Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and the steppe of Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Lands typically referred to as "prairie" tend to be in North America. The term encompasses the area referred to as the Interior Lowlands of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, which includes all of the Great Plains as well as the wetter, hillier land to the east.
Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands is a terrestrial biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The predominant vegetation in this biome consists of grass and/or shrubs. The climate is temperate and ranges from semi-arid to semi-humid. The habitat type differs from tropical grasslands in the annual temperature regime as well as the types of species found here.
The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America. Historically, natural and anthropogenic fire, as well as grazing by large mammals provided periodic disturbances to these ecosystems, limiting the encroachment of trees, recycling soil nutrients, and facilitating seed dispersal and germination. Prior to widespread use of the steel plow, which enabled large scale conversion to agricultural land use, tallgrass prairies extended throughout the American Midwest and smaller portions of southern central Canada, from the transitional ecotones out of eastern North American forests, west to a climatic threshold based on precipitation and soils, to the southern reaches of the Flint Hills in Oklahoma, to a transition into forest in Manitoba.
An oak savanna is a type of savanna—or lightly forested grassland—where oaks are the dominant trees. The terms "oakery" or "woodlands" are also used commonly, though the former is more prevalent when referencing the Mediterranean area. These savannas were maintained historically through wildfires set by lightning, humans, grazing, low precipitation, and/or poor soil.
The Flint Hills, historically known as Bluestem Pastures or Blue Stem Hills, are a region of hills and prairies that lie mostly in eastern Kansas. It is named for the abundant residual flint eroded from the bedrock that lies near or at the surface. It consists of a band of hills extending from Marshall and Washington Counties in the north to Cowley County, Kansas and Kay and Osage Counties in Oklahoma in the south, to Geary and Shawnee Counties west to east. Oklahomans generally refer to the same geologic formation as the Osage Hills or "the Osage."
The Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie (MNTP) is a tallgrass prairie reserve and is preserved as United States National Grassland operated by the United States Forest Service. The first national tallgrass prairie ever designated in the U.S. and the largest conservation site in the Chicago Wilderness region, it is located on the site of the former Joliet Army Ammunition Plant between the towns of Elwood, Manhattan and Wilmington in northeastern Illinois. Since 2015, it has hosted a conservation herd of American bison to study their interaction with prairie restoration and conservation.
The Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, in Osage County, Oklahoma near Foraker, Oklahoma, is the largest protected tract of tallgrass prairie in the world. Managed by The Nature Conservancy, the preserve contains 39,650 acres (160 km2) owned by the Conservancy and another 6,000 acres (24 km2) leased in what was the original tallgrass region of the Great Plains that stretched from Texas to Manitoba.
The great bison belt is a tract of rich grassland that ran from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico from around 9000 BC. The great bison belt was supported by spring and early summer rainfall that allowed short grasses to grow. These grasses retain their moisture at the roots which allowed for grazing ungulates such as bison to find high-quality nutritious food in autumn.
Prairie restoration is a conservation effort to restore prairie lands that were destroyed due to industrial, agricultural, commercial, or residential development. The primary aim is to return areas and ecosystems to their previous state before their depletion.
The Konza Prairie Biological Station is a 8,616-acre (3,487 ha) protected area of native tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills of northeastern Kansas. "Konza" is an alternative name for the Kansa or Kaw Indians who inhabited this area until the mid-19th century. The Konza Prairie is owned by The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University.
The shortgrass prairie is an ecosystem located in the Great Plains of North America. The two most dominant grasses in the shortgrass prairie are blue grama and buffalograss, the two less dominant grasses in the prairie are greasegrass and sideoats grama. The prairie was formerly maintained by grazing pressure of American bison, which is the keystone species. Due to its semiarid climate, the shortgrass prairie receives on average less precipitation than that of the tall and mixed grass prairies to the east.
The Manitoba Tall Grass Prairie Preserve is located in southeastern Manitoba near Gardenton and Vita, this is about 50 kilometres (31 mi) south of Steinbach, Manitoba. It is one of the last remaining stands of tallgrass prairie in Manitoba and is part of the Tallgrass Aspen Parkland conservation area in Manitoba and Minnesota. Several groups and organizations help in land preservation in the Manitoba Tall Grass Prairie such as the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Nature Manitoba, Environment Canada, Manitoba Conservation and the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation.
The Central tall grasslands are a prairie ecoregion of the Midwestern United States, part of the North American Great Plains.
Lespedeza leptostachya is a rare species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common names prairie lespedeza and prairie bush-clover. It occurs in the Upper Midwest region of the United States. The flowers are creamy-white to purplish and arranged into a narrow terminal spikes.
The ecology of the Great Plains is diverse, largely owing to their great size. Differences in rainfall, elevation, and latitude create a variety of habitats including short grass, mixed grass, and tall-grass prairies, and riparian ecosystems.
The Central Great Plains are a semiarid prairie ecoregion of the central United States, part of North American Great Plains. The region runs from west-central Texas through west-central Oklahoma, central Kansas, and south-central Nebraska.
The Nachusa Grasslands is a 3,800 acres (1,500 ha) restored tallgrass prairie near Franklin Grove in Lee County and Ogle County, Illinois. It is managed by The Nature Conservancy staff and volunteers.
Kankakee Sands is a 10,000-acre (4,000 ha) restored tallgrass prairie in Kankakee County, Illinois and Newton County, Indiana. It is managed by The Nature Conservancy staff and volunteers. The Efroymson Restoration at Kankakee Sands is 8,400 acres (3,400 ha) of prairies and wetlands connecting Willow Slough Fish and Wildlife Area, Beaver Lake Nature Preserve, Conrad Savanna Nature Preserve and Conrad Station Savanna. This creates over 20,000 acres (8,100 ha) of dry, mesic and wet sand prairies, sand blows, sedge meadows, wetlands, and black oak savannas.
Cemetery prairies are remnants of native North American prairie that survive on land set aside by settlers as burial grounds. These places were thus left unplowed and largely undisturbed, such that the cemeteries became de facto nature preserves. Natural prairie grasses are often perennial species that regrow from the roots after ruminant grazing or grassfire; plowing destroys the root system and eventually the ecosystem.
The Fermilab bison herd was established in 1969 at the U.S. national laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, about 34 mi (55 km) west of Chicago, under the leadership of physicist, amateur architect and Wyoming native Robert R. Wilson. The herd grazes an 800-acre pasture adjacent to the Fermilab prairie, which sits atop the accelerator's underground Main Ring and Tevatron. The herd usually averages around 25 individuals; as of spring 2022, the head count of the herd was 32 individuals.
