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King's Creek (KING) is an aquatic NEON field site located in the Flint Hills region of Kansas just 10 km (6 mi.) south of Manhattan, KS. The site is encompassed within a 13.2 km² (3260 acre) watershed within the Konza Prairie Biological Station, which is hosted by the Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University. It is a second-order creek that drains a watershed of mixed agricultural, pasture and tallgrass prairie land. The surrounding region consists of grasslands, forests and agricultural land cover types and includes the largest remaining areas of unplowed tallgrass prairie in North America. KING is part of the NEON Prairie Peninsula Domain (D06), which stretches from Kansas through Nebraska and Iowa to southern Minnesota, and east to encompass Illinois and most of Indiana. The Domain hosts four other NEON field sites, one other aquatic and three terrestrial, all of which are located in Kansas. KING is colocated with the KONA terrestrial field site. Land use and land use management are key grand challenge themes for this Domain. [9] [10]

KING is located within Riley County, which is in the eastern half of Kansas and has a continental climate characterized by warm, wet summers and cold, dry winters. The average annual temperature is 12.7°°ä (54°F). The average annual precipitation is 860 mm (33.9 in.) and is sufficient to support woodland or savanna vegetation. The region is known for intense summer storms brought on by moist air from the Gulf of Mexico coming up from the south and colliding with the cold, dry air coming down from the north. Large rainfall events can cause flooding of roads and fields as the rivers overrun with water. Other large weather events common in the area are wildfires and tornadoes. [4] [11] [20]

KING lies above mafic metavolcanic rock, which is a metamorphic volcanic rock having abundant dark-colored minerals, typically feldspar, amphibole, and/or pyroxene. It is part of the Council Grove Group, a geologic group from the early Permian age containing limestone interbedded with gray, red, and green shale. The creek itself is composed of alluvium, a sediment deposited by flowing water made of gravel, sand, silt, clay, or other rock particulates. In King's Creek, the substrate consists of cobble, boulder, pebbles, sand, and clay. [1] [2] [3] [9] [16]

The creek itself is composed of alluvium, a sediment deposited by flowing water made of gravel, sand, silt, clay, or other rock particulates. In the creek, the substrate is found to consist of cobble, boulder, pebbles, sand, and clay. [3] [9]

KING is a second-order wadeable stream that drains a mixed agricultural, pasture, and tallgrass prairie-dominated watershed. The flow regime of the creek is considered intermittent and flashy; discharge can be very low or entirely dry during an annual period lasting from August through February, when spring rains recharge the water table. High-intensity storms may cause flow to increase several orders of magnitude over the course of a few hours during any time of year. The creek feeds into the McDowell creek, which then feeds into the Kansas river. As well as being a part of NEON, King's Creek is a part of the Hydrologic Benchmark Network and is the only basin in that network to drain pristine, native tallgrass prairie. [1] [9]

The creek flows through native tallgrass prairie; however, the NEON study reach is shaded during the growing season by deciduous gallery forest in the riparian area. Mature bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa), chinquapin oak (Quercus muehlenbergii), walnut (Juglans sp.), elm (Ulmus sp.), hackberry (Celtis occidentalis), and hickory (Carya sp.) trees extend five to one hundred meters from the stream channel. Beyond the gallery forest riparian area, tallgrass prairie dominates the area. Shrubs, bushes, vines, and forbs form a majority of the ground cover. [9]

KING is home to 23 known species of fish, including bass, suckers, minnows, gar, catfish, and perch. Thirteen species have been caught by NEON technicians. Two of those species, the Johnny darter (Etheostoma nigrum) and the Southern redbelly dace (Phoxinus eythrogaster), are noted as "Species in Need of Conservation" by the state of Kansas. Invertebrate taxa in KING include the winter stonefly (Allocapnia vivipara) and several genera of Chironomidae. NEON provides data on four types of aquatic fauna at this site including surface and benthic microbes, macroinvertebrates, and fishes. [5] [12]

The Konza Prairie was once part of a wide-ranging tallgrass prairie that stretched across Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and the Dakotas. The Kansas region of the prairie is home to the Kaw Nation, also known as the “People of the Southwind.� During the eighteenth century, white settlers made contact with the Kaw Nation. The settlers referred to the Kaw Nation as the “Kansa� or “Kanza.� After the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the American government took the land, and from 1872 to 1930 it was owned by C.P. Dewey and used as a ranch. It was grazed and burned periodically, but never plowed. In 1956, almost a hundred years after it was founded, faculty at Kansas State University began the search for land to be used as a prairie field station. They felt the need for an ecological research area that would complement the already ongoing rangeland research in the nearby prairie areas. Their plans encountered several setbacks with unsuccessful bids to secure land in the Flint Hills. In 1971, The Nature Conservancy used funds from an anonymous donor to purchase 916 acres of land for KSU. The donor, Katherine Ordway, remained anonymous until her death but asked that the land be named for its native people. To avoid confusion with the state of Kansas, an alternate spelling was chosen. Since its inception, scientists have collected ecological data and published over 1680 scientific papers. In 1980, it was one of the first of the initial six Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites chosen by the National Science Foundation. The KPBS and Konza Prairie LTER are still a force in prairie research today with over 1600 papers published. [6] [7] [8] [10] [15] [17]

The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University (KSU) co-own the Konza Prairie Biological Station (KPBS). The Division of Biology at KSU operates the station. The mission of KPBS is to promote "long-term ecological research, education, and prairie conservation." The KPBS is a member of the Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS) and the Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, and is a National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site.

There are over 100 research projects currently ongoing in the Konza Prairie in addition to the NEON program. Many of our field sites are within the KPBS’s own replicated watershed-level experiment studying the effects of fire, bison, and cattle on the grassland ecosystem. King’s Creek’s unique status as a pristine creek is a huge draw towards ecological research. Among other research activities, the creek is currently sampled, above and below NEON’s reach by students from Kansas State University studying water chemistry. [6] [14]

Site characterization and plot establishment for King’s Creek were completed in 2015. By September 2016, both the aquatic sensors and observational systems began sampling. The sampling area is 1000 meters long and the sampling strategy is based on hydrological data collected from a nearby USGS hydrological monitoring location in a forested watershed. It is updated following annual data collections. The groundwater wells were placed within the forested area and drilling depths varied based on topography of the reach but were within 5-10 m (16-33 ft.) belowground. [9] [13]