John Blair, Grassland Ecologist and University Distinguished Professor, Kansas State University

Grasslands cover a large portion of the Earth’s surface and provide essential ecosystem services that benefit society. They play important roles in local, regional, and global carbon and water cycles and provide habitat for diverse communities of plants and animals. Despite this, grasslands are often undervalued and underrepresented in conservation efforts, and many are at risk due to ongoing land-use conversion and environmental changes. This is particularly true of North American tallgrass prairie, where much of the historical extent of prairie was lost, due largely to agricultural conversion, and remaining areas of native prairie are threatened by habitat fragmentation, altered fire and grazing regimes, woody plant encroachment, and other ecological and environmental changes. Conservation of remaining prairie will require understanding how these grasslands respond to changes in key ecological drivers (e.g., fire, grazing) and interactions with other environmental changes (e.g., climate change). Using examples from the Konza Prairie Biological Station, I will discuss the value of long-term research for understanding the effects of fire and grazing on the composition and functioning of tallgrass prairies and identifying challenges to the conservation of these grasslands in the future.