Blacktail Deer Creek NEON - United States of America

Blacktail Deer Creek (BLDE) is an aquatic NEON field site located in Yellowstone National Park. It is 100 km (62 mi.) southeast of Bozeman, MT, just south of the Wyoming-Montana state line. It is hosted by the National Park Service. BLDE is a small perennial stream that flows through the northern part of Yellowstone National Park and into the Yellowstone River east of Mammoth Hot Springs. The creek flows through relatively open terrain, with a dense riparian willow canopy on the stream banks, and drains a watershed of 37.81 km2 (8100 acres). It is shallow with clear water and has the potential to flood during snowmelt and heavy rainfall events. The area is visited by tourists and fisherman regularly during the summer. BLDE is highly representative of a wildland area in NEON's Northern Rockies Domain (D12). The trophic structure and community interactions are probably more representative of those that were widespread in the region before Euro-American influence than any other place in the Domain. Thus, the site offers a rare opportunity to understand interactions among climate, natural disturbance, ecosystem processes, and community structure in integrated terrestrial and aquatic systems that are representative of those of intact wildlands across the Domain. Domain 12 comprises the northern part of the Rocky Mountain Range in western Montana, Idaho and northwestern Wyoming. D12 has two colocated field sites: BLDE and the YELL terrestrial site.