GrasslandGrassland. You are probably wondering why this page is on Orlando Florida Holidays.com. One younge visitor to Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom, wrote to me to ask about grassland animals that he had seen at Animal Kingdom park and wanted some information on Grassland Animals, so this is why this page is here.The climate is basically dry. Precipitation usually does not exceed 100 cm per year, with a minimum near 20 cm per year. Also, grass-lands tend to be in temperate to subtropical areas, often with cold winters and hot summers. As you can see in the diagram below, average annual temperatures range from below 0 degrees C to about 20° C. The warmer end of this range would probably tend towards tropical savanna. As moisture levels increase, grass-land's usually give way to temperate forests or taiga, depending on the temperature.
Whatever their origins, grass-land's today are found in areas of the world intermediate in precipitation between deserts and forests. In the northern hemisphere the main grass-lands are the prairies of the midwestern United States and Canada; in Eurasia the maker grass-lands are the steppes of Russia and the grass-lands of the mideast extending from Turkey to India. Grass-lands are also found in South America. Africa certainly has grass-lands, but the majority of them are classified instead as savannas (a tropical grass-land with interspersed trees) and they are treated with the tropical seasonal forests here.
Grass. That would seem to be a good indicator "species" for a grass-land. Alas, it's more complicated than that. The North American Prairies, for instance, were a lot more diverse than just grasses. First, we should make a distinction between grasses and other grass-land plants. Grasses are monocots, meaning the seed has one cotyledon. Monocots also have parallel venation in the leaves, and grasses have a distinct growth form as compared to most other plants. In addition, grasses generally have pollen that is spread by the wind, therefore the flowers are not very showy. Other grass-land plants may be monocots or dicots, and many of them do have showy flowers to attract insects and other pollinators. Also, be aware that there are plants called "grasses" that are not true grasses (just as dragonflies are not true flies). Finally, there are a number of plants (rushes and sedges come to mind) which look like grasses but which are not. All of these may be part of the grass-land community.
Przewalski's horse (Equus caballus przewalskii), The Wilds, Ohio. Przewalski's horse (Equus caballus przewalskii), The Wilds, Ohio.In a grass-land, the animals - at least the big herbivores - stick out like sore thumbs, so I've got lots of pictures of these, in fact, one for each continent (thanks to zoos). Many of these large herbivores migrate with the seasons; in the spring, for instance, American Bison used to follow the melting snow north, this meant they were always feeding on the most nutritious young grass. Fences and interstates make this difficult nowadays. The American Bison is perhaps THE symbol of the North American Prairie; herd numbering in the millions were common. Przewalski's horse, from the steppes of Asia, was likewise common and reduced to a pitiful herd in captivity. Thanks to conservation work at The Wilds in Ohio (and other places) they are now being reintroduced to the wild in Mongolia. The kangaroo is the bipedal marsupial herbivore of Australia. Really - look at the head - this is a deer that runs on two legs. Africa is a hotspot for mammalian herbivore diversity, partially because the grasslands are interspersed with savannas (which themselves are interspersed with trees). As mentioned above, the savannas will be treated with the tropical deciduous forests, but a few African animals seem more at home in a grassland than a savanna, so they are included here (remember, these divisions are arbitrary). Horses appear in Africa in the form of striped zebras, another African favorite is the rhinoceros.
Intense competition is the norm for plants in a grassland, with sunlight, water, nutrients and space all on the list of things for which competition is intense. Plants may be annuals or perennials; annuals usually produce more, smaller seeds and are quick to colonize disturbed areas. Perennials may be better competitors in the long run, and may displace annuals where disturbance is infrequent. Roots are one of the most critical parts of the plant in a grassland. The roots do much of the competing for space, nutrients and water, and the roots may hold most of the biomass of the plant. If a fire burns an area of grassland it is often the roots which survive and quickly send up new shoots to take control of the airspace above. Many grassland plants spread by roots or rhizomes (a root-like stem); this may be the major form of reproduction in some species (as opposed to setting seeds). The roots are also a vital storage place for nutrients, but compared to forest ecosystems more nutrients are retained in the soil in a grassland. Large herbivores may shape grasslands in a number of ways. First, by the act of grazing they remove some plants at the expense of others; in fact grazers often remove the top competitors (either selectively or by random processes); as a result lesser competitors are able to maintain a place in the ecosystem and diversity is maintained. Herbivores differ in their effects on plants; sheep are notorious for pulling up the whole plant, often killing it, while horses generally bite off the plant at the root line, allowing it to regrow quickly. Thus, although grazing by horses may be "gentler" on the plants, grazing by sheep opens up ground for new colonizers, and changes the community in a fundamental way. The feces of the large herbivores provides a concentrated supply of nutrients and food and support an insect and invertebrate community of their own. As the feces are consumed by invertebrates the nutrients are released back into the soil for new plants (often growing from seeds which passed through the gut of the herbivore unscathed) to use. In addition, grazing and foot traffic by large herbivores may open up small areas of ground for new seedlings, further increasing diversity. Birds in the grasslands may consume seeds - either directly or from the feces of mammals - and defecate elsewhere, planting the seeds in a new location in a fresh bed of fertilizer. In many grassland ecosystems, fire undoubtedly plays a major role. In wetter areas fires (whether man-made or "natural") may prevent a forest community from replacing the grassland as grassland species in general are more fire-adapted than are the trees of the deciduous forest. In drier areas, trees may not be able to establish themselves, but the fires still play a role in opening up the community to other species and in recycling nutrients to the soil.
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