Remnant Grassland Vegetation in the Central Great Plains of North America

Abstract

Numerous ecological studies concerning the vegetation of grasslands in the Great Plains have been conducted, from the prairies of south-central Canada to those of westcentral Texas. Studies such as those by Coupland (1950, 1961), Moss (1955) and Hulett, Coupland & Dix (1966) characterized much of the vegetation of the Great Plains region of Canada. Hanson & Whitman (1938), Tolstead (1941) and Larson & Whitman (1942) investigated the Great Plains vegetation of the northern United States. In the Southern Great Plains, Brumer (1931) described the vegetation of Oklahoma and Dyksterhuis (1946) and Launchbaugh (1955) wrote about Texas prairies. The area concerned in the present study is the Central Great Plains of North America. A detailed study portraying the ecology of remnant grassland vegetation in the region is unprecedented. The majority of the ecological studies in Kansas (Hopkins 1955) concern grazing, drought or both. Studies by Clements (1920), Albertson (1937), Albertson & Weaver (1942, 1946), Tomanek & Albertson (1953, 1957), and Albertson & Tomanek (1965) were important in characterizing grazing and drought ecology of western Kansas grasslands. Weaver & Albertson (1956) compiled the results of many studies concerning Great Plains grasslands. The vegetation of Nebraska has been qualitatively characterized in its entirety by Weaver (1965). Pool (1914), Tolstead (1942) and Burzlaff (1962) reported on areas in the Nebraska Sandhills and Weaver & Bruner (1948) and Hopkins (1951) characterized the vegetation of the loess hills in the central portion of the state. Most recently, information concerning the Pine Ridge vegetation in north-western Nebraska has been given by Nixon (1967). Lang (1945) reported upon stands in adjacent eastern Wyoming, while areas in Colorado have been characterized by Vestal (1914), Ramaley (1939), Costello (1944) and Livingston (1952). The primary objective in the present study is a detailed ecological evaluation of the vegetational characteristics of some grassland remnants and their sites in six of the major land resource areas (Austin 1965) in the Central Great Plains. When the criteria Austin used to delineate these resource areas were examined, we decided they would be a meaningful foundation upon which a large number of undisturbed prairie remnants could be characterized and compared.