Concentration–discharge relationships of chlorophyll describe the origin and fluxes of river algae across ecoregions

Since 2017, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) program provides an extensive network of automated instruments and field sampling at 34 different aquatic sites across the U.S. NEON data provides a rare opportunity to combine high-frequency measurements from sensors with physical samples collected at multiples sites from different biomes. Such combination of data is frequently available only for 1, or few, sites. NEON provides the necessary data to translate some of the methods and research previously applied to single sites to a large spatial and temporal scale. Our approach in this study was to obtain all the available and reliable data from NEON aquatic sites, and analyze high frequency measurements of Chlorophyl a (Chl a) concentration and turbidity during high flows with a common analytical procedure. Then, we relate these high flow patterns to watershed conditions and algal communities to elucidate the controls on river phytoplankton communities and fluxes. The data provided here summarizes multiple storm characteristics and C-Q metrics (hysteresis index) for Chl a and turbidity for several high flow events at 26 different NEON stream and river sites.