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.
A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica and are found in most ecoregions of the Earth. Furthermore, grasslands are one of the largest biomes on earth and dominate the landscape worldwide. There are different types of grasslands: natural grasslands, semi-natural grasslands, and agricultural grasslands. They cover 31–69% of the Earth's land area.
Rangelands are grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands, and deserts that are grazed by domestic livestock or wild animals. Types of rangelands include tallgrass and shortgrass prairies, desert grasslands and shrublands, woodlands, savannas, chaparrals, steppes, and tundras. Rangelands do not include forests lacking grazable understory vegetation, barren desert, farmland, or land covered by solid rock, concrete and/or glaciers.
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.
Grand River National Grassland is a National Grassland in northwestern South Dakota, United States. It is named for the Grand River. The North and South forks of the rivers meet in the grassland. It has a land area of 154,783 acres (62,638 ha). In descending order of acreage it lies in parts of Perkins, Corson, and Ziebach counties. The portion in Corson County also lies within the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The portion in Ziebach County also lies within the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.
The black-tailed prairie dog is a rodent of the family Sciuridae found in the Great Plains of North America from about the United States–Canada border to the United States–Mexico border. Unlike some other prairie dogs, these animals do not truly hibernate. The black-tailed prairie dog can be seen above ground in midwinter. A black-tailed prairie dog town in Texas was reported to cover 25,000 sq mi (64,000 km2) and included 400,000,000 individuals. Prior to habitat destruction, the species may have been the most abundant prairie dog in central North America. It was one of two prairie dogs described by the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the journals and diaries of their expedition.
Ord's kangaroo rat is a kangaroo rat native to western North America, specifically the Great Plains and the Great Basin, with its range extending from extreme southern Canada to central Mexico.
Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area is a 2,537-acre (1,027 ha) state park and listed state nature preserve. More than half of the state park is a tallgrass prairie maintained as a natural area of Illinois. It is located in Grundy County near the town of Morris approximately 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Chicago.
The Pawnee Buttes are two prominent buttes in northeastern Colorado. The west butte is located within the Pawnee National Grassland, while the east butte is on private land in Weld County. Rising approximately 300 feet (91 m) above the surrounding plains, the buttes are erosional remnants left standing in isolation as the surrounding High Plains surface has gradually worn away. The lower portions of the buttes are composed of relatively soft, clay-rich sedimentary rock called the Brule formation. The Brule formation is protected by an overlying layer of sandstone and conglomerate sediments called the Arikaree formation, which are more resistant to weathering.
The Blue Mountains ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Pacific Northwest, mainly in the state of Oregon, with small areas over the state border in Idaho and southeastern Washington. It is also contiguous with the World Wildlife Fund's Blue Mountain forests ecoregion.
The Northern Basin and Range ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. states of Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and California. It contains dissected lava plains, rolling hills, alluvial fans, valleys, and scattered mountain ranges in the northern part of the Great Basin. Although arid, the ecoregion is higher and cooler than the Snake River Plain to the north and has more available moisture and a cooler climate than the Central Basin and Range to the south. Its southern boundary is determined by the highest shoreline of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, which once inundated the Central Basin and Range. The western part of the region is internally drained; its eastern stream network drains to the Snake River system.
The East Central Texas forests or East Central Texas Plains (33) is a small temperate broadleaf and mixed forests ecoregion almost entirely within the state of Texas, United States. The northern forests perimeter is partially within the southeast Oklahoma border.
Achnatherum richardsonii is a species of grass known by the common names Richardson's needlegrass, spreading needlegrass, and Canada mountain-ricegrass. It is native to northwestern North America, where it is distributed from Alaska and Yukon through the western Canadian provinces south to Colorado.
Carex inops is a species of sedge known as long-stolon sedge and western oak sedge. It is native to northern North America, where it occurs throughout the southern half of Canada and the western and central United States.
Hesperostipa spartea, formerly Stipa spartea, is a species of grass known by the common names porcupine grass, western porcupine grass, short-awn porcupine grass, porcupine needlegrass, and big needlegrass. It is native to North America, where it is widespread from British Columbia to Ontario in Canada and through the central and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It is a bunchgrass species in the genus Hesperostipa.
Artemisia filifolia, known by common names including sand sagebrush, sand sage and sandhill sage, is a species of flowering plant in the aster family. It is native to North America, where it occurs from Nevada east to South Dakota and from there south to Arizona, Chihuahua, and Texas.
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 Northern Mixed Grasslands is one of 867 terrestrial ecoregions defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. This ecoregion includes parts of the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, north-central and eastern North Dakota, most of east South Dakota, and north-central Nebraska in the American Great Plains. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines this ecoregion as the Northern Glaciated Plains.
The Central Plains Biosphere Reserve was a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve located in the western central Great Plains in north-central Colorado in the shortgrass prairie. The 6,210 hectares (24.0 sq mi) reserve encompasses the Central Plains Experimental Range (CPER) administered by the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.
