Konza Prairie Biological Station

Welcome to Konza Prairie Biological Station


Land and People Acknowledgment

The grasslands on which the Konza Prairie Biological Station is located have been home to people for many thousands of years, including named and unamed indigenous peoples who lived and hunted here prior to European colonization. The Konza Prairie Biological Station was named after the Kaw, or Kanza (“Kaáⁿze”) people, who inhabited and stewarded this area until their forced removal between 1846 and 1872. We acknowledge the connection of the Kaw Nation and other indigenous peoples to these lands, and we strive to respect and honor their legacies, knowledge, and past and current cultures.

About Konza Prairie Biological Station

Konza Prairie Biological Station (KPBS) is a 3,487 hectare native tallgrass prairie preserve jointly owned by The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University. KPBS is located in the Flint Hills of northeastern Kansas (39°05’ N, 96°35’ W), a grassland region of rolling hills overlain by shallow limestone soils unsuitable for cultivation.

The Flint Hills region encompasses over 1.6 million hectares in eastern Kansas extending from near the Kansas-Nebraska border south into northeastern Oklahoma. This region includes the largest remaining areas of unplowed tallgrass prairie in North America. The vast majority of KPBS, and the surrounding landscape, has never been plowed and retains much of its native characteristics.

KPBS is operated as a field research station by the KSU Division of Biology and is dedicated to a three-fold mission of long-term ecological research, education, and prairie conservation. It is a unique outdoor laboratory that provides opportunities for the study of tallgrass prairie ecosystems and for basic biological and environmental research on a wide range of taxa and processes. The station is open to scientists and students from throughout the world.

Since its inception in 1971, research at KPBS has been supported by over $100M in grants to scientists from KSU and collaborating institutions. Research at KPBS has resulted in over 2,000 scientific papers to date, and over 300 graduate student theses and dissertations.

Controlled burning at Konza Prairie