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Prairie
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Prairie refers to temperate grasslands of North America. These are areas of low topographic relief that historically supported grasses and herbs, with few or no trees, having a generally mesic climate. The word prairie is derived from the French prairie ("meadow","pasture"),
Formation
It all started with the uprising of the Rocky Mountains, which before that all of america was under water or forest.
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Encyclopedia
Prairie refers to temperate grasslands of North America. These are areas of low topographic relief that historically supported grasses and herbs, with few or no trees, having a generally mesic climate. The word prairie is derived from the French prairie ("meadow","pasture"),
Formation
It all started with the uprising of the Rocky Mountains, which before that all of america was under water or forest. The mountians created a rainshadow, which kept the rain clouds from getting to the plains, this killed most of the trees, creating the prairie. The Prairie got its soil with the last Glacial advance, some 1800000-1500000 years ago, when the glaciers, on their way down, scraped the soil and picked up material and leveled the terrain. When the glaciers retreated some 10000 years ago, they dropped the picked up materials, in the form of till, when the waters, from the melting glaciers, picked up the material, it sorted it, with the smallest material going the fathest, which is the reason behind the fine soils, because of the glaciers, the eastern prairies has/had some of the youngest soils.
In North America
Lands typically referred to as "prairie" tend to be in North America. The term encompasses much of the area referred to as the Great Plains of the United States and Canada. In the U.S., the area is constituted by most or all of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, and sizable parts of the states of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Minnesota. The Central Valley of California is also prairie. The Canadian Prairies occupy vast areas of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. There is only 2% of prairie land left in the U.S.
Drought
In spite of long recurrent droughts and occasional torrential rains, the grasslands of the Great Plains are not subject to great soil erosion. The deep, interconnected root systems of prairie grasses firmly hold the soil in place and prevent run-off of soil. These deep roots also help prairie plants to reach water in even the driest conditions. The grass suffers much less damage from dry conditions like the farm crops which have replaced many former prairies.These are treeless grasslands and have a extreme climate cold in winters and hot in summers.
Prairies & fire
Fire is an important part of the prarie ecosystem. Fire does at least two important jobs, clearing trees and clearing dead grasses. Trees can destroy a prairie, as the prairie is a grassland, and trees are large and create shade, which kills off the grasses, fire destroys the trees, but not the grass, as most of the grass is underground, while most of a tree is above ground, so a fire can destroy a tree, but a prairie grass will regrow. Fire clears the dead grass from the ground, which the ashes are used to fertilize the soil.
Fertility
The prairie today is one of the most plentiful crop producing areas, and that has to do with the prairie grasses. The deep root system means that when a plant dies, the fungi, bacteria and the other decomposers eat the roots and grass, and, usually, return nutrients to the soil.
Farming
The very dense soil plagued the first settlers, which they used wooden plows, perfectly good for the forest where the soil is loose, but in a prairie the plows just bounced around, and when it worked, the soil sticked. This was solved in 1837, when an Illinois blacksmith by the name of John Deere developed the steel moldboard plough, which was stronger and cut the roots, making the fertile soils ready for farming. An unfortunate fact of that is that Illinois ranks 49 of 50 in total land left. Today, Illinois is a figurative breadbasket for the United States.
Preserved prairies
Significant preserved areas of prairie include:
- Ceresco Prairie Conservancy, Ripon College, Wisconsin
- Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan
- Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, Alberta and Saskatchewan
- Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, in Will County, Illinois
- Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, Iowa
- Konza Prairie, Manhattan, Kansas
- Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Kansas
- Tallgrass Prairie Preserve 32,000 acres (130 kmē), Oklahoma
- Nine-Mile Prairie, Nebraska
- Zumwalt Prairie, Wallowa County, Oregon
- Richard Bong State Recreation Area, in Kenosha County, Wisconsin
- Hoosier Prairie, Lake County, Indiana
- Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center, Pennsylvania
- Clymer Meadow Preserve, Hunt County, Texas
- Tallgrass Aspen Parkland, Manitoba & Minnesota
- Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park, Okeechobee County, Florida
- Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, Alachua County, Florida
- , Phillips and Blaine Counties, Montana
Virgin prairies
Virgin prairie refers to prairie land that has never been plowed. Small virgin prairies exist in the American Midwestern states and in Canada. Restored prairie refers to a prairie that has been reseeded after plowing or other disturbance.
Prairie garden
A prairie garden is a garden primarily consisting of plants from a prairie.
In the world
Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Other temperate grasslands regions include the Pampas of Argentina, and the steppes of Russia and Central Asia.
See also
External links
- Grassland protection and restoration in the upper Midwest.
- Importance of fire within the prairie
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