Rotating imagesKonza Prairie Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER)

is a comprehensive ecological research, education and outreach program, centered around one of the most productive grasslands in North America – the tallgrass prairie.  The Konza Prairie LTER program began 1982 with a focus on fire, grazing and climatic variability as three key drivers that affect ecological pattern and process in grasslands worldwide.  Our current research builds upon a legacy of these long-term studies to address the influence of multiple global change phenomena (changes in land-use and land cover, climate and hydrologic change, nutrient enrichment, biological invasions) on the sustainability and dynamics of grassland ecosystems worldwide, and to contribute to the advancement of ecology through synthesis and integration of data from short- and long-term studies.

   

The focal site for our LTER research is the Konza Prairie Biological Station, a 3487-hectare area of native tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills of northeastern Kansas (39°05'N and 96°35'W), located approximately 13 km south of Manhattan, KS. KPBS is owned by The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University and operated as a field research station by the K-State Division of Biology.  KPBS is divided into more than 60 watersheds that incorporate different fire frequencies and the presence/absence of large ungulate grazers (bison or cattle) in a long-term experimental setting.  Additional information about the KPBS is available at www.ksu.edu/konza