Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Flowering big bluestem, a characteristic tallgrass prairie plant. The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America.Historically, natural and anthropogenic fire, as well as grazing by large mammals (primarily bison) provided periodic disturbances to these ecosystems, limiting the encroachment of trees, recycling soil nutrients, and facilitating seed dispersal and germination.
The St. Croix Wetland Management District in west-central Wisconsin, United States, encompasses a diversity of habitats lying along the eastern edge of the tallgrass prairie. Within the eight-county district, one can travel north through the high river bluffs of Pepin County , to the prairie potholes of St. Croix County , and then to the pine ...
Curtis Prairie (60 acres (24 ha)) – described as the world's oldest restored prairie; a tallgrass prairie with big bluestem grass and Indian grass. Greene Prairie (50 acres (20 ha)) – planted by prairie expert Henry Greene during the 1940s and 1950s. Marion Dunn Prairie (4 acres (1.6 ha)) – restoration of a settling pond.
The Northern Tallgrass Prairie has a humid continental climate with moderate precipitation, usually between 450-700mm. Winters here are very cold, with a mean winter temperature of −12.5 °C (9.5 °F), and summers are warm, with a mean temperature of 16 °C (61 °F). The ecoregion's mean annual temperature is 2.5 °C (36 °F). [2]
The preserve protects a nationally significant example of the once vast tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Of the 400,000 square miles (1,000,000 km 2) of tallgrass prairie that once covered the North American continent, less than 5% remains, primarily in the Flint Hills. [2] Since 2009, the preserve has been home to the Tallgrass Prairie bison herd. [3]
The Upper Midwest forest–savanna transition is a terrestrial ecoregion that is defined by the World Wildlife Fund.An oak savanna plant community located in the Upper Midwest region of the United States, it is an ecotone (a transitional area) between the tallgrass prairies to the west and the temperate deciduous forests to the east.
The tallgrass prairie ecosystem covered some 170 million acres (690,000 km 2) of North America. Besides agriculture, much of the shortgrass prairie became grazing land for domestic livestock . Short grasslands occur in semi-arid climates while tall grasslands are in areas of higher rainfall.
Prairie ecosystems in the United States and Canada are divided into the easternmost tallgrass prairie, the westernmost shortgrass prairie, and the central mixed-grass prairie. Tallgrass prairies receive over 30 inches of rainfall per year, whereas shortgrass prairies are much more arid, receiving only 12 inches or so, and mixed-grass prairies ...