Support of distributed ecological experiments via closed-loop environmental control

Abstract

Improved understanding of the effects of climate and weather patterns on plant survival and growth is critical for improving management of wildland, rangeland, and crop ecosystems. The Southwest Experimental Garden Array (SEGA) is a distributed research instrument comprising of an array of 10 common gardens across an elevational gradient in Northern Arizona. SEGA's cyber infrastructure facilitates monitoring and control of soil moisture at experimental plots using drip irri­gation and wireless sensor/actuator nodes. This paper describes development of software-based workflows for the sensing and control of soil moisture conditions across experimental plots and gardens with different temperature and rainfall regimes, and the necessary hardware and software infrastructure to support this capability.