A continental-scale synthesis of phospholipid fatty acid data from the National Ecological Observatory Network

Soil microbial communities regulate critical ecosystem functions including carbon cycling, nutrient transformation, and plant productivity. Despite their importance, comprehensive, standardized microbial datasets spanning continental scales remain rare. Here we present a synthesis of phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) data from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), encompassing 11,399 samples collected from 47 terrestrial sites across North America between 2017 and 2024. We developed neonPLFA , an open-source R workflow and Shiny application that harmonizes NEON's PLFA measurements, applies quality control procedures, accounts for known contaminant lipids, and calculates standardized microbial community metrics including total biomass, fungal:bacterial ratios, Gram-positive:Gram-negative ratios, and a cyclopropyl:precursor physiological stress index. The resulting dataset reveals strong latitudinal gradients in microbial community composition and provides unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution for investigating continental-scale patterns in soil microbial ecology. All data, code, and interactive visualization tools are publicly available, enabling reproducible research on soil microbial biogeography.