Where to find us?
Human Impacts
Past: Hunting
● Hunting has had a serious impact on the
biome.
● Humans have been executing animal
population left and right
Present: Urban Development
● The biggest impact that humans have on
grasslands is by developing open areas for
farming or urban development.
● With constant new development, it drives
animals aways from their habitat forcing
The prairie grasslands of America are located
starvation for some animals etc.
primarily in the West and Midwest of the country.
States with prairie include South and North Dakota,Future: Global Warming
● As the Earth’s climate changes in response
Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana.
to human involvement, the grasslands
In fact, our nation’s first National Park, Yellowstone
become vulnerable.
Park, has many miles of open grasslands and prairie
● Car emissions, smoke produced from
you can visit!
factories, and gas emissions make grasslands
more vulnerable.
● Climate change can cause ecological
succession, in which the ecosystem of an
area develops into another.
Making a Change:
1. Form environmental reserves.
2. Set aside more regions free from agricultural
incursion
For more ways to help the environment and even
grassland biomes visit:
http://www.edf.org/fight-global-warming
America’s
Prairie
Chris Yu, Chris Dansby, Christine Ezeigwe
The Food Web
See the Wildlife!
Info
The diversity of wildlife on the prairie results
interesting interactions between the wildlife and their
environment.
Grassland: Land dominated by grass rather than
If you are lucky, you may able to witness a wolf
large shrubs and trees.Can also be referred to as an
pack hunting a herd of elk, or a Grizzly Bear
ocean of grass.
defending his kill from a group of hungry coyotes.
Or perhaps you can see a family of prairie dogs
In the middle of North America is a huge area of
digging burrows and foraging for grass and roots.
land which was once covered with grasses and
The sun provides energy for all the living things
colorful flowers. The French called this rolling plains
the grasslands, and begins the natural food chain.
There are five levels of the food chain under the sun
of grass “prairie”, from the word for a meadow
in the prairie, each of which gets energy from the
grazed by cattle.
above levels:
A large diversity of animals live on the prairie. Some Precipitation in the prairies can reach from about
1. Primary producer (Blue Grama grass)
of these include:
2. Primary consumers (grasshopper, prairie
12.6 inches in the short grass prairies to 21.7 inches
●
Grizzly Bear (above top)
dog, pronghorn, bison, elk, mule deer)
in the tall grass prairie .Grassland receives 10-30
● Pronghorn (above middle)
3. Secondary consumers (Greater Prairie
● Elk (above bottom)
inches of rain per year.If they receive more rain, they
Chicken, badger)
● Gray Wolf
4. Tertiary consumers (Prairie falcon, fox)
become forest and if they receive less rain they
●
Coyote
5. Quaternary consumers (Gray wolf, Grizzly
would become desserts.
● American Bison (below)
bear)
In the winter,the grassland temperature can be as
● Prairie Dog
The apex predators (quaternary consumers) of the
0
0C
grasslands are the gray wolf and the Grizzly bear, ● Greater Prairie Chicken (see cover bottom) low as -40 C and in the summer as high as 70 .
There are no natural barriers like trees so there is
which have no natural competitors other than each
constant wind.Grass with deep roots systems keeps
other.
the soil from blowing away.
The soil is deep and fertile because some roots die
each year and decompose.