Konza LTER

Investigations of Threatened Prairie Stream Ecosystems

Rapid land-use change has caused Great Plains streams to become highly endangered systems. LTER research is documenting historical conditions in such streams as well as using them to serve as models for studying disturbance ecology and related issues of resistance and resilience in temperate freshwaters. Organisms inhabiting streams in the tall-grass prairie exist in a precarious balance between flood and drying. In general, normal microbial activity recovers in days to weeks after drying or flooding, and invertebrate and fish species are quick to follow. In lower forested reaches, floods may be more intense and drying less common. Upstream reaches of prairie streams are characterized by frequent drying, little canopy cover, and limited leaf input. Stream organisms adapt to respond to these patterns. Human modification of the landscape has altered these patterns of drying and flooding, leading to large-scale loss of native grassland streams. The future for Great Plains streams is bleak, given the rate of land-use change, changes to water-use patterns in the region and the large areas required to preserve intact, ecologically functional watersheds.

This work will appear in BioScience, March 2004, "Life on the Edge: The Ecology of Great Plains Prairie Streams" authored by Konza Prairie LTER scientists Walter Dodds, Keith Gido, Matt Whiles, and others.
.