The research documents that pristine Midwest prairie streams are as retentive of nitrogen as those found in many other ecosystems. The project demonstrates that typical Flint Hills management of upland prairie sites leads to excellent water quality and nitrogen retention. It implies that prairie streams were historically very retentive of nitrogen and protected downstream water quality, says Dodds, the project coordinator at Konza Prairie Biological Station.
The research teams sampled water, algae and other plant life, bacteria, fungi and insects for six weeks at each site. "This study provided clear, controlled methods across all of the sites, and all of the groups were willing to do this," says Valett, who was the leader at the Gallina Creek study in New Mexico, but has since joined Virginia Tech's faculty.
Tank, a Virginia Tech graduate working on the project as a post doc, trained the teams at each site. She also provided lively progress reports along with her instructions for the next set of streams. She noted that almost every stream seemed to be hit with a large storm on day 21. Exceptions were in New Mexico and Arizona. But the Arizona site had its own adventures. Located only 35 miles from Phoenix, Sycamore Creek required that a permanent camp be set up "to ensure that equipment was not stolen, shot at, or stepped on by cows," Tank noted. At least two people were required to be in the field full-time for 43 days. "Thanks to the large lab at Arizona State University, and their relatives and friends -- 36 people in all, we were able handle this problem; however, everybody was extremely happy when the addition (of N15) was over."
Upon completion of the field work in 1998,
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Contact: Bruce Peterson
peterson@mbl.edu
508-289-7484
Virginia Tech
5-Apr-2001