Water contaminants, inhabitants of the Konza Prairie Biological Station

Researchers at Konza Prairie Biological Station use Kings Creek, a four-mile-long stream entirely on Konza Prairie, to study water quality for two main reasons, said Walter Dodds, associate professor of biology at Kansas State University.

"First, we know little about the way aquatic systems in grasslands work because they haven't received study like temperate forest streams have," he said. "And second, we need to know what the historical baseline is for water quality when we're writing water pollution guidelines."

The United States Geological Survey named Konza Prairie a benchmark station in April 1979, establishing it as a pristine baseline site along with 62 other minimally disturbed sites in the United States.

Researchers at Konza Prairie have studied the fecal coliform in surface water. Dodds said they discovered that wildlife such as bison and deer release very low coliform levels into the stream waters, whereas feedlots and human sewage, without proper treatment, can cause fecal contamination. He said this issue is important because fecal contamination can cause human disease.

There have been arguments that people should not worry about nitrogen contamination in Kansas waters because there might have been high levels of nitrogen released from bison or fires in the past.

"Our research shows that natural processes on prairie rarely lead to high nitrogen," Dodds said, "and that extremely low amounts of nitrogen come off of tallgrass prairie in the water."

However, Dodds said crop fertilization, urban sewage and livestock operations substantially increase the level of nitrogen contamination in water. King's Creek and other streams in the region are being viewed by Dodds as part of a national study on nitrogen retention.

Aside from the human health concerns of water quality, Dodds said researchers also study the effects stream drying and flooding have on the habitat and the species that live there. Konza Prairie streams intermittently dry every year and the ecosystem must reassemble itself from a dry to aquatic habitat. Researchers study how quickly species return to their habitat after it rains so that they can better understand different types of disturbance. Dodds said that a stream drying one time has the impact of a 100-year flood.

Keith Gido, assistant professor of biology, and Dodds recently received $300,000 from the National Science Foundation to study flood and drought effects in Konza Streams. More information on this research can be found at http://www.ksu.edu/doddslab.

June 2002