Fire is a natural force that has shaped grasslands for millennia, and it remains crucial for managing and conserving tallgrass prairie today. Fire also inspires and captivates the human spirit. Can grassland fires also be used to produce art? Erin Wiersma, Associate Professor of Art at Kansas State University, is exploring how recently burned prairie… Read more »
At first glance, the grasshopper sparrow may not look like much. Native to the tallgrass prairies of the American Great Plains, it’s a small brown and black-speckled bird with a wingspan of 8 inches. But this little bird is gaining recognition for its unusual behavior: it has an amazing ability to cover long distances over… Read more »
The majority of grasslands around the world have been destroyed or converted for human use, either for agricultural or urban development. In North America, for example, only four percent of the once vast tallgrass prairies are left. Understanding grassland community dynamics could be a critical part of conserving those that remain. Plant-pollinator relationships are… Read more »
Nitrogen enrichment can dramatically change the existing environment for plants and typically leads to increased productivity, decresed diversity, and shifts plant community composition. But what mechanisms are responsible for these changes? Researchers designed a multi-site experiment to find out, experimentally manipulating each of three possible drivers across mesocosms of three ecosystem types (tall grass prairie, alpine tundra, and desert grassland).
Ecologists know that nitrogen, phosphorus and leaf area play key roles in the productivity of plant communities. But how tightly are they tied together? And are those relationships sustained over different types of landscapes? A recent study of tallgrass prairie communities, building on a previous study of arctic tundra, found leaf area index (LAI) to be strongly correlated to both total foliar nitrogen and total foliar phosphorus in several plant functional types (grass, forb, woody, and sedge) and grazing treatments (cattle, bison, and ungrazed).
When one envisions a grassland community, imagery of tall grasses and bison often come to mind. Bison are an iconic species on the landscape, and they also impact the structure and function of the grassland ecosystem in important ways. Using natural variations in the abundance of oxygen isotopes, researchers at the Konza Prairie LTER found that grazing influenced plant water use through changes in diversity.
PhysFest participants measure gas exchange on an annually-burned watershed. On June 5th, 45 plant eco-physiologists traveled to Kansas from all corners of the country to take part in the inaugural PhysFest. This “un-meeting,” held at the Konza Prairie Biological Station and LTER Site and hosted by the Kansas State Plant EcoPhys Lab, aimed to break all… Read more »
MANHATTAN, KS — Long-term ecological research at Kansas State University’s Konza Prairie Biological Station will continue for another six years with a $6.76 million grant renewal from the National Science Foundation. Konza Prairie, an 8,600-acre native tallgrass prairie research station, is jointly owned by Kansas State University and The Nature Conservancy and managed by the… Read more »
