In People of the Ecotone, Robert Morrissey weaves together a history of Native peoples with a history of an ecotone to tell a new story about the roots of the Fox Wars, among the most transformative and misunderstood events of early American history. To do this, he also offers the first comprehensive environmental history of some of North America’s most radically transformed landscapes—the former tallgrass prairies—in the period before they became the monocultural “corn belt” we know today. Morrissey situates the complex rise and fall of the Illinois, Meskwaki, and Myaamia peoples from roughly the collapse of Cahokia (thirteenth to fourteenth century CE) to the mid-eighteenth century in the context of millennia-long environmental shifts, as changes to the climate shifted bison geographies and tribes adapted their cultures to become pedestrian bison hunters. Tracing dynamic chains of causation from microscopic viruses to massive forces of climate, from the deep time of evolution to the specific events of human lifetimes, from local Illinois village economies to market forces an ocean away, People of the Ecotone offers new insight on Indigenous power and Indigenous logics.

2020 Nebraska Book Award The Great Plains is a well-known and well-studied hybrid zone for many animals, most notably birds. In Great Plains Birds Larkin Powell explores the history, geography, and geology of the plains and the birds that inhabit it. From the sandhill crane to ducks and small shorebirds, he explains migration patterns and shows how human settlements have affected the movements of birds. Powell uses historical maps and images to show how wetlands have disappeared, how grasslands have been uprooted, how rivers have been modified by dams, and how the distribution of forests has changed, all the while illustrating why grassland birds are the most threatened group of birds in North America. Powell also discusses conservation attempts and how sporting organizations have raised money to create wetland and grassland habitats for both game and nongame species. Great Plains Birds tells the story of the birds of the plains, discussing where those birds can be found and the impact humans have had on them.

Grasslands are the most extensive terrestrial biome on Earth and are critically important for forage, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. This book brings together an international team of researchers to review scientific knowledge of the effects of climate change on world grasslands, a process we are only just starting to understand. Part I assesses how climate change will impact on the distribution of grasslands, as well as production, biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem services. Part II considers the consequences for the spread of invasive species, demographic change, trophic-level relationships, soil biota, and evolutionary change within grassland biodiversity. Part III proposes how ecologists can respond to climate change effects, focusing on grazing systems, cultural ecology, range management, and restoration. The concluding chapter sets grasslands in the context of the Anthropocene era and identifies the vital research and conservation needs for grassland ecosystems to remain environmentally sustainable under climate change.

"This highly synthetic and scholarly work brings together new and important scientific contributions by leading experts on a rich diversity of topics concerning the history, ecology, and conservation of California's endangered grasslands. The editors and authors have succeeded admirably in drawing from a great wealth of recent research to produce a widely accessible and compelling, state-of-the-art treatment of this fascinating subject. Anyone interested in Californian biodiversity or grassland ecosystems in general will find this book to be an invaluable resource and a major inspiration for further research, management, and restoration efforts."--Bruce G. Baldwin, W. L. Jepson Professor and Curator, UC Berkeley
"Grasses and grasslands are among the most important elements of the California landscape. This is their book, embodying the kind of integrated view needed for all ecological communities in California. Approaches ranging across an incredibly broad spectrum -- paleontology and human history; basic science and practical management techniques; systematics, community ecology, physiology, and genetics; physical factors such as water, soil nutrients, atmospherics, and fire; biological factors such as competition, symbiosis, and grazing -- are nicely tied together due to careful editorial work. This is an indispensable reference for everyone interested in the California environment."--Brent Mishler, Director of the University & Jepson Herbaria and Professor of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley
"The structure and function of California grasslands have intrigued ecologists for decades. The editors of this volume have assembled a comprehensive set of reviews by a group ofoutstanding authors on the natural history, structure, management, and restoration of this economically and ecologically important ecosystem."--Scott L. Collins, Professor of Biology, University of New Mexico

First published in 1976, this volume describes the structure and functioning of grassland ecosystems. Five kinds of grassland are considered, namely natural temperate grasslands, semi-natural temperate meadows and pastures, tropical grasslands, arable grassland and cropland. Descriptions of the abundance and biomass of plants, animals and micro-organisms are provided, as well as an assessment of the activities of each functional group of organisms in relation to production, consumption and decomposition. Static models of energy flow and nutrient cycling are included, and the effects on the ecosystem of the management of grazing land and cropland are also considered. The volume is based on data collected in more than 50 studies made during the International Biological Programme studies in 22 countries.

This book is an essential reference source covering the chemical elements that are nutrients for plants or grazing animals. It deals with the concentrations and transformations of these elements in soils, grassland plants, and ruminant animals, particularly cattle and sheep. For each element, the following data are given: forms occurring in soil, factors that affect availability and concentration, uptake and distribution in grassland plants, role in animal nutrition, amounts and forms excreted by grazing animals, and concentrations needed by ruminant animals.

When looking at old pictures of Toronto, it is clear that the city’s urban, economic, and social geography has changed dramatically over the generations. Historic photos of Toronto’s streetcar network offer a unique opportunity to examine how the city has been transformed from a provincial, industrial city into one of North America’s largest and most diverse regions. Streetcars and the Shifting Geographies of Toronto studies the city’s urban transformations through an analysis of photographs taken by streetcar enthusiasts, beginning in the 1960s. These photographers did not intend to record the urban form, function, or social geographies of Toronto; they were "accidental archivists" whose main goal was to photograph the streetcars themselves. But today, their images render visible the ordinary, day-to-day life in the city in a way that no others did. These historic photographs show a Toronto before gentrification, globalization, and deindustrialization. Each image has been re-photographed to provide fresh insights into a city that is in a constant state of flux. With gorgeous illustrations, this unique book offers an understanding of how Toronto has changed, and the reasons behind these urban shifts. The visual exploration of historic and contemporary images from different parts of the city helps to explain how the major forces shaping the city affect its form, functions, neighbourhoods, and public spaces.

Following the destruction of 95% of meadows during the twentieth century, there is an urgent need to understand what little unspoiled habitat remains in order to plan the management and restoration of existing sites, as well as re-creating future grassland habitats. This book is a much-needed guide to grassland restoration and management. Providing a thorough overview of recent research on grassland restoration and its implications for practical grassland restoration and management, it introduces grassland communities and the wildlife they support, including examples of species of conservation concern, and considers the management of semi-natural grassland habitats with particular emphasis on drier grassland habitats. Chapters cover: - Grassland character and communities - Introduction to grassland wildlife - Managing semi-natural grassland - Grassland restoration - threats and challenges - Opportunities in grassland restoration - Plant material for grassland restoration - Defining success in grassland restoration. A variety of management techniques are examined, including soil amendment, cultivation, harvesting and maintenance in creating suitable conditions for the successful restoration of species-rich grasslands. It is essential reading for conservationists, site owners or managers, practitioners, conservation organizations and students of ecological restoration with an interest in the creation of new grassland habitats, the restoration of semi-natural grassland, as well as the continuing management of semi-natural (unimproved) grassland communities.

Candace Savage's acclaimed and beautifully written guide to the ecology of the prairies, now revised and updated. Praise for the previous edition of Prairie: "Impelled with its sense of the miraculous in nature."-Globe and Mail This revised edition of Prairie features a new preface along with updated research on the effects of climate change on an increasingly vulnerable landscape. It also offers new information on: * conservation of threatened species, including the black-tailed prairie dog and farmland birds; * grassland loss and conservation; * the health of rivers and the water table; * the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on prairie wetlands; * the benefits of regenerative agriculture. Illustrated with elegant black-and-white line drawings and maps, this award-winning tome continues to be a highly readable guide to understanding the ecology, geological history, biodiversity, and resilience of the prairies.

The Greater Plains tells a new story of a region, stretching from the state of Texas to the province of Alberta, where the environments are as varied as the myriad ways people have inhabited them. These innovative essays document a complicated history of human interactions with a sometimes plentiful and sometimes foreboding landscape, from the Native Americans who first shaped the prairies with fire to twentieth-century oil regimes whose pipelines linked the region to the world. The Greater Plains moves beyond the narrative of ecological desperation that too often defines the region in scholarly works and in popular imagination. Using the lenses of grasses, animals, water, and energy, the contributors reveal tales of human adaptation through technologies ranging from the travois to bookkeeping systems and hybrid wheat. Transnational in its focus and interdisciplinary in its scholarship, The Greater Plains brings together leading historians, geographers, anthropologists, and archaeologists to chronicle a past rich with paradoxical successes and failures, conflicts and cooperation, but also continual adaptation to the challenging and ever-shifting environmental conditions of the North American heartland.

When the government recently tried to abandon its responsibility to protect what little remains of the natural prairie, Trevor Herriot pushed back, only to discover an injustice haunting the lands he was trying to defend. In 1938, when the Metis of Ste. Madeleine returned from working away, they found their homes burnt to the ground and their animals shot. The land they held in common was no longer theirs, but was now controlled by the federal government. Facing his own responsibility as a descendent of settlers, he connects today's ecological disarray to the legacy of Metis dispossession and the loss of their community lands. With Indigenous and settler people alienated from one another and from the grassland itself, hope and courage are in short supply. This book offers both by proposing an atonement that could again bring people and prairie together. "Beautifully written, thoroughly persuasive, and a much-needed argument for the preservation of our remaining prairie, Towards a Prairie Atonement may well take its place among classics about the Western plains." - Sharon Butala "A brave, heart-breaking book in its unflinching analysis of government policy, colonial violence, and corporate greed." - Lorna Crozier "A sensitive, layered introspective on truth and reconciliation, this book guides us through an examination of 200 years of Metis residence on the prairie--land use, loss of the commons, displacement and subsequent conservation issues. It challenges us to re-examine our stewardship responsibilities for the Aspen Parkland and our relationships with Indigenous people." - Lawrence J. Barkwell, Louis Riel Institute, and author of The Battle of Seven Oaks: A Metis Perspective

Back from the Collapse is a clarion call for restoring one of North America's most underappreciated and overlooked ecosystems: the grasslands of the Great Plains. This region has been called America's Serengeti in recognition of its historically extraordinary abundance of wildlife. Since Euro-American colonization, however, populations of at least twenty-four species of Great Plains wildlife have collapsed-from pallid sturgeon and burrowing owls to all major mammals, including bison and grizzly bears. In response to this incalculable loss, Curtis H. Freese and other conservationists founded American Prairie, a nonprofit organization with the mission of supporting the region's native wildlife by establishing a 3.2-million-acre reserve on the plains of eastern Montana, one of the most intact and highest-priority areas for biodiversity conservation in the Great Plains. In Back from the Collapse Freese explores the evolutionary history of the region's ecosystem over millions of years, as it transitioned from subtropical forests to the edge of an icesheet to today's prairies. He details the eventual species collapse and American Prairie's work to restore the habitat and wildlife, efforts described by National Geographic as "one of the most ambitious conservation projects in American history."

Legumes of the Great Plains: An Illustrated Guide is an invaluable tool for the identification of more than 114 species of legumes in the Great Plains. In addition to a distribution map, botanical illustration, and an in-depth botanical description, this comprehensive guide describes the habitat, uses and values, pollinators, forage value for livestock and wildlife, toxic properties, and ethnobotany of each species. The botanical synonyms and other common names-including those used by the Great Plains Indians-are also provided. This volume includes more than one hundred similar species with a description of how each differs from the main species. This reference book is indispensable to anyone interested in grassland and prairie conservation and management, the Great Plains, botany, or modern taxonomy.

In Under Prairie Skies, C. Thomas Shay asks and answers the question, What role did plants play in the lives of early inhabitants of the northern Great Plains? Since humans arrived at the end of the Ice Age, plants played important roles as Native peoples learned which were valuable foods, which held medicinal value, and which were best for crafts. Incorporating Native voices, ethnobotanical studies, personal stories, and research techniques, Under Prairie Skies shows how, since the end of the Ice Age, plants have held a central place in the lives of Native peoples. Eventually some groups cultivated seed-bearing annuals and, later, fields of maize and other crops. Throughout history, their lives became linked with the land, both materially and spiritually.

The High Plains region was once called the Great American Desert and thought to be, in the words of explorer Stephen Long, "wholly unfit for cultivation." Now we know that beneath the surface, unbeknownst to the explorers and early settlers, lies the Ogallala aquifer, an underground formation that stretches for 800 miles from the Texas panhandle to South Dakota. It holds more water than Lake Huron. Indeed, the Ogallala has been referred to as the sixth Great Lake. It is the water pumped for irrigation from the Ogallala that has enabled a naturally dry region to produce up to 40 percent of America's beef and 20 to 25 percent of its food and fiber, an output worth about $20 billion. In the forty years since the invention of center pivot irrigation, the High Plains aquifer system has been depleted at an astonishing rate. In 1978 the volume of water pumped from the aquifer exceeded the annual flow of the Colorado River. In Texas, water levels are down 200 feet in some areas. In Kansas, 700 miles of rivers that once flowed year round no longer flow at all. In short, the High Plains may be becoming the desert it was once thought to be. Is it too late to solve the problem? Geographers David Kromm and Stephen White assembled nine of the most knowledgeable scholars and water professionals in the Great Plains to help answer that question. The result is a collection of essays that insightfully examine the dilemmas of groundwater use. From a variety of perspectives they address both the technical problems and the politics of water management to provide a badly needed analysis of the implications of large-scale irrigation. They have included three case studies: the Nebraska Sand Hills, Northwestern Kansas, and West Texas. Kromm and White provide an introduction and conclusion to the volume.

The Chicago metropolitan area is home to far more protected nature than most people realize. Over half a million acres of protected land known as the Chicago Wilderness are owned and managed by county forest preserve districts and other public and private sector partners. But there’s a critical factor of the Chicago Wilderness conservation effort that makes it unique: a pioneering grassroots volunteer community, thousands strong, has worked for decades alongside agency staff to restore these nearby natural areas, learning how to manage biodiversity in an altered and ever-changing urban context. A Healthy Nature Handbook captures hard-earned ecological wisdom from this community in engaging and highly readable chapters, each including illustrated restoration sequences. Restoration leaders cover large-scale seeding approaches, native seed production, wetland and grassland bird habitat restoration, monitoring, and community building. Contributions from local artists bring the region’s beauty to life with vibrant watercolors, oil paintings, and sketches. A Healthy Nature Handbook is packed with successful approaches to restoring nature and is a testament to both the Chicago region’s surprising natural wealth and the stewards that are committed to its lasting health.

This work is intended for ages 5-9. Beautiful photographs and illustrations highlight the plants and animals that live in the grassy meadow areas at the edges of forests and along the banks of rivers and lakes. Children will learn about: how plants make food; plants and animals that live in meadows; how animals find food in different seasons; dangers to meadow food chains and webs; and how you can protect meadows.