Types of Grasslands in North America

Most of us become familiar with North America’s plains while reading accounts of Lewis and Clark’s voyage west or Laura Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie. For some, this is where their curiosity about the grasslands stopped. My journey, however, continued well beyond that initial exposure. Growing up in the plains, I was surrounded by true naturalists—folks in tune with the ebbs and flows that the seasons provide on this landscape. These naturalists, along with my own experience and education, taught me that the very nature of this vegetation dictates where upland bird species can be found within our Great Plains.

North America’s sea of grass once covered an area from Illinois to Wyoming and Canada to Texas, touching or encompassing around seventeen states. This “Great Plains” grassland ecosystem is most simply divided into three ecotones: tallgrass, mixed grass, and shortgrass. Within these ecotones there are many ecosites, such as the Sandhills of Nebraska or the Flint Hills of Kansas. These ecosites occur on gradients of longitude, precipitation, and soil.