Progress 05/15/23 to 05/14/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Our primary target audience is the stakeholders in tallgrass prairie, including any person involved in the cattle ranching industry but primarily the ranchers themselves. Additionally, we target the scientific community (via presentations at scientific meetings and seminars), students (via courses in formal university settings), and the general public (via popular media). Changes/Problems:After the major changes in the first reporting period where we delayed the start of field sampling by a year, we have maintained our new schedule. All went according to the new plan this past year. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training and professional development opportunities were extensive this year. Three graduate students and one technician worked on the PBG project for all of Summer 2023, learning a wide array of ecological sampling techniques and seeing PBG in action. During the academic year, these same graduate students were trained in lab processing skills along with multiple (>5) undergraduates and volunteers. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Yes, our team of nearly 10 people (5 PIs, 4 graduate students, and multiple undergrads) have been very busy presenting our results this year, with >10 presentations at scientific meetings and with our stakeholders sharing our findings with over 450 people. As much of our year 3 data is still being processed, our manuscripts are still in preparation. Importantly, the Konza Praire LTER also underwent a site review from the National Science Foundation, and our experiment was a stop on the tour of the site. We were able to share our findings with NSF program directors as well as nearly ~50 local scientists and the head of the local Nature Conservancy Office. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Over the next reporting period, our main goal will be to finish processing samples and write manuscripts.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The overarching goal of this project is to understand how and if patch burn grazing impacts ecosystem health and specifically soil health. To achieve this long-term goal (5 years), our effort went into three main categories: field work, sample processing, and data synthesis. First, Summer 2023 marked our third and final sampling year. While this was our fourth summer of funding, COVID delayed the start of field work by a year. Second, throughout the academic year, we processed the third year of collected soil health data. All the DNA for the microbial and fungal analyses was extracted and sent for sequencing. All the roots for mycorrhizal analyses were stained and counted. Enzyme activity assays were completed for all years. Soil samples collected in year three were also fully processed for soil organic matter, water content, pH, and extracellular enzyme activity, but these data have not come back yet from the lab. And lastly, all below and above ground invert sample processing was completed and data were analyzed. Third, we continued a synthesis of the patch burn grazing experiment at the Konza Prairie LTER established in 2010. Since its inception, data has been collected yearly or intermittently on variables such as plant species composition, aboveground vegetation standing biomass, aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), habitat structure and quality, cattle performance, grassland bird populations, small mammal populations, and grasshopper community composition and total abundance. This data has not been analyzed or published to date although it is all publicly available. Our team is now leading the way on this effort, spearheaded by co-PD Wilcox and graduate student Joshua Ajowele. During this reporting period, Joshua finalized analysis techniques to use. This will be our first published product to come from the grant, but due to the complex nature of the multiple streams of data and the large collaborative network involved, the manuscript is progressing slowly.
Publications
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Bunch, Z. and Komatsu, K. IMPACTS OF PATCH BURN GRAZING ON THE INVERTEBRATE COMMUNITES OF KANSAS RANGELANDS. Masters Thesis UNC Greensboro. Accepted April 2024.
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Progress 05/15/22 to 05/14/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Our primary target audience is the stakeholders in tallgrass prairie, including any person involved in the cattle ranching industry but primarily the ranchers themselves. Additionally, we target the scientific community (via presentations at scientific meetings and seminars), students (via courses in formal university settings), and the general public (via popular media). Changes/Problems:After the major changes in the first reporting period where we delayed the start of field sampling by a year, we have maintained our new schedule;all went according to the new plan this past year, and we are on track to finsh our objectives. The only thing that has changed is that instead of having two reference sites in NE Kansas, we now only have one. The site which we dropped altered their management strategy moving away from PBG. Thus upon visiting last summer, we relized we could no longer use it. Thus we sampled the only other site available to us. While this is a loss, the single reference site will still allow us to make comparisons and provides the reference we needed. This will not impact the success of our project. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training and professional development opportunities were extensive this year. Four graduate students and one technician worked on the PBG project for all of Summer 2022, learning a wide array of ecological sampling techniques and seeing PBG in action. During the academic year, these same graduate students were trained in lab processing skills along with multiple undergraduates and volunteers. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?To date, our results have not started to come in; thus they have not been disseminated yet. However, the PDs have broadly advertised the start of this project looking for and encouraging collaborators as well as talking to stakeholders to gain ideas for additional measurements which may prove important. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Over the next reporting period, our main goal will be year 3 of soil health measurements (as well as all proposed new data), and the core LTER long-term sampling will continue as always. Upon completion of the field season, lab processing will begin in earnest as will data analysis, presentations, and publications.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The overarching goal of this project is to understand how and if patch burn grazing impacts ecosystem health and specifically soil health. To achieve this long-term goal (5 years), we accomplished two main tasks during this reporting period. Summer of 2022, at the beginning of this reporting period, marked our second sampling year out of three. While this was our third summer of funding, summer 1 we did not sample due to COVID so all activities were shifted one year later. Importantly, this was also the summer in which we sampled the additional two PBG sites in the area. All PIs traveled to the two external sites and met with site representatives. In visiting, we were made aware that changes had been made to one of the proposed sites making it no longer usable as a comparable reference. Therefore, external site sampling took place in three burn treatments (0-, 1-, and 2-years since burn) within cattle-grazed pasture at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve only in mid-July. Eight 50-meter strings were established within each burn treatment (total N = 24). Plant species community composition, vegetation height (as a proxy for habitat quality), aboveground grass biomass (for forage quality analysis), and soil cores (for C and N analysis) were collected at each string. This data will provide useful reference for broadening the context of our detailed study at Konza Prairie. Throughout the academic year, we were also hard at work processing the first two years of collected soil health data. All the DNA for the microbial analyses for the first two years were extracted and sent for sequencing. All the roots for mycorrhizal analyses for the first two years have been stained. Enzyme activity assays were completed for the first year of samples. Soil samples (n=208) collected in year two at all field sites were also been fully processed for soil organic matter, water content, pH, and extracellular enzyme activity, but these data have not yet been fully analyzed. And lastly, a new graduate student (Zachary Bunch) joined the team and has processed all belowground invert samples and half of the aboveground insect samples from the first two summers. Additionally, we continued a synthesis of all the data previously and continuously collected in the patch burn grazing experiment at the Konza Prairie LTER which was established in 2010. Since its inception, data has been collected yearly or intermittently on variables such as plant species composition, aboveground vegetation standing biomass, aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), habitat structure and quality, cattle performance, grassland bird populations, small mammal populations, and grasshopper community composition and total abundance. This data has not been analyzed or published to date although it is all publicly available. Our team is now leading the way on this effort, spearheaded by co-PD Wilcox and his graduate student Joshua Ajowele. During this reporting period, Joshua really pushed this forward. The design is complex and Joshua spent the year finalizing analysis techniques to use. This will be our first published product to come from the grant, but due to the complex nature of the multiple streams of data and the large collaborative network involved, the manuscript is progressing slowly.
Publications
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Rodgers, A. 2023. Grazing intensity and fire frequency effects on plant species and community characteristics in a tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Masters thesis, University of Wyoming.
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Progress 05/15/21 to 05/14/22
Outputs
Target Audience:Our primary target audience is the stakeholders in tallgrass prairie, including any person involved in the cattle ranching industry but primarily the ranchers themselves. Additionally, we target the scientific community (via presentations at scientific meetings and seminars), students (via courses in formal university settings), and the general public (via popular media). Changes/Problems:After the major changes in the previous reporting period where we delayed the start of field sampling by a year, we have maintained our new schedule. All went according to the new plan this past year. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training and professional development opportunities were extensive this year. Four graduate students and one technician worked on the PBG project for all of Summer 2022, learning a wide array of ecological sampling techniques and seeing PBG in action. Additionally, 3 more graduate students participated in fall sampling of belowground insects, two of who were in tallgrass prairie for the first time. During the academic year, these same graduate students were trained in lab processing skills along with multiple undergraduates and volunteers. Additionally, with our synthesis project, we have included 5 graduate students from multiple universities (not in the PDs labs) and 2 postdoctoral scholars in our team training them on how to clean and synthesize data including R skills. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?To date, our results have not started to come in; thus they have not been disseminated yet. However, the PDs have broadly advertised the start of this project looking for and encouraging collaborators as well as talking to stakeholders to gain ideas for additional measurements which may prove important. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Over the next reporting period, our main goal will be year 2 of soil health measurements (as well as all proposed new data), and the core LTER long-term sampling will continue as always. Importantly during Summer 2022 we will also survey 2 additional PBG sites in Eastern Kansas to help put the Konza results in a broader context.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The overarching goal of this project is to understand how and if patch burn grazing impacts ecosystem health and specifically soil health. To achieve this long-term goal (5 years), we accomplished three main tasks during this reporting period. First, we continued a synthesis of all the data previously collected in the patch burn grazing experiment at the Konza Prairie LTER which was established in 2010. Since its inception, data has been collected yearly or intermittently on variables such as plant species composition, aboveground vegetation standing biomass, aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), habitat structure and quality, cattle performance, grassland bird populations, small mammal populations, and grasshopper community composition and total abundance. This data has not been analyzed or published to date although it is all publicly available. Our team is now leading the way on this effort, spearheaded by co-PD Wilcox and his graduate student. During this reporting period, the Wilcox lab held bi-weekly meetings to collect, clean, and analyze data, and organized a virtual meeting in September 2021 with 15 researchers inPBGsystems from academic and governmental institutions to assess predictions and plan analyses for this synthesis. This will be our first published product to come from the grant, and we hope to have it submitted by May 2023. Second, during Summer 2021, we established plots within the PBG experiment at Konza and collected all year 1 data. This required a team of 10 people and 2 weeks of sampling (20 person weeks). We collected soil samples for soil microbial and fungal communities, mycorrhizal association frequency, standing belowground biomass, belowground net primary productivity, soil C and N, aboveground insect community, belowground insect community, etc. In addition to all the new data our team gathered, we also collected data in the twelth year of the experimental treatments. ALL long-term data collection continued which included variables such as plant species composition, aboveground vegetation standing biomass, aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), cattle performance, grassland bird populations, and grasshopper community composition and total abundance. This long-term unbroken record is critical for our project. Third, during the 21-22 academic year, we processed the Summer 2021 samples. Each lab processed various samples, training numerous undergrad and graduate students in the process. In so doing, we finalized our protocols and prepared for the next year of sampling. Overall, this was an incredibly productive year after delaying the start of our sampling by a year due to COVID travel restrictions.
Publications
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Progress 05/15/20 to 05/14/21
Outputs
Target Audience:Our primary target audience is the stakeholders in tallgrass prairie, including any person involved in the cattle ranching industry but primarily the ranchers themselves. Additionally, we target the scientific community (via presentations at scientific meetings and seminars), students (via courses in formal university settings), and the general public (via popular media).? Changes/Problems:COVID19 severely altered our timeline although not our final products. Summer of 2021 was meant to be an intensive sampling year - starting all our soil health measurements as well as traveling to our two satellite sites to collect data. All of this was made impossible by travel restrictions at co-PD Koerner, Komatsu, Avolio, and Wilcox's home institutions. Essentially, the start of field work had to be pushed back a year. While a disappointing delay, we believe that the data will still be obtained early enough in the project to complete all project objectives in a timely manner. In the meantime, we used this reporting period to our full advantage, hiring a great team of motivated people and focusing on the 10 years of data to be synthesized from this long term project. Additionally, we created contingency plans, safety plans, and task priority lists to ensure as little disruption as possible to the project while maintaining strict priority of safety and health of our team members. COVID19 has been a challenge; however, the disruption has not and will not impact our ability to complete our desired objective. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training and professional development opportunities were limited this year. For the most part we recruited students that did not begin until after this reporting period ended. However, PD Wilcox's two students started in January 2021. He mentored one through writing an NSF GRP, and both have been heavily involved in the data synthesis project. All four graduate students spent approximately a week each in preparation for the Summer 2021 field season, labeling bags, making maps, ordering supplies, ect. Additionally, with our synthesis project, we have included 5 graduate students from multiple universities and 2 postdoctoral scholars in our team training them on how to clean and synthesize data including R skills. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?To date, our results have not started to come in; thus they have not been disseminated yet. However, the PDs have broadly advertised the start of this project looking for and encouraging collaborators as well as talking to stakeholders to gain ideas for additional measurements which may prove important. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Over the next reporting period, our main goal will be to establish our permanent sampling plots and collect our first year of soil health measurements (as well as all proposed new data). The core LTER long-term sampling will continue as always. Additionally, two of the graduate students will establish their independent projects. Lastly, we will make significant progress on our synthesis project.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The overarching goal of this project is to understand how and if patch burn grazing impacts ecosystem health and specifically soil health. To achieve this long-term goal (5 years), we accomplished three main tasks during this reporting period. First, we began a synthesis of all the data previously collected in the patch burn grazing experiment at the Konza Prairie LTER which was established in 2010. Since its inception, data has been collected yearly or intermittently on variables such as plant species composition, aboveground vegetation standing biomass, aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), habitat structure and quality, cattle performance, grassland bird populations, small mammal populations, and grasshopper community composition and total abundance. This data has not been analyzed or published to date although it is all publicly available. Our team is now leading the way on this effort, spearheaded by co-PD Wilcox. During this reporting period, we collected and cleaned all the data into a usable format as well as assembled a broader team to work on the project. As this data was collected over a decade by many individuals, we have assembled 20 scientists including people at diverse career stages (undergraduate through emeritus professor), research scientists, and data scientists to work together on this project. To do this, PD Koerner presented at the Konza LTER monthly meeting (virtual) in September 2020 to all Konza scientists inviting them to participate in our data synthesis. From there, co-PD Wilcox organized a smaller meeting of those interested (~20 scientists) to begin working on the project. This will be our first published product to come from the grant, and we hope to have it submitted by May 2022. Second, we focused on growing our team. PD Koerner (University of North Carolina Greensboro) recruited a graduate student, Rosalie Terry, to serve as her summer RA on the project. Rose comes to our team from the University of Pittsburg and has tremendous plant composition field skills. Co-PD Avolio (John Hopkins University) also recruited her graduate student, Smriti Pehim Limbu, to serve as her summer RA on the project. Smriti is from Nepal and comes to our team after completing her masters at North Carolina State University. Co-PD Wilcox (University of Wyoming) also recruited graduate students to work on this project. He recruited Abbi Rodgers who was an undergraduate at University of Wyoming and PD Wilcox had previously taught. Abbi's master's thesis will occur in the PBG experiment as a complimentary but stand alone project. Abbi wrote an NSF GRFP in October 2021 (not awarded) to conduct work in the PBG experiment. PD Wilcox also recruited Joshua Ajowele. Joshua is from Nigeria and joins our team after completing his masters at the University of Reading in England. He has outstanding botanical skills. Joshua is a PhD student who will conduct a portion of his dissertation in the PBG experiment using the root data proposed in this project to build a carbon model. Co-PD Zeglin worked to recruit part time undergraduate field technicians for the summer successfully. All in all, we have recruited four fantastic graduate students and two summer technicians to work on the PBG team. Third, we collected data in the eleventh year of the experimental treatments. While this was planned to be an intensive sampling year, COVID19 prevented much of our team from being able to travel. However, ALL long-term data collection continued which included variables such as plant species composition, aboveground vegetation standing biomass, aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), cattle performance, grassland bird populations, and grasshopper community composition and total abundance. This long-term unbroken record is critical for our project. And we were thrilled that co-PD Zeglin (Kansas State University) and the LTER scientific crew were able to be on site and continue this valuable dataset.
Publications
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