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Mantis

Environmental data recorder

Type: Hardware project, data acquisition

Status: Completed.

Mantis dataloggers on tundra, looking south to the Brooks Range

Description: Data loggers. The electronics is from off-the-shelf weather station parts. The frame is shaped to allow precise positioning over a patch of meadow, tundra or prairie about 1 meter square. Overall, an array of them looks something like an army of giant praying mantisis.

Various models record temperature, humidity and/or soil moisture; but the main feature is a sensor head that detects visible and infrared from the ground. From this, we derive a "greenness index" of the site (NDVI). Season-long greenness traces can show rainfall patterns in the prairie, or climate change on the tundra.

Deployed in: Colorado, Wyoming, Alaska