Estimated evapotranspiration from a hypothetical short grass with a height of 0.12 m, a surface resistance of 70 s m-1, and an albedo of 0.23 (no water stress). Dataset contains daily total estimated evapotranspiration.
Dates of records of occurrence for all bird species reported on Konza Prairie.
Dates by species of documented records of breeding - either nests or dependent, fledged young - with contents of nest, nest placement information and location on Konza Prairie recorded by grid square.
Konza Prairie Terrestrial Arthropods Species List. This species list has been modified since 1977, last modified by Ellen Welti and Anthony Joern in 2014.
Litterfall is collected monthly (more frequently during peak litterfall in October and November) at permanent sampling sites in the mixed deciduous gallery forest located along the lower reaches of Kings Creek at the Konza Prairie Biological Station. Thirty litterfall traps, 50 x 50 cm (.25 m2) are located along the north fork of Kings Creek, and two are located on the south fork of Kings Creek. The north fork boxes are numbered 31 to 60 and the south fork boxes are numbered 1 and 2.
The objectives of this project are to quantify the seasonably variable timing among meteoric precipitation, groundwater recharge, and groundwater temperature. Hypotheses are: 1. Because of the karst-like characteristics of the aquifers in N04d (and by extension, the entire region), recharge will be rapid during moderately large precipitation events where fractures are enlarged by dissolution and therefore highly conductive, except during the most active part of the growing season. 2.
Long-term monitoring of bird presence is performed on Konza Prairie. The purpose was to determine bird species phenology of occurrence on entire Konza Prairie. Data on the presence, including documented nesting, of all bird species is recorded weekly in five-year periods e.g. 1980-1984, 1985-1989, 1990-1994.
Frequent burning is a common land practice in many grasslands worldwide, and this land use strategy has large impacts on a wide variety of ecosystem functions and services. Fire in tallgrass prairie, in the absence of grazing, alters plant community composition, decreases richness, and increases plant production. Proposed mechanisms for the changes in community composition and function are that fire decreases N availability (through volatilization) and removes litter (thereby increasing light availability and decreasing soil moisture).
Annual aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) from the Sequential Prairie Restoration Experiment at the Konza Prairie Long-Term Ecological Research site in Manhattan, KS USA. The data (SRP011) include ANPP from the first three years of restoration in each of three restoration sequences initiated in different years. Data correspond to subplot and whole-plot analyses.
Recent models suggest that herbivores optimize nutrient intake by selecting patches of low to intermediate vegetation biomass. We assessed the application of this hypothesis to plains bison (Bison bison) in an experimental grassland managed with fire by estimating daily rates of nutrient intake in relation to grass biomass and by measuring patch selection in experimental watersheds in which grass biomass was manipulated by prescribed burning.
Rainfall Manipulation Plots facility (RaMPs) is a unique experimental infrastructure that allows us to manipulate precipitation events and temperature, and assess population community, and ecosystem responses in native grassland. This facility allows us to manipulate the amount and timing of individual precipitation events in replicated field plots at the Konza Prairie Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site.
This GPS-collar data set was used to evaluate the factors that influence where bison choose to graze and how grazing and space use patterns affect ecosystem function and structure. Our objectives were to quantify space use and movement patterns of adult female Plains bison in the context of selection for specific prescribed burn frequencies and topographical features in the bison-grazed watersheds at Konza Prairie.
Managing soil to sequester C can help mitigate increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. To maximize this ecosystem service, more knowledge of factors influencing C sequestration is needed. The objectives of this study were to (i) quantify recovery of the roots, microbial biomass and composition, and soil structure across a chronosequence of grassland restorations and (ii) use a structural equation model to develop a data-based hypothesis on the relative influence of physical and biological soil properties on the soil C aggregate fraction diagnostic of sequestered C.
The dataset (Key for Plant Species Codes in Konza Prairie Community Composition Datasets) contains a numeric code for each vascular plant species that has been recorded in any Konza Prairie LTER plant community composition dataset (e.g. PVC02, PBG01, WAT01, BGPVC). Each code designates a vasular plant taxon (species level). Variables include: family, genus, specific epithet, lifespan, growth form, origin, photosynthetic pathway (for grasses).
The distribution, structure and function of mesic savanna grasslands are strongly driven by fire regimes, grazing by large herbivores, and their interactions. This research addresses a general question about our understanding of savanna grasslands globally: Is our knowledge of fire and grazing sufficiently general to enable us to make accurate predictions of how these ecosystems will respond to changes in these drivers over time? Some evidence suggests that fire and grazing influence savanna grassland structure and function differently in South Africa (SA) compared to North America (NA).
These data show locations for some experiments at Konza Prairie including: Chronic Addition of Nitrogen Gradient Experiment (ChANGE), Ghost Fire, Shrub Rainfall Manipulation Plots (ShRaMPs), sampling locations for ingrowth cores collected as part of the ShRaMPs experiment, Climate Extremes Experiment, Drought-Net, the Experimental Streams Experiment, the Nutrient Network Experiment, Phosphorous Plots experiment, the Vert-Invert experiment, and restoration areas.
Understanding spatial and temporal variation in plant traits is needed to accurately predict how communities and ecosystems will respond to global change. The National Observatory Ecological Network (NEON) Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) provides hyperspectral images and associated data products at numerous field sites at 1 m spatial resolution, allowing high-resolution trait mapping. However, the reliability of these data depend on establishing rigorous links with in-situ field measurements.
Woody plants are increasing prevalence and dominance in many rangelands around the world. The reason for their increase is various but two common drivers that have changed are an increase in CO2 concentrations and alteration to precipitation dynamics. We asked what the physiological growth dynamics of four juvenile woody plant species (Cornus drummondii, Rhus glabra, Gleditsia triacanthos and Juniperus osteosperma) when grown in elevated CO2 and chronically water stressed.
Climate variability and periodic droughts have complex effects on carbon (C) fluxes, with uncertain implications for ecosystem C balance under a changing climate. Responses to climate change can be modulated by persistent effects of climate history on plant communities, soil microbial activity, and nutrient cycling (i.e., legacies). To assess how legacies of past precipitation regimes influence tallgrass prairie C cycling under new precipitation regimes, we modified a long-term irrigation experiment that simulated a wetter climate for >25 years.
Climate change is expected to shift precipitation regimes in the North American Central Plains with likely impacts on ecosystem functioning. In tallgrass prairies, water and nitrogen (N) can co-limit ecosystem processes, so changes in precipitation may have complex effects on carbon (C) and N cycling. Rates of N supply such as N mineralization and nitrification respond differently to short- and long-term patterns in water availability, and previous climate patterns may exert legacy effects on current N cycling that could alter ecosystem sensitivity to current precipitation regimes.
In fall of 2010 in watershed N2B ( 39.088976°, -96.588599°), we established plant community plots to assess the potential ability of the riparian zone to shift to a grassland state based on cutting alone and cutting with replanting. The three treatments were 1) naturally open riparian grassland before the removal, 2) areas cleared of woody vegetation, and 3) areas cleared of woody vegetation and seeded with prairie plant species. The addition of the seeded treatment was designed to address if recovery of grassland vegetation is hindered by propagule limitation.
Woody encroachment, or invasion of woody plants, is rapidly shifting tallgrass prairie into shrub and evergreen dominated ecosystems, mainly due to exclusion of fire. Tracking the pace and extent of woody encroachment is difficult because shrubs and small trees are much smaller than the coarse resolution (>10m2) of common remote sensed images.
Purpose: Litter decomposition is an important component of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling, and rates of mass loss and nutrient release are sensitive to current climate conditions. Growing evidence suggests that past climate conditions can exert legacies on soil C and N cycling, but little is known about how belowground decomposition dynamics relate to these climate legacies.
Evolutionary history plays a key role driving patterns of trait variation across plant species. For scaling and modeling purposes, grass species are typically organized into C3 versus C4 plant functional types (PFTs). PFT groupings may obscure important functional differences among species. Rather, grouping grasses by evolutionary lineage may better represent grass functional diversity.
Losses in freshwater fish diversity might produce a loss in important ecological services provided by fishes in particular habitats. An important gap in our understanding of ecosystem services by fishes is the influence of individuals from different size classes, which is predicted based on known ontogenetic shifts in habitat and diet. I used twenty experimental stream mesocosms located on Konza Prairie Biological Station (KPBS), KS, USA to assess the influence of fish size on ecosystem properties.
Using herbarium specimens spanning 133 years and field-collected measurements, we assessed intraspecific trait (leaf structure and stomata) variability from grass species in the Great Plains of North America. We focused on two widespread, closely-related grasses from tribe Paniceae: Dichanthelium oligosanthes subsp. scribnerianum (C3) and Panicum virgatum (C4). Thirty-one specimens per taxon were sampled from local herbaria from the years 1887 – 2013 to assess trait responses across time to changes in atmospheric [CO2] and growing season precipitation and temperature.
