Nature of the Plant Community. V. Variation within the True Prairie Community-Type

Abstract

McMillan, C. (U. Texas, Austin.) Nature of the plant community. V. Variation within the true prairie community-type. Amer. Jour. Bot. 46(6): 418–424. Illus. 1959.—Population samples of grass species were transplanted to Lincoln, Nebraska, from two grassland communities within the general distribution of the true prairie community-type. These represented extensive grassland areas near Watertown, South Dakota, and Manhattan, Kansas. True prairie relicts near Colorado Springs, Colorado and in the Black Hills of southwestern South Dakota were also studied in the transplant garden. Only in one species, Stipa spartea Trin., were the transplanted populations essentially similar in behavior. In 8 of the species, Koeleria cristata (L.) Pers., Bouteloua gracilis (H.B.K.) Lag., B. curtipendula (Michx.) Torr., Schizachyrium scoparium Nash, Andropogon gerardi Vitman, Panicum virgatum L., Sorghastrum nutans (L.) Nash, and Sporobolus heterolepis (A. Gray) A. Gray, the Manhattan populations were the latest flowering. In Elymus canadensis L., the Manhattan population was the earliest flowering. The abstraction of two communities into a true prairie type of community with other communities of similar species-populations is a convenient method for discussing distributional phenomena. However, extreme caution must be used in generalizing about characteristics other than distributional. If the 10 species in the present study were designated by letters, the Watertown and Manhattan communities could be compared ecologically as a b' c d e f g h i j and a b c' d' e' f' g' h' i' j'. The use of taxonomic relationship in vegetational studies is convenient for the reduction of sample size, but the vital aspect of studying variation within the species is in the determination of harmony between vegetation and its habitat. The relict communities are in adjustment with their habitats and represent the results of natural selection in favoring early-flowering variants within a number of different species. The key to distribution of the true prairie vegetation, widespread or relict, lies in the harmony between a habitat variable and a vegetation variable. Through natural selection, each stand of true prairie may be fundamentally different from any other stand.