The LTER Program


Much of the ongoing Konza Prairie research is being conducted as part of the Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LTER), supported by the National Science Foundation (http://lternet.edu). This program, ongoing since 1980, acknowledges that many ecological processes occur over time scales of decades or centuries. Thus, LTER researchers collect and maintain over 70 long-term data sets containing detailed information on the weather, soils, vegetation, animal populations, and ecosystem processes.

Numerous additional projects supported by NSF and other agencies are being conducted on Konza Prairie. Kings Creek is part of the U.S. Geological Survey Hydrologic Benchmark Network and represents the only stream USGS monitors that is entirely in an unplowed native tallgrass prairie watershed. Konza also serves as a monitoring site for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program. Other agencies such as NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, The Nature Conservancy, and the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Energy, and Interior use Konza Prairie for Research. The operation of the

station is supported by K-State and the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station (KAES), and many KAES and K-State College of Agriculture scientists conduct research at Konza on soils, rangeland ecology and management, and animal science.

Further information about the Konza Prairie LTER program, other site research programs, and a complete publication list is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.konza.ksu.edu/konza/.