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Dates of records of occurrence for all bird species reported on Konza Prairie.
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.
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).
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.
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).
Anthropogenic actions have significantly increased biological nitrogen (N) availability on a global scale. In tallgrass prairies, this phenomenon is exacerbated by land management changes, such as fire suppression. Historically, tallgrass prairie fire removed N through volatilization, but fire suppression has contributed to increased soil N availability as well as woody encroachment. Because soil microbes respond to N availability and plant growth, these changes may alter microbial composition and important microbially-mediated functions.
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.
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.
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.