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Keystone species play a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community, affecting many other organisms in an ecosystem and helping to determine the types and numbers of various other species in the community. Without keystone species, the ecosystem would be dramatically different or cease to exist altogether. Some ...
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 (Bouteloua gracilis) and buffalograss (Bouteloua dactyloides), the two less dominant grasses in the prairie are greasegrass (Tridens flavus) and sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula).
A "keystone species" is a species that "has disproportionate importance in their community." [8] Keystone species on the great plains include the bison and the prairie dog. Many other species live on the grasslands, including deer, rabbits, mice, and many types of birds.
Grasslands — also known as savannas, prairies, steppes and pampas — are ecosystems found in parts of the world that do not get sufficient consistent rainfall to support forest growth, but get ...
The loss of a keystone species results in a range of dramatic cascading effects (termed trophic cascades) that alters trophic dynamics, other food web connections, and can cause the extinction of other species. [92] [93] The term keystone species was coined by Robert Paine in 1969 and is a reference to the keystone architectural feature as the ...
Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands are terrestrial biomes defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. [1] The predominant vegetation in these biomes 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 and ...
The Texas Blackland Prairies are a temperate grassland ecoregion located in Texas that runs roughly 300 miles (480 km) from the Red River in North Texas to San Antonio in the south. The prairie was named after its rich, dark soil. [3] Less than 1% of the original Blackland prairie vegetation remains, scattered across Texas in parcels. [4]
This is a strong example of the importance of the maintenance of the trophic cascade and suggests that top-down control is the primary regulatory factor in this system. James Estes and John Palmisano did similar experiments with otters, sea urchins, and kelp, where otter presence increased kelp presence in a trophic cascade . [ 9 ]