Relationships

The American Bison (Bison bison) grazes on the Purple Prairie Clover (Petalostemum purpureum). The Bison gains nutrients and the clover is not affected by the grazing, making it commensalism.

The Wooly Loco (Astragalus mollissimus) is a wildflower that is pollinated by the bumblebee (Bombus fervidas). The bee receives nutrients from the flower, making it mutualism.

Cytauxzoon felis is a protozoan blood parasite found in bobcats that feeds off the bobcats who in turn die before their normal life expectancy, making it parasitism.







There is competition between bobcats and coyotes where their ranges overlap, though the coyotes usually dominate in the disagreements.

Food Chain

Ironweed: Producer
Grasshopper: Primary Consumer/Herbivore
Prairie Dog: Secondary Consumer/Omnivore
Prairie Rattlesnake: Tertiary Consumer/Carnivore
Red-tailed Hawk: Quaternary Consumer/Apex Carnivore

Type of Soil

• Deep soils that are very nutrient rich because of the large amount of biomass that dies off and is added to the soil through decomposition every year.
• This is the reason for the mass conversion of grasslands to farmland
• Large proportion of clay; retains moisture better than sandy soils

Grassland Abiotic Factors

• Forms a triangular area from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba through the Great Plains to southern Texas and Mexico, and approximately 1,000 miles from western Indiana westward to the Rocky Mountains.
• They cover about 1.4 million square miles.
• As you move from east to west, the rainfall in the prairies decreases.
• Precipitation in the prairies can reach from about 12.6 inches in the shortgrass prairie to 21.7 inches in the tallgrass prairies.
• Every 30 years or so there is a long drought period which lasts for several years.
• Every one to five years fire would spread across any given area of land.
• The soil under a prairie is a dense mat of tangled roots, rhizomes, bulbs, and rootstock.
• The soil is very fertile, with the long roots decomposing.