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Concept
Prairie
Summary
Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and the steppe of Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. Lands typically referred to as "prairie" tend to be in North America. The term encompasses the area referred to as the Interior Lowlands of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, which includes all of the Great Plains as well as the wetter, hillier land to the east.
In the U.S., the area is constituted by most or all of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and sizable parts of the states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and western and southern Minnesota. The Palouse of Washington and the Central Valley of California are also prairies. The Canadian Prairies occupy vast areas of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Prairies contain various lush flora and fauna, often contain rich soil maintained by biodiversity, with a temperate climate and a varied view.
According to Theodore Roosevelt:We have taken into our language the word prairie, because when our backwoodsmen first reached the land [in the Midwest] and saw the great natural meadows of long grass—sights unknown to the gloomy forests wherein they had always dwelt—they knew not what to call them, and borrowed the term already in use among the French inhabitants. Prairie (pʁɛʁi) is the French word for "meadow" formed ultimately from the Latin root word pratum (same meaning).
The formation of the North American Prairies started with the uplift of the Rocky Mountains near Alberta. The mountains created a rain shadow that resulted in lower precipitation rates downwind.
The parent material of most prairie soil was distributed during the last glacial advance that began about 110,000 years ago.
Official source
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