Konza Prairie Google Earth Introduction
Konza Prairie Google Earth Introduction
Type your answers to the following questions in the spaces below. Add any other digital material that is asked for by copying and pasting the info into the spaces provided. Print a copy and bring it to class on the due date.
First, Go to the Konza Prairie web site and download a map of their experimental watersheds. You can find this at:
http://kpbs.konza.k-state.edu/treatments.html
(I recommend the high resolution version) or at
http://www.konza.ksu.edu/knz/pages/home/.%5Cmaps%5CTreatmentsSM.jpg
for a colored version.
After you have a version of this (I printed mine so that I can have it next to me as I work), answer the following questions.
What do the K and N and C mean in the first position in the watershed identifiers?
What do the numbers in the watershed identifiers mean?
What do the letters A, B, C, and D in the watershed identifiers mean?
What does the term “replicate” mean?
What is the native grazer that is being used at Konza Prairie?
Do a search on the internet for Bison bison and then answer the following questions.
What was the historical range of Bison bison?
When was the species Bison bison first described and who formally described it? (note this is not the same as who saw it or who “discovered” it.)
What does Bison bison eat?
What species is most closely related to Bison bison (evolutionarily) and list three differences between the two species?
NOW, go to Google Earth and put in the following coordinates in the search box:
39.101570, -96.608531
This should have taken you to the old bunkhouse at Konza Prairie. Once there, use the zoom out function to zoom out to an altitude of about 25,000 ft (this is found at the bottom of the frame, far right next to the term “eye alt”). Position the map before you such that Konza Prairie Biological Station is in the upper left and the intersection of Interstate Highway 70 and State Highway 177 is in the lower right.
From this altitude, make 5 observations about the landscape you see before you. These can be related to anything about the biology/geography of the ecosystem but will be limited to a certain degree by the altitude from which you are viewing the landscape.
Once you have observed the landscape from this altitude, refer to the watershed map from Konza Prairie and see if you can identify the experimental watersheds.
Now, zoom in on watershed N1A. Move in to an eye altitude of about 7,000 ft. Note that if you move the image around some, you can simultaneously examine watershed N1A to the east and N20A to the west. Do this and then note 2 differences between the two watersheds.
1.
2.
What other features of the watersheds are apparent from this eye altitude?
Do you notice a land use legacy evident in watershed N1A? What does it appear to be?
Now go to 39.078859°, -96.584018° and zoom into an eye altitude of about 2,000 ft.
What are the dark objects scattered around the landscape?
What are the light colored circles on the landscape (the dark blotches are in a few of these circles)?
What is going on in these circles?
What is the effect of these activities on the plant life in these localized areas?
Now go to 39.090322°, -96.595500°.
What is on either side of this point?
What are researchers doing with these plots?
Now go to 39.086686°, -96.577001°. This structure is called a weir.
What is a weir and what is it used for?
Now, go find some climate data for Konza Prairie or Manhattan, Kansas, and create a graph of monthly temperature and monthly rainfall for this locality. Paste them in the space below.
What are the implications of these two graphs for the types of organisms that can live at Konza Prairie, both plants and animals?
