Research Projects Associated with the Konza Prairie LTER

The Konza Prairie LTER program supports core long-term research and provides a research platform that attracts additional researchers and supports a broad range of complementary studies in grasslands ecology. Below is a partial list of current and recent research project being conducted in whole or part at the Konza Prairie LTER site, but with support from non-LTER funding sources. Many of these projects include Konza LTER scientists, are supported by LTER experiments and data, and complement the core research activities of the Konza Prairie LTER program.

  • Title: Collaborative Research: LTREB: Does ecological heterogeneity in space and time enhance biodiversity and ecosystem function in restored prairie?

       PIs: S.G. Baer (Southern Illinois University), S.L. Collins (University of New Mexico), J.M. Blair (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: Ameriflux core site funding for Konza Prairie Cluster.

       PIs: N. Brunsell (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: Collaborative Research: Rhizosphere priming and C-N dynamics in grassland ecosystems in transition.

       PIs: W. Cheng (University of California Santa Cruz), J.M. Blair (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: Resilience and vulnerability of beef cattle production in the Southern Great Plains under changing climate, land use and markets.

       PIs: D. Devlin (Oklahoma State University), C.W. Rice (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: Collaborative Research: Scale, Consumers and Lotic Ecosystem Rates (SCALER): Centimeters to Continents.

       PIs: W. Dodds (Kansas State University), K. Gido (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: URM: Undergraduate research and mentoring in ecological genomics.

       PIs: A. Jumpponen (Kansas State University), M. Herman (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: Grassland sensitivity to climate change at local to regional scales: assessing the role of ecosystem attributes vs. environmental context.

       PIs: A.K. Knapp (Colorado State), M.D. Smith (Colorado State), S.L. Collins (University of New Mexico), Y. Luo (University of Oklahoma). 

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  • Title: Collaborative Research: Does the legacy of long-term chronic climate change alter ecosystem responses to short-term climate extremes?

       PIs: A.K. Knapp (Colorado State), M.D. Smith (Colorado State), M. Avolio (University of Utah), (J.M. Blair (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: REU Site: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of Changing Environments: Integrating from Genomes to Biomes.

       PIs: T.J. Morgan (Kansas State University), J. Nippert (Kansas State University), B.A. Snyder (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: MEETING: Phys-Fest: Advancing the field of Plant Physiological Ecology

       PIs: J. Nippert (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: Collaborative Research: Parsing the effects of host specificity and geography on plant-fungal symbioses under climate change.

       PIs: J.L Rudgers (University of New Mexico), S. Collins (Colorado State), A. Jumpponen (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: Water Availability Controls on Above-belowground Productivity Partitioning: Herbivory versus Plant Response.

       PIs: D. Wall (Colorado State University)

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  • Title: Dissertation Research: Effects of habitat heterogeneity on songbird fecundity in an experimental landscape.

       PIs: B.K. Sandercock (Kansas State University), B.H.F. Verheijen (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site: Undergraduate Research in the Ecology and Evolution of Changing Environments: Mechanisms to Responses.

       PIs: B.A. Snyder (Kansas State University), T.J. Morgan (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: Collaborative Research: Shifting hotspots: how do consumer aggregations interact to influence resource heterogeneity and fluxes in streams?

       PIs: C. Vaughn (University of Oklahoma), K.B. Gido (Kansas State University)

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  • Title: Microbial mechanisms of drought tolerance and the implications for grassland soil carbon storage.

       PIs: L. Zeglin (Kansas State University)

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