Ecosystems We Study: Grasslands Active

America’s grasslands are in the middle of the country where there is insufficient rain to support forests but too much to be a desert. The eastern portion of these grasslands receives the most rain and is known as the prairie pothole region. Each year, almost half of America’s breeding waterfowl raise their broods across flooded potholes, and millions of migrating songbirds stop here to rest and refuel. The grasslands from the Mississippi River west to the Rocky Mountains known as the Great Plains historically supported not only millions of bison, pronghorn, and elk but smaller unique grassland mammals (e.g., swift fox, Great Plains wolf, black footed ferret, Franklin’s ground squirrel), songbirds (e.g., Henslow’s sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, bobolink, short-eared owl), and reptiles (Eastern Massasauga, ornate box turtle). 

Since European settlement, approximately half of all grasslands have been converted to cultivated cropland or other uses leading to extinctions of several sub-species (Badlands Bighorn sheep, Great Plains wolf) and the imperilment of many species (birds, Swift fox, Eastern Massasauga, Black-foot ferret).