4 What animals or signs of activity did you find on the prairie? 5. Why is it im

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4 What animals or signs of activity did you find on the prairie? 5. Why is it important to preserve and restore prairie habitats? Draw a graph of the abundance of each plant species you found in your plot. Note: Add the numbers of plants that you counted for each species from each of the quadrants. Did it appear that certain species were more common than others? Why might that be? 6. Why would biologist be concerned with plant density,what impact could plant density have on species that live in the prairie? 7. Prairie Ecosystem Review Questions Exercise

Explanation / Answer

4) These areas are suitable for cattle rearing. Large cattle farms called ranches. Bison or the American buffalo is the most important animal of this region. It nearly got extinct due to its indiscriminate hunting and is now a protected species. The other animals found in this region are grasshoppers, red-tailed hawks, bees, red foxes, rabbits, coyotes, gophers and Prairie dog.   

5) Protecting water quality and quantity: Native grasslands protect the watersheds in which they occur, increase water infiltration and water yield, increase water supply by reducing erosion and reservoir sedimentation, and increase water quality due to the lack of fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide use.

Conserving Texas cultural and natural heritage and Texas history: Owing in large part to the tallgrass prairie’s rich soils, more than 99 percent of this ecosystem early Texans experienced has been destroyed or fundamentally altered, making the tallgrass prairie the most-endangered large ecosystem in North America. Losses, which continue today, are estimated to be even greater in Texas’ tallgrass prairie regions: the Blackland Prairies, Gulf Prairies and Marshes, and the Grand Prairie subregion of the Cross Timbers and Prairies.

Protecting declining grassland birds, native pollinators, and other wildlife by protecting and restoring their habitat: In addition to the native plant communities of the tallgrass prairies, conservation of tallgrass prairie is needed as habitat for wildlife such as grassland birds and native pollinators. Grassland birds are experiencing the greatest declines of all bird groups, and to save the grassland birds we need to protect and restore their habitat: prairie.

Protecting beautiful native Texas prairie plants and critically imperiled native plant communities: The main plant communities of Texas’ tallgrass prairies are highly threatened. These native plant communities include native plants such as Little Bluestem, Big Bluestem, Eastern Gamagrass, Brown-seed Paspulum, and Yellow Indiangrass, and are ranked with a Global Conservation Status of G1 - Critically Imperiled to G2 - Imperiled, the most threatened conservation rankings. These conservation rankings mean the native plant communities are at high to very high risk of extinction due to few populations, steep declines, or other factors....

Plants

yes, it appeared that certain species were more common than others.

Most mechanistic approaches to species abundance distributions use niche-space, i.e. available resources, as the mechanism driving abundances. If species in the same trophic level consume the same resources (such as nutrients or sunlight in plant communities, prey in carnivore communities, nesting locations or food in bird communities) and these resources are limited, how the resource "pie" is divided among species determines how many individuals of each species can exist in the community. Species with access to lots of resources will have higher carrying capacities than those with little access.

Plants make up much of the physical and biological environment for the everyday necessities of animals. This is why plant diversity greatly affects patterns of animal distribution and abundance. Examples in which animals benefit from plants include the use of the physical habitat provided by plants, i.e., for nesting and camouflage. While owls, woodpeckers, and doves all use the saguaro cactus as a nesting structure, lizards and rabbits use desert brush for hiding. Horvitz found that mature fruit split open and drop their seeds onto the desert floor near the plant, thereby attracting various ant species. Likewise, Bertin found numerous interactions between flowers and their pollinators. These included hummingbirds and ocotillo plants, and various bee species and palo verde trees. Bird populations have been shown to be directly affected by plant diversity. Hundreds of different Sonoran desert animals rely on plant life for their survival, and are found where desert plants are preserved. Roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and seeds form the basic diet of most desert animals. For example, most cacti are flowering plants that birds visit to extract sugar, or to search for insects. In addition, most desert animals get all the water they need from the food they eat.

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