History of Prairies
North America's largest continuous ecosystem -- largely unique to the United States -- once sprawled over 400 million acres. From the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi, lay a great sea of grass with big grazing animals stretching to the horizon. It came to be known as the Great Plains. The Prairie.
The western part of the Great Plains was characterized by "short-grass prairie" with ankle-high flatlands. The eastern part of the Great Plains, which gets twice as much rain, supported a vast "tall-grass prairie" characterized by big bluestem, Indian grass, and switchgrass. In some places, the grass reached heights of more than eight feet and easily hid a rider on horseback. In between was the "mixed grass prairie" on rolling terrain with short-grasses in the dry areas, tall-grasses in the wetter sites, and mid-sized species 9such as wheatgrass or side oats grama) throughout.
Large as it was, America's prairie proved vulnerable to the plow and land development. It is now our country's rarest and most fragmented ecosystem-- in danger of vanishing altogether. Not even one patch of the western prairie contains the original migratory community of birds and mammals. Species have been lost forever, and more seem on their way out. In Michigan and elsewhere in the east, the plight of our native grasslands is even more bleak.
To the untrained eye, a native tall-grass prairie may seem monotonous. But a closer look reveals a great diversity of grasses and forbs (commonly called weed and wildflowers), scattered woody plants struggling for sunlight, and up to 100 species of tiny non-vascular plants including mosses, lichens, and liverworts. While some habitats have a well-defined flowering season, the tall-grass prairie shows off a new set of blossoms every few weeks from May through September. There are grasses such as Scribner's panicum that can grow under the tall species in almost no sunlight, and there are warm-season species especially adapted to survive in hot weather. These have an unique way of taking in carbon dioxide, allowing them to respire even if the leaf pores are closed to conserve water during droughts.
There is much below the surface of a prairie, where the plants' main stems or rhizomes grow horizontally, protecting them from drying, frost, and fire. The roots below the rhizomes can be so densely intertwined that the early settlers were able to cut them into blocks for building "sod houses."
The root structure allows each plant to reproduce vegetatively in clones of the same genetic make-up. Some roots travel downward as far as 20 feet, and a single root may have millions of root hairs and a complex system of associated fungi. This is nature's way of allowing the plant to probe every available soil pore to draw up scarce minerals and traces of moisture.
The jungle below the ground is inhabited by a myriad of insects, worms, mites, and other tiny animals. In fact, the plant roots and soil animals are so dense that more than 75 percent of the weight of the ecosystem's living organisms lies below the ground. This "living earth" is the essence of the prairie and accounts for its high productivity.
Since only the "branches" of the plants are above ground, the dominant tall grasses are very resistant to fire and grazing. A single plant can live for centuries, even if the area is burned every few years.
Repeated fires were a driving force in creation of most North America prairies, and prescribed burning is essential to modern attempts to restore and preserve these grassland. Late spring fires--either wildfires or prescribed burns--kill or stress competing cool-season grasses and forbs and most woody plants, but the warm-season prairie grasses have not shown much growth by that date, so are not seriously damaged by the fire. The plants are actually stimulated to send up new, vigorous shoots that form even denser sods more resistant to invasion by non-prairie species.
MICHIGAN'S PRAIRIES
"Fingers" of grass extended beyond the Great Plains, wherever climatic conditions or periodic fires kept out invading woody plants. The tall-grass prairie extended into Michigan, covering over 100,000 acres. Some of this included "oak barrens," where a few large trees dotted the landscape.
Our state has only a few small remnants of its original grasslands, and many associated wildlife species are in trouble.
The lark sparrow and the prairie chicken are no longer found in Michigan. The prairie warbler is a threatened species. The vesper sparrow, Henslow's sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, upland sandpiper, boblink, eastern and western meadowlarks, and northern harrier are among a host of birds which dropped in number as grasslands disappeared. The badger and several other mammals also have lost critical habitat and federal endangered species--the Karner blue butterfly--depends on Michigan's remnant prairies and oak barrens.
Michigan's prairies probably covered about 150 square miles at the time of European settlement. Most were scattered across the southernmost three tiers of counties, but there were additional "dry sand prairies" and wet prairies in Northern Michigan. Farming quickly wiped out nearly all of the Southern Michigan prairies, replacing them with pasture and cultivated fields.
The size and perhaps even the quality of prairies in Northern Michigan increased for a time following the widespread logging and forest fires around the turn of the century. The sharp-tailed grouse expanded its range into Michigan from Wisconsin by the 1920s, largely because of the grassland expansion. But over the years, the trend has been to replant the openings with red pine, or to allow colonization of the former white-pine dominated forest lands with scrub oak. This is detrimental to the wildlife which uses clearings.
The plight of Michigan's grasslands has until recently, largely gone unnoticed. Few people recognized prairie remnants, and only a small number of our state's citizens have had the opportunity to even see a prairie, so it is not surprising that public concern for prairie conservation lags far behind that expressed in our wetlands regulation and management efforts.
Today, there are some uplands which have tiny remnant stands of big bluestem and other native prairie grasses. For example, the Valley Road Dry Sand Prairie remnant in Oscoda County, harbor rare plant species like pale agoseris, rough fescue, and Hill's thistle. All are associated with large open lands perpetuated by fire. In Newaygo County, remnant prairie openings hold a significant portion of the world's population of the Karner blue butterfly, a federal endangered species.
RESTORATION
Prairie restoration efforts can't reproduce prairie soil quickly and are limited to re-establishing only a few components of the original prairie ecosystem. Most projects are "started from scratch," with seed from a remnant or recreated prairie at about the same latitude. The seed batches contain only a fraction of the grass and wildflower species found in native prairies. Great care must be taken to eliminate non-prairie plants including exotic species now common throughout the country. These plantings are expensive. Site preparation - including tree and brush removal, herbicide treatments, and disking--plus seed and planting costs often exceed $200 per acre, even if only a few plant species are targeted. Seed prices vary widely from less than $4/lb. for switchgrass to up to $600/lb. for some of the rarest wildflowers.
Because of the costs and technical problems associated with plantings, the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy and the US Forest Service are increasingly on the look-out for areas where there are existing remnant stands of big bluestem and other grasses. There, tree and brush cutting along with prescribed burning are used to boost and spread the grass stand, awakening seeds and root systems which have been formant for many years. Shoots from such treated areas generally grow much faster than grasses planted from seed.
A good place to see prairie restoration is at the Conservancy's Bengel Wildlife Center in Bath Township, just north of Lansing. There several remnant patches of big bluestem are being stimulated by spring burning, and about eight acres have been planted with prairie grasses and wildflowers.
Prairie restoration is a slow process, and restoration efforts will become more "prairie-like" over the years, after periodic burns. They may never be exactly like Mother Nature's prairies, but they are an important step toward conserving a part of our heritage and one of nature's most unique wildlife habitats.
Was this information helpful to you?
If so, why not support the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy's effort to restore precious wildlife habitat?
Simply click here to make a tax-deductible gift.
[Return to Habitat Restoration Page]
North America's largest continuous ecosystem -- largely unique to the United States -- once sprawled over 400 million acres. From the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi, lay a great sea of grass with big grazing animals stretching to the horizon. It came to be known as the Great Plains. The Prairie.
The western part of the Great Plains was characterized by "short-grass prairie" with ankle-high flatlands. The eastern part of the Great Plains, which gets twice as much rain, supported a vast "tall-grass prairie" characterized by big bluestem, Indian grass, and switchgrass. In some places, the grass reached heights of more than eight feet and easily hid a rider on horseback. In between was the "mixed grass prairie" on rolling terrain with short-grasses in the dry areas, tall-grasses in the wetter sites, and mid-sized species 9such as wheatgrass or side oats grama) throughout.
Large as it was, America's prairie proved vulnerable to the plow and land development. It is now our country's rarest and most fragmented ecosystem-- in danger of vanishing altogether. Not even one patch of the western prairie contains the original migratory community of birds and mammals. Species have been lost forever, and more seem on their way out. In Michigan and elsewhere in the east, the plight of our native grasslands is even more bleak.
To the untrained eye, a native tall-grass prairie may seem monotonous. But a closer look reveals a great diversity of grasses and forbs (commonly called weed and wildflowers), scattered woody plants struggling for sunlight, and up to 100 species of tiny non-vascular plants including mosses, lichens, and liverworts. While some habitats have a well-defined flowering season, the tall-grass prairie shows off a new set of blossoms every few weeks from May through September. There are grasses such as Scribner's panicum that can grow under the tall species in almost no sunlight, and there are warm-season species especially adapted to survive in hot weather. These have an unique way of taking in carbon dioxide, allowing them to respire even if the leaf pores are closed to conserve water during droughts.
There is much below the surface of a prairie, where the plants' main stems or rhizomes grow horizontally, protecting them from drying, frost, and fire. The roots below the rhizomes can be so densely intertwined that the early settlers were able to cut them into blocks for building "sod houses."
The root structure allows each plant to reproduce vegetatively in clones of the same genetic make-up. Some roots travel downward as far as 20 feet, and a single root may have millions of root hairs and a complex system of associated fungi. This is nature's way of allowing the plant to probe every available soil pore to draw up scarce minerals and traces of moisture.
The jungle below the ground is inhabited by a myriad of insects, worms, mites, and other tiny animals. In fact, the plant roots and soil animals are so dense that more than 75 percent of the weight of the ecosystem's living organisms lies below the ground. This "living earth" is the essence of the prairie and accounts for its high productivity.
Since only the "branches" of the plants are above ground, the dominant tall grasses are very resistant to fire and grazing. A single plant can live for centuries, even if the area is burned every few years.
Repeated fires were a driving force in creation of most North America prairies, and prescribed burning is essential to modern attempts to restore and preserve these grassland. Late spring fires--either wildfires or prescribed burns--kill or stress competing cool-season grasses and forbs and most woody plants, but the warm-season prairie grasses have not shown much growth by that date, so are not seriously damaged by the fire. The plants are actually stimulated to send up new, vigorous shoots that form even denser sods more resistant to invasion by non-prairie species.
MICHIGAN'S PRAIRIES
"Fingers" of grass extended beyond the Great Plains, wherever climatic conditions or periodic fires kept out invading woody plants. The tall-grass prairie extended into Michigan, covering over 100,000 acres. Some of this included "oak barrens," where a few large trees dotted the landscape.
Our state has only a few small remnants of its original grasslands, and many associated wildlife species are in trouble.
The lark sparrow and the prairie chicken are no longer found in Michigan. The prairie warbler is a threatened species. The vesper sparrow, Henslow's sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, upland sandpiper, boblink, eastern and western meadowlarks, and northern harrier are among a host of birds which dropped in number as grasslands disappeared. The badger and several other mammals also have lost critical habitat and federal endangered species--the Karner blue butterfly--depends on Michigan's remnant prairies and oak barrens.
Michigan's prairies probably covered about 150 square miles at the time of European settlement. Most were scattered across the southernmost three tiers of counties, but there were additional "dry sand prairies" and wet prairies in Northern Michigan. Farming quickly wiped out nearly all of the Southern Michigan prairies, replacing them with pasture and cultivated fields.
The size and perhaps even the quality of prairies in Northern Michigan increased for a time following the widespread logging and forest fires around the turn of the century. The sharp-tailed grouse expanded its range into Michigan from Wisconsin by the 1920s, largely because of the grassland expansion. But over the years, the trend has been to replant the openings with red pine, or to allow colonization of the former white-pine dominated forest lands with scrub oak. This is detrimental to the wildlife which uses clearings.
The plight of Michigan's grasslands has until recently, largely gone unnoticed. Few people recognized prairie remnants, and only a small number of our state's citizens have had the opportunity to even see a prairie, so it is not surprising that public concern for prairie conservation lags far behind that expressed in our wetlands regulation and management efforts.
Today, there are some uplands which have tiny remnant stands of big bluestem and other native prairie grasses. For example, the Valley Road Dry Sand Prairie remnant in Oscoda County, harbor rare plant species like pale agoseris, rough fescue, and Hill's thistle. All are associated with large open lands perpetuated by fire. In Newaygo County, remnant prairie openings hold a significant portion of the world's population of the Karner blue butterfly, a federal endangered species.
RESTORATION
Prairie restoration efforts can't reproduce prairie soil quickly and are limited to re-establishing only a few components of the original prairie ecosystem. Most projects are "started from scratch," with seed from a remnant or recreated prairie at about the same latitude. The seed batches contain only a fraction of the grass and wildflower species found in native prairies. Great care must be taken to eliminate non-prairie plants including exotic species now common throughout the country. These plantings are expensive. Site preparation - including tree and brush removal, herbicide treatments, and disking--plus seed and planting costs often exceed $200 per acre, even if only a few plant species are targeted. Seed prices vary widely from less than $4/lb. for switchgrass to up to $600/lb. for some of the rarest wildflowers.
Because of the costs and technical problems associated with plantings, the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy and the US Forest Service are increasingly on the look-out for areas where there are existing remnant stands of big bluestem and other grasses. There, tree and brush cutting along with prescribed burning are used to boost and spread the grass stand, awakening seeds and root systems which have been formant for many years. Shoots from such treated areas generally grow much faster than grasses planted from seed.
A good place to see prairie restoration is at the Conservancy's Bengel Wildlife Center in Bath Township, just north of Lansing. There several remnant patches of big bluestem are being stimulated by spring burning, and about eight acres have been planted with prairie grasses and wildflowers.
Prairie restoration is a slow process, and restoration efforts will become more "prairie-like" over the years, after periodic burns. They may never be exactly like Mother Nature's prairies, but they are an important step toward conserving a part of our heritage and one of nature's most unique wildlife habitats.
Was this information helpful to you?
If so, why not support the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy's effort to restore precious wildlife habitat?
Simply click here to make a tax-deductible gift.
[Return to Habitat Restoration Page]