Scaling-up ecological patterns and processes is crucial to understanding the effects of environmental change on natural systems and human society. We are piloting a Data Science Challenge where multiple groups attempt to use the same remote sensing data from low flying airplanes to infer the location and type of trees in forests.

We are exited to announce a new release of the Data Retriever, our software for making it quick and easy to get clean, ready to analyze, data. The Data Retriever, automates the downloading, cleaning, and installing of data into your choice of databases and flat file formats.

How has our collection of weather data at the Portal Project changed through time? Weecology Project Manager Glenda Yenni recounts the saga of the weather stations.

Today’s reblog from the Portal Project is a piece by Tom Valone how the site inspired him to ponder vegetation change.

Love to see paired photos of places in the past and now? My PhD student Erica Christensen has a treat for you. Here’s a post about her attempts to reshoot old photos from the site.

Someone (**cough** **cough** Morgan) fell down on their job rebloging the Portal Project 40th anniversary posts to Jabberwocky. But that means this week is the week o’ Portal as we reblog the various posts from the past few weeks. First up, what happens when we go out in the summer to count plants?

While the Portal Project focuses primarily on rodents and plants, there is more to our ecosystem than just those taxa. This week’s Portal Project post focuses on some insect work at the site.

The latest installment from the Portal Project Blog on the watch for Banner-tailed Kangaroo Rats

How did we get those daily pics of the desert turning green in a week? Meet Portal’s new toy: the Phenocam.

Ever wondered how fast the desert can turn green when the rains get going? There’s a Portal blog post on that (with pics)!

A guest post from last week on the Portal Blog about studying Kangaroo rat placentas!