciplinary use and strengthen capacity in the STEM workforce.