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Citations and BADM

amf_get_citation gathers everything you need to credit a set of sites, and amf_get_badm returns the site metadata the API exposes. Both work over stdio and HTTP without an account. Citing AmeriFlux and FLUXNET data explains the policies behind them.

amf_get_citation

Give up to 50 sites and one product:

product Citation
BASE-BADM (default) AmeriFlux's own text for the site's BASE DOI, with the version (Ver. 28-5)
BIF (BADM) The BASE-BADM citation: BADM has no DOI of its own
FLUXNET (FLUXNET-1F) AmeriFlux's text for the FLUXNET DOI (Ver. v1.3_r1 (1991-2025))
FLUXNET2015 Built from the DOI record the way the FLUXNET DOI page shows it: authors, Tier Two years, title, "Dataset", DOI

FLUXNET-CH4 citations come in v0.2 (feature_unavailable until then).

The result has:

  • citations: one per site, cited as written in the reference list (not in supplementary material). source says where the text came from: amfcdn (AmeriFlux), constructed (FLUXNET2015) or datacite (a fallback when the AmeriFlux DOI service is down; it has no version and comes with a versionMissing warning). Set include_bibtex for a BibTeX entry per site.
  • missing: requested sites without a citation and why (a Legacy site has no FLUXNET product; US-xSR is not part of FLUXNET2015).
  • effectivePolicy: the policy the whole selection must follow, with each obligation marked required or recommended2. Mixing CC-BY and Legacy sites means Legacy; any Tier Two site makes FLUXNET2015 Tier Two.
  • acknowledgments: verbatim text from the policy page3. Legacy data name the data portal, CC-BY data the data service, and FLUXNET adds the networks and ERA5 text.
  • siteFunding: under Legacy, each site's sponsors from its DOI record, to acknowledge. When a record has none, a note points to the site's BADM.
  • dataAvailability: the sentence for a Data Availability section, with the product filled in and the AmeriFlux-listed [SOURCE] options.
  • processingReferences: Chu et al. 2023 (BASE) or Pastorello et al. 2020 (FLUXNET, FLUXNET2015).
{"tool": "amf_get_citation", "arguments": {"sites": ["US-Ha1", "CA-Let"]}}
{"tool": "amf_get_citation", "arguments": {"sites": ["US-Ha1", "RU-Sam"], "product": "FLUXNET2015"}}

The first call returns the Legacy policy, because CA-Let shares its data under it; the second returns Tier Two, because RU-Sam is Tier Two only1.

amf_get_badm

BADM (Biological, Ancillary, Disturbance and Metadata) for one site, grouped as the API exposes it:

Section Content
site Location (GRP_LOCATION), IGBP and climate with AmeriFlux's descriptions, tower dates, site URL, description
team Names, roles and institutions; emails only under the two-flag rule (Configuration)
disturbance Dominant disturbance and management, and the flux gas species measured
funding Sponsor and contributor organizations from the DOI record: what a Legacy site asks you to acknowledge
references The site's reference papers, paged (references_limit, references_offset)
instruments Variables with height (m; negative is depth), instrument models and dates, from the measurement-height file; variables narrows them by base name (TA) or exact column (SWC_1_1_1)

The complete BADM, with every group and its dates, is the BIF file inside each BASE-BADM download.

{"tool": "amf_get_badm", "arguments": {"site": "US-Ha1", "include": ["funding", "instruments"], "variables": ["TA"]}}

Resources

URI Content
ameriflux://guide/data-policy CC-BY-4.0 and Legacy, Tier One and Tier Two, and why mixing escalates
ameriflux://reference/acknowledgments The verbatim texts, with the date they were checked against the policy pages4

  1. ameriflux-mcp verified research. https://github.com/idss-mesa/ameriflux-mcp/blob/main/RESEARCH.md ↩

  2. ameriflux-mcp design. https://github.com/idss-mesa/ameriflux-mcp/blob/main/DESIGN.md ↩

  3. AmeriFlux Data Policy. https://ameriflux.lbl.gov/data/data-policy/ ↩

  4. FLUXNET Data Policy. https://fluxnet.org/data/data-policy/ ↩