The influence of fire and grazing on tallgrass prairie streams and herpetofauna

Doctor of PhilosophyDivision of BiologyWalter K. DoddsTallgrass prairie evolved with fire-grazer interactions. Fire and grazing are vital processes for maintaining grasslands and cattle production, and therefore will be continued as land management schemes. The effects of fire and grazers on prairie streams are understudied, but may significantly influence stream ecology. This dissertation examined how prescribed burning, bison grazing, and patch-burn grazing (by cattle) influence water quality, stream biota, and riparian amphibians and reptiles at Konza Prairie, Kansas, or Osage Prairie, Missouri. Using Global Positioning System, we monitored bison and cattle distribution throughout watersheds. The immediate effects of prescribed burning were examined at both Konza and Osage Prairies. The impacts of bison on water quality were determined by using a long-term dataset from Konza Prairie and compared watersheds with and without bison. Amphibian and reptile assemblages were monitored for two years at Osage, and assemblage data were analyzed using redundancy analysis, permuted analysis of variance, and occupancy modeling. A patch-burn grazing experiment occurred for 5 years at Osage (2 years pretreatment data and 3 years of treatments) and was analyzed using a before-after, control-impact design. Prescribed burning had minimal effects on water chemistry. At Konza Prairie, bison did not alter water quality likely because they spent negligible time (