Ecosystem Science

Ecosystem Science is a grant from the NSF Division of Environmental Biology that funds research on ecosystem structure and function across a range of spatial and temporal scales. The program supports investigations into how ecosystems respond to natural and human-driven processes, including nutrient cycling, energy flow, biodiversity dynamics, and the consequences of environmental change.

Projects are expected to advance fundamental understanding of ecological principles with broad applicability to conservation, land management, and environmental policy. Proposals must comply with NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) requirements and current NSF research security policies. Award amounts vary by proposal; no deadline is currently specified.

Ecosystem Science (ES) | NSF - U.S. National Science Foundation Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) NSF's implementation of the revised 2 CFR NSF Financial Assistance awards (grants and cooperative agreements) made on or after October 1, 2024, will be subject to the applicable set of award conditions, dated October 1, 2024, available on the NSF website .

These terms and conditions are consistent with the revised guidance specified in the OMB Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance published in the Federal Register on April 22, 2024.

Important information for proposers All proposals must be submitted in accordance with the requirements specified in this funding opportunity and in the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) that is in effect for the relevant due date to which the proposal is being submitted. It is the responsibility of the proposer to ensure that the proposal meets these requirements.

Submitting a proposal prior to a specified deadline does not negate this requirement.

Updates to NSF Research Security Policies On July 10, 2025, NSF issued an Important Notice providing updates to the agency's research security policies, including a research security training requirement, Malign Foreign Talent Recruitment Program annual certification requirement, prohibition on Confucius institutes and an updated FFDR reporting and submission timeline.

Supports research on ecosystem structure and function across a range of spatial and temporal scales and the full spectrum of environmental change. Supports research on ecosystem structure and function across a range of spatial and temporal scales and the full spectrum of environmental change.

NSF BIO supports investigations of ecosystem structure and function across spatial and temporal (including paleo) scales to advance understanding of 1) material and energy fluxes and transformations within and among ecosystems; 2) roles and relationships of ecosystem components in whole-system structure and function; 3) ecosystem dynamics, resilience, and trajectories of ecosystem change; and 4) macrosystem biological processes, including interactions at regional to continental scales.

Research is supported in a variety of biome types, including terrestrial, freshwater, wetland/coastal, and human-dominated environments. Proposals may focus on areas such as biogeochemical cycling and elemental budgets; primary and secondary productivity; roles of species in ecosystem functioning; stoichiometric relationships; energy and gas fluxes; and landscape dynamics.

Proposals may also address the cycling of non-nutrient elements, but those that focus on ecotoxicology, or lack a clear link to ecosystem processes, will not be considered. Ecosystem-oriented proposals with pelagic marine, deep ocean, or Laurentian Great Lakes study sites should be submitted to the Directorate for Geosciences.

Proposals that span other disciplines, including social and behavioral sciences, are welcome and may be co-reviewed at the discretion of NSF. Projects may be based on data reuse and synthesis, modeling, observational studies, and/or manipulative experiments and they may take place in field, mesocosm, computational, and laboratory settings. Use of NEON and LTER data and resources are encouraged.

Proposals, whether hypothesis- or discovery-driven, should have a strong theoretical or conceptual foundation. Projects that aim to develop new techniques can be supported, but only when there is clear potential for a major advance in ecosystem science.

Awards made through this program Browse projects funded by this program Map of recent awards made through this program Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) Mid-Career Advancement (MCA) Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) Division of Environmental Biology (BIO/DEB)