SOUTHEASTERN GRASSLANDS INITIATIVE Saving Southeastern Biodiversity The Southeastern Grasslands Initiative (SGI) is a collaboration of leaders in international biodiversity conservation led by the Austin Peay State University Center of Excellence for Field Biology. The SGI seeks to integrate research, consultation, and education, along with the administration of grants, to create innovative solutions to address the multitude of complex issues facing Southeastern grasslands, the most imperiled ecosystems in eastern North America.
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Anyone who knows me well knows that I have spent much of my life in the southeastern part of the United States. From Tyler, Texas, to Knoxville, Tennessee, and many cities in between, I have had the privilege to live, learn and work in some of the most beautiful areas our country has to offer. Most recently, my appreciation for the Southeast has turned to concern. I have become all too familiar with the fact that our rich southeastern grasslands and the biodiversity they contain are in great jeopardy. I am inspired to know that Austin Peay State University is leading the charge to educate our communities on the importance of these ecosystems and what it will take to sustain them into the future. Change must happen, and it must happen fast. And Austin Peay is a leader in that change. Since 1800, the native grasslands of the Southeast have been reduced by 99%. The number of plants and animals in that remaining 1% exceed those in the Great Plains and Midwestern Tallgrass prairies combined. This fact is staggering. That’s why I am proud of Austin Peay's institutional commitment to conservation and the Southeastern Grasslands Initiative. While many colleges and universities are cutting natural history, organismal biology and conservation ecology programs, we understand the importance of training the next generation of conservationists. With our proximity, our leadership and our collaboration, I feel certain our University is the obvious entity to take this step forward in saving native grasslands, our most endangered ecosystems. It's a privilege to consider the Southeast my home, and I will work very hard to preserve the last remnants of our unique natural heritage. I invite you to partner with Austin Peay State University to save Southeastern biodiversity. Not only for the benefit of our region, but for the world. Many thanks,
Alisa White President, Austin Peay State University
25 YEARS WILL BE TOO LATE. last 1% of what once were unbelievable Southern landscapes. They persist as barely recognizable fragments, clinging to existence, occupying fencerows, powerline corridors, roadsides, corners of old fields, and small clearings among forests.
M
ost people imagine the southeastern United States at the time of European settlement as a dense, forested landscape with trees so thick a squirrel could travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River without touching the ground. In reality, the South was a diverse mosaic of forests and woodlands punctuated by scattered grasslands of many types, with individual patches ranging from less than an acre to hundreds of thousands of acres. Such grasslands would have impeded the westward progress of our adventurous squirrel and such a journey would have required a very circuitous route. The South is one of North America’s great, but forgotten, grassland regions, which historically included open treeless prairies, rocky barrens and glades, pine and oak savannas, coastal prairies, wet grasslands (e.g. bogs and fens), and highelevation mountaintop meadows called balds. Although some types resembled vast, treeless Midwestern tallgrass prairies, most were intrinsically smaller, more isolated, and often embedded within a larger matrix of woodlands and forests. Sadly, the past 200 years have not been kind to Southern grasslands, and the many types have suffered staggering losses, more than 99% of their original extent for some types. Today, our remaining grasslands represent the
The loss of Southern grasslands has contributed to plummeting populations of many iconic species of animals and plants. These losses are triggering unprecedented interest from the scientific and conservation communities, which in the past five years have started to realize the true extent of Southern grasslands and their importance to the biodiversity of North America. While there have been pockets of conservation momentum building, there has been no organized, region-wide effort to address the imminent threats facing the Southern grasslands. We are launching the Southeastern Grasslands Initiative (SGI) to take on that leadership role and to transform grassland conservation. The time to act is now—if we wait much longer, it will be too late.
Why should we care about Southern grasslands? • They are hot spots of biodiversity that are rich in rare and endemic species of plants and animals. • They provide critical habitat and food for pollinators. • Native grasslands can supply droughttolerant forage for cattle, increasing profits for farmers, while providing benefits to the environment. • Grasslands supply us with a large number of native plant species used in horticultural trade (e.g. coneflowers), ecological restoration (warm-season grasses and milkweeds), and biofuel production (switchgrass).
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• Grasslands can beautify a variety of landscapes, including industrial parks, roadsides, rooftops, city parks, and backyard gardens. • Grasslands played an important part in the human history of the Southeast, influencing the locations of towns and cities, patterns of settlement, industry, agriculture, and other land use.
The challenges facing the Southeastern grasslands are complex. • Lack of education We still don’t know how many grasslands we’ve lost, where they were, or what they contained. There is a lack of public awareness about the current and historical importance of grasslands. • Declining expertise Universities are moving away from training new generations of field biologists and conservationists, resulting in a scarcity of skilled professionals needed now more than ever to identify, study, and conserve grasslands and grassland biodiversity. • Diminished resources Critical resources, such as staffing, equipment, fire crews, and seed sources, are lacking. • Scarcity of funding Grants are biased toward Midwestern grasslands. They are highly competitive and not a reliable source of funding. Many aspects of Southeastern grasslands conservation has no funding source. • Extreme rarity There are few remnants. Many grasslands are functionally extinct and only re-creation can save them. We can’t afford to lose any more.
THE SOUTHEASTERN GRASSLANDS INITIATIVE Leading grassland conservation in the 21st century The Southeastern Grasslands Initiative (SGI) is a developing nonprofit organization based out of Austin Peay State University’s Center of Excellence for Field Biology (Clarksville, Tennessee). It will step up to lead Southeastern grasslands conservation at this critical time when there is a realization that something must be done to reverse the tide of grassland biodiversity loss. Momentum is building, but more help, focus, and direction are needed. SGI will serve as a clearinghouse for grassland research, consultation, and education and will work with donors to distribute funds to accomplish effective conservation across the Southeast.
Our priorities for grassland conservation 1. Preservation—We will work to preserve our precious few ancient “oldgrowth” grassland remnants through acquisition and easements. 2. Restoration—We have the potential to restore grasslands on a large scale by thinning forests in areas that were historically open. 3. Re-creation—We want to recreate lost ecosystems at a large and meaningful scale by using seed from existing remnants to put nearly extinct grasslands back on the landscape. 4. Rescue—Grassland-dependent biodiversity is imminently threatened at hundreds of sites; we need the capability to mobilize quickly to rescue species and communities.
Collaboration is key SGI has assembled a team of some of the most creative minds and innovative organizations in grassland conservation. By reaching across political boundaries, forming partnerships, sharing resources, and inspiring others to act, we can take grassland conservation to the next level in the 21st century and beyond.
SGI needs your help At a time when government investment in conservation is unpredictable, philanthropic and corporate support is more important than ever. Successful conservation on a meaningful scale will require: • unparalleled long-term financial commitment from philanthropic and corporate sponsors.
5. Research—Whole grassland systems are disappearing before we’ve had a chance to understand them. Remnants urgently need basic research.
• funding from government grants and contracts.
6. Seedbanking—We must plan for the future by ensuring that we have the right seed, in the right place, at the right time. Remnants are the genetic storehouses of locally adapted seed and source populations of other organisms that will serve as building blocks for re-creation and restoration.
• investments in organizational infrastructure and programming.
7. Education—We can’t protect what we don’t understand. There is a critical need for the development of educational and outreach resources with a special focus on engaging a public that is increasingly removed from nature. We need citizen-science, programs, videos, mobile apps, online materials, and curricula to enhance public understanding of grasslands. 8. Market-Driven Conservation—We must incorporate innovative market-driven approaches rooted in sustainability.
• support at local, regional, state, and national levels.
Our mission is to understand, preserve, and promote the grassland ecosystems of the southeastern U.S. through research, consultation, education, outreach, and coordination of on-the-ground research.
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SOUTHERN GRASSLANDS: A GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY HOT SPOT GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY HOT SPOTS
Credit: Reed Noss
GRASSLAND REGIONS OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA
I
n 2015, much of the Southeastern U.S. was designated the world’s newest (36th) global biodiversity hot spot by Conservation International, based on the research of Dr. Reed Noss (University of Central Florida) and collaborators. This designation was due in large part to 1) the extraordinary diversity of the Southern grasslands, which contain more than 2,000 native plant species found nowhere else, and 2) the fact that so much of the Southern landscape has been altered from its original condition. Such a designation is a call to action to increase conservation efforts of this overlooked region that is now of global conservation significance. Eastern U.S. grasslands fall into four major regions, the Great Plains, Midwestern Tallgrass Prairies and Savannas, Coastal Pine Savannas, and the Southeastern Interior Grasslands. Only the last two are part of this new hot spot. However, compared to the other three, the Southeastern Interior Grasslands receive far less funding and conservation attention. This region is the focus for the Southeastern Grasslands Initiative (SGI). The SGI focal area includes portions of eight major ecoregions across 18 states. Within this region, priority is placed on:
Credit: Sunny Fleming
THE SOUTHEASTERN GRASSLANDS FOCAL AREA
• protection of high-quality remnant grasslands that support rare communities and species. • restoration of degraded grasslands that support, or have the potential to support, rare species and communities. • re-creation of grasslands in areas where they once existed that have succeeded to forests or have been converted to nongrassland landscapes. • re-establishment of “working lands” that combine grassland conservation with sustainable agriculture or silviculture. All types of natural grasslands, including balds, barrens, bogs, fens, glades, marshes, meadows, outcrops, prairies, riverscours, and savannas, are considered high-priority conservation targets for the SGI.
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TYPES OF SOUTHERN GRASSLANDS
Balds
Barrens (Photo: Alan Cressler)
Bogs
(Photo: Dwayne Estes)
Fens (Photo: Alan Cressler)
Glades
(Photo: Julie Tuttle)
Marshes (Photo: Alan Cressler)
Meadows
(Photo: Hal DeSelm)
Prairies (Photo: Dwayne Estes)
Riverscour
(Photo: Dwayne Estes)
Savannas (Photo: Devin Rodgers)
(Photo: Theo Witsell)
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HOW DO WE KNOW WHERE GRASSLANDS WERE? If our ancestors could come back, would they recognize our modern landscape? Certainly, some places, such as the Great Smoky Mountains, would look similar, but many places across the South would be nearly unrecognizable.
U
nfortunately, our historical Southern grasslands disappeared decades before the first naturalists, photographers, and painters could describe and illustrate them. Some are gone completely, whereas others persist only as tiny vestiges. The lack of information about our grasslands has led to them being misunderstood, ignored, or even dismissed in the late 20th and 21st centuries. Unlike the Great Plains, for which many 19th century photographs and paintings exist and about which numerous books have been written, we can’t read about Southern grasslands in history books; we can’t Google historical images; there is no one alive who remembers their grandeur; and there are no museums dedicated to telling their story. They have literally been forgotten—out of sight and out of mind. Understanding the historical significance of our Southern grasslands requires that we travel back in time. We must examine clues from early American history, as well as clues still evident on the modern landscape. Only by combining cultural and natural histories can we begin to truly understand the landscape our ancestors knew and even attempt to reconstruct scenes they witnessed. Once we put the pieces together, we will be able to imagine the landscapes through the eyes of our ancestors. Reconstructing the historical distribution of Southeastern grasslands requires detective work—looking for existing remnants; sifting through old documents, maps, and land surveys; consulting studies of fire history by studying tree rings; and determining the present and historical distribution of grassland-dependent plant and animal species.
Early maps are key to reconstructing the former extent of Southern grasslands. This French map, from 1720, shows “Savana Land and Good Pasture Ground” over what is Kentucky and Tennessee, “Savana” in west-central North Carolina, and “All Level and Good Ground” in northern Alabama.
Existing grassland remnants The best clues to where grasslands were, historically, are surviving remnants. Studying what's left helps us understand grasslands, but it is difficult to know how similar these are to historical examples. In short, "remnants are our windows into the past."
Remnants, such as Roth Prairie Natural Area in Arkansas’s Grand Prairie, are windows into the past. This 41-acre prairie represents 10% of the 400 acres of Grand Prairie that remains and less than one-thousandth of a percent of the former 500,000 acres that existed in the 1800s.
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Historical maps, survey records, and place names Land survey records exist for much of the South. Original maps and notes are available in archived collections, but most have never been studied. In some states, surveyors used the “metes and bounds” system, where individual tracts were mapped and trees at boundary corners were recorded. Certain trees, such as blackjack oak, were indicative of grasslands. When trees were absent, surveyors would use wooden stakes. The relative abundance of stakes used in an area provides clues to the openness of the landscape. Sometimes, surveyors actually referred directly to grasslands, such as “stake in the barrens.”
WINDOWS INTO THE PAST
S
urveyors were often the first to name landmarks, and the names they gave to places in early surveys provide clues to historical conditions. Names still in use today, such as Barren Plains and Glade Branch, refer to former grasslands.
“a vast upland prairie, covered with a most luxuriant growth of native grasses, pastured over as far as the eye could see, with numerous herds of deer, elk and buffalo, gamboling in playful security over these secluded plains…” (Francis Bailey, 1797)
Historical descriptions There is no single book that tells the story of Southern grasslands. To find references to these communities, one has to comb through early state and county histories or obscure journals. Most references to grasslands are frustratingly brief; often a single phrase or word is all that exists among hundreds of pages. Many areas were not described in their presettlement condition. By the time most naturalists began traveling into the backcountry of the South, decades of overgrazing, agriculture, fire suppression, and forest succession had already changed the landscape.
Five lines of evidence tell the story that Crab Orchard, Cumberland Co., Tennessee, was once grassland. Aside from Bailey’s eloquent quote, a Revolutionary War land grant survey from the 1790s shows an abundance of stakes indicating savanna. The black ovals highlight place names that indicate grasslands (Meadow Creek, Crab Orchard). Today there are scattered remnants in the areas along roadsides and in powerline corridors that support dozens of grassland conservative species.
Occurrence of grassland conservative species One way to infer the original distribution of grasslands is to consult specimens of grassland-conservative species (those found only in high-quality grasslands) preserved in museums. At the New York Botanical Garden, one can examine the original specimen of American Chaffseed collected by Ferdinand Rugel east of Jamestown, Tennessee, in June 1842. This species has not been seen on the Tennessee Cumberland Plateau in 174 years, and without this specimen, we would never know that this strictly, fire-dependent pine savanna species ever occurred in the region. Other examples provide evidence of early grassland animals that no longer occur in the Southeast. Reuben Ross (1812) provides the only known reference to the Great Prairie Chicken from Tennessee, a species that disappeared soon afterward.
Oil painting by Andy Vanderyacht allows us to reimagine the historical shortleaf pine savannas of the Cumberland Plateau.
“Far as the eye could reach, it seemed one vast deep-green meadow…Here I first saw the prairie bird, or barren-hen as we called it, which I afterward met with in such vast numbers on the great prairies of Illinois."
The specimen of American Chaffseed at New York Botanical Garden was collected in Tennessee in 1842.
Greater Prairie Chicken
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IMPORTANCE OF GRASSLANDS TO BIODIVERSITY
Northern Bobwhite
W
hat the modern Southern grasslands lack in size they make up for in biodiversity. • Existing remnants, despite covering less than 1% of the current land area, disproportionately harbor more types of grasslands and more species of plants and animals than the Great Plains and Midwestern Tallgrass Prairie combined (Noss). • More than half of the known native flora of the Southeast (2,800 out of 5,586 species) are obligate grassland species and another 15% grow
Monarch Butterfly
American Bison
primarily in grasslands (Dr. Alan Weakley, University of North Carolina, pers. comm.).
and many more are on the brink, including Northern Bobwhite and Monarch Butterfly. In fact, the current U.S. Bobwhite population is expected to decline by 50% in the next 15 years.
• 87% of endangered and threatened plants protected by the Endangered Species Act in the Southeastern interior grasslands require or prefer grasslands and related habitats. • Nearly 50% of rare mammals, birds, and reptiles in the focal area require or prefer grasslands. • Many iconic species have been lost from Southern grasslands, including Bison and Greater Prairie Chickens,
Despite the fact that they are at or past the point of ecological collapse, Southern grasslands receive far less attention and funding than forests and forested wetland ecosystems. Southern grasslands are the most imperiled, understudied, and underfunded ecosystems in eastern North America.
Pelton’s Rose Gentian (Sabatia arkansana) is a new species discovered and co-described by Theo Witsell, known only from two locations southwest of Little Rock, Arkansas, in barrens and glades and found nowhere else worldwide. (Photo: John Pelton)
We currently know of 99 grassland species that have not yet been described to science that are the rarest of the rare — at present rates of grassland loss some, will become extinct before they can even be named. 8 | SOUTHEASTERN GRASSLANDS INITIATIVE
THE NUMBERS DON’T LIE The contribution of grasslands to habitat diversity There are 1,213 plant communities considered globally rare in the Southeast. Grasslands and related communities (shrublands and open grassy woodlands) account for 49% of these, compared to just 19% for upland forests and 20% for forested wetland communities.
Grasslands as hot spots of endemism
Grasslands account for half of all rare plant communities in the Southeast.
Of the more than 440 rare plants tracked in Tennessee, 60% occur in grasslands.
In 2001, researchers Jamie Estill and Mitch Cruzan identified about a dozen hot spots across the Southeast that have outstanding numbers of narrowly endemic species—plants found only within small geographic areas. Those outlined in red (at right) are grassland hot spots, green represents forest hot spots, and orange represents regions with an even mix of both grassland and forest endemics.
Hot spots for new species Since 1960, 394 plant species have been discovered and named in the Southeast, 256 (65%) of which were found in grasslands (Weakley). Right now, researchers know of 127 undescribed plant species, and 99 (78%) of these occur in grasslands. These hot spots have yielded nearly 400 new plant species since 1960. More remain like this undescribed wild hyacinth (lower right) from Arkansas and Oklahoma grasslands. New animals are also being described, such as nearly two dozen grasshopper species named in 2015 by Dr. JoVonn Hill (MS Entomological Museum).
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FIRE AND GRAZING OF SOUTHERN GRASSLANDS
F
ire is the lifeblood of most Southern grasslands. Many, particularly prairies and savannas, require fire every few years to retard tree growth and prevent succession to woodlands and forests. Historically, these fires were the result of both Native American burning and lightning. Glades and barrens are better able to withstand invasion by trees due to their shallow, drought-prone, rocky soils, but periodic fire is still needed to keep their margins open and grassy.
height. No one who ever witnessed one of these great fires would ever afterward be at a loss to account for the scarcity of timber in the Barrens, as trees of all kinds, when small, were destroyed by them." Harold Gaston’s photograph, bottom, from the Konza Prairie in Kansas, allows us to envision the prairie fires so beautifully described by Ross. Not long after the first European hunters
"…for pasturage and meadows, they are scarcely surpassed. There is a course nutritious grass, well known in this part of the State as ‘mountain grass,’ which is indigenous to the soil, and afford rich and abundant pasturage to hundreds of cattle, sheep, and other animals.”
Soon after the first settlers arrived, fire suppression caused many grasslands to disappear within the span of 30-50 years. Fortunately, there are a few vivid references in the early literature to fire in maintaining open landscapes, such as this beautiful quote by Reuben Ross from Montgomery Co., Tennessee, circa 1812: “During this winter, I first saw the tremendous fires caused by the burning of the dry grass. In many places, this grass was very thick and tall; and when perfectly dry, should it get on fire, the wind being high, the spectacle became truly sublime, especially at night. The flames...would sometimes burn the leaves on trees twenty or thirty feet in
began to hunt in the South, bison and elk disappeared. Domesticated stock brought by settlers took over the role of grazing. The grasslands proved to be very important for providing pasturage, but many were overgrazed. Livestock industries in the 19th century relied heavily on these extensive grasslands. This 1870s quote from the Cumberland Plateau in Van Buren County, Tennessee, highlights their importance:
This quote describing Carroll Co., Tennessee, in the 1820s notes the historical importance of these grasslands to wildlife:
Bison in savanna, Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky. (Photo: James Richardson)
“When this country was first explored by white men, all the land west and north of Clear Creek…was open barrens, almost devoid of timber, and consequently, a vast grazing place for buffalo, elk, deer.”
Konza Tallgrass Prairie, Kansas. (Photo: Harold Gaston)
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TYPES OF SOUTHERN GRASSLANDS
"...the top of the Roan may be described as a vast meadow…with some interruptions… without a tree to obstruct the prospect; where a person may gallop his horse for a mile or two, with Carolina at his feet on one side, and Tennessee on the other… It is the pasture ground for the young horses of the whole country about it during the summer. We found the strawberry here in the greatest abundance and of the finest quality…” (Asa Gray, Roan Mountain, NCTN, July 1842) Blue Ridge Mountains grass bald atop Roan Mountain, Mitchell Co, North Carolina. (Photo: Malcolm MacGregor Photography)
BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS Most people don’t think about the Blue Ridge Mountains when they hear the word “grasslands.” However, the Blue Ridge, which extends from Virginia to Georgia, harbors some of the most unique grasslands in all of North America. These include high-elevation, mountain-top grass balds, which resemble mountain meadows. Balds, which are like the South’s version of Canada’s boreal grasslands, originated when the tops of the mountains were covered in tundra during the last Ice Age 18,000 years ago. They were kept open for thousands of years by grazing herbivores, such as caribou, mastodons, bison, elk, and other animals until the first Europeans brought their livestock to the mountaintops in the late 1700s.
Tucked away in the mountain coves were once thousands of acres of mountain bogs, with cranberries, robust ferns, sedges, grasses, and pitcher plants. Most of these wetlands, once likely maintained by beavers which were over trapped in the 1700s, have been drained or converted to farm ponds as people moved into the mountain valleys.
wildflowers. They thrive in the unusual soil conditions. Three plant species are found only at this single mountainside grassland and nowhere else worldwide. This barren is a grassland oasis among a sea of typical forested Appalachian Mountain slopes.
Perhaps the rarest of all grasslands in eastern North America are the Southern Appalachian serpentine barrens, limited to just two sites in southwestern North Carolina. High levels of naturally occurring heavy metals in rare serpentine rock make the soil so toxic that trees have a difficult time growing. Buck Creek Barren (right), Clay Co., North Carolina, is home to dozens of species of “prairie” grasses and
Buck Creek Barren, Clay Co., North Carolina (Photo: Alan Cressler)
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“a vast upland prairie, covered with a most luxuriant growth of native grasses, pastured over as far as the eye could see, with numerous herds of deer, elk and buffalo, gamboling in playful security over these secluded plains…” (Francis Bailey, from near Crab Orchard, Tennessee, 1797) Cumberland Plateau oak-pine savanna, Catoosa Wildlife Management Area, Cumberland Co., Tennessee. Photo taken about 10 miles from where Bailey described grasslands at Crab Orchard. (Photo: Clarence Coffey)
Embedded among the pine-oak savannas were small sandstone bedrock glades and scattered bogs. These bogs were “level as the prairie and practically free from tree growth.”
CUMBERLAND PLATEAU Today, the Cumberland Plateau, a high tableland extending from northern Alabama to southeastern Kentucky, supports some of the most extensive forests in the South. Much of the Plateau surface was once covered by extensive savannas of shortleaf pine and oak prior to the 1850s. Nineteenth century descriptions from the Plateau describe it as: “thinly wooded” with “unlimited pasturage” and with “extensive flats, covered mainly with post oak and black jack”…“the native wild grass covering the entire face of the country.”
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Green pitcher plant (Sarracenia oreophila) is an endangered species found in wet savannas of the Cumberland Plateau. (Photo: Alan Cressler)
The Plateau rises about 1,000 feet above the surrounding landscape and has steep limestone slopes dotted with scattered limestone barrens. Perhaps most surprisingly, there are even grasslands in some of the deepest and most rugged river gorges (e.g. Big South Fork River, Kentucky and Tennessee; Little River Canyon, Alabama), where they form narrow, grassy, boulder-strewn strips along flood-scoured riverbanks. Such grasslands are known as riverscour or scour prairie, and they contain nearly a dozen grassland plants found nowhere else worldwide.
EAST GULF COASTAL PLAIN The East Gulf Coastal Plain (EGCP) covers much of the Deep South and lower Mississippi Valley east of the Mississippi River. Floodplains of the many sluggish streams were once covered with some of the most extensive swamps and bottomland hardwood forests in the country. The largest grasslands of the EGCP were expansive longleaf pine savannas that once covered an estimated 90 million acres of the South. These savannas, with their embedded pitcher plant bogs, largely lie south of the SGI focal area. They represent the most diverse ecosystem in North America.
In the rolling to nearly flat upland plains of the EGCP, there were three large and nearly treeless prairies, including the Black Belt and Jackson prairies of Mississippi and Alabama and the Loess Plain Prairie of western Kentucky and Tennessee. These prairies are among the most imperiled and least understood of all American grassland types. Losses have been staggering. For example, the Loess Plain Prairie of western Kentucky and Tennessee once supported one million acres at the time of settlement but today, 99.99% of this system has been lost, with less than 10 acres known to exist across only a handful of sites.
To most, the thought of treeless prairie covering millions of acres anywhere in the South is unimaginable. Fortunately, the expert hand of artist Philip Juras has re-created the grand scenes of Southern grasslands, like those witnessed by early naturalist William Bartram in 1775 near Montgomery, Alabama. Juras visited the outskirts of Montgomery near the old Federal Road. Pairing the descriptions of Bartram with his own view of the modern landscape, his study of old remnant post oaks, and his visits to other remnant prairies, Juras’s paintings allow us to reimagine the prairies of the Black Belt region as they appeared to Bartram more than 240 years ago.
Black Belt Prairie c. 1775, Montgomery Co., Alabama by Philip Juras (cropped)
WEST GULF COASTAL PLAIN The West Gulf Coastal Plain (WGCP) includes Eastern Texas and Southeastern Oklahoma eastward through Louisiana, Arkansas, and Southeastern Missouri to the Mississippi River. The dense bottomland hardwood forests that once covered the Mississippi River floodplain transitioned westward into drier oak-pine woodlands and savannas, which covered millions of acres of Eastern Texas and Southeastern Oklahoma. Several types of prairies occurred in the region, including the Blackland Prairies of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana and the Arkansas Grand Prairie. The Grand Prairie covered nearly 500,000
acres east of Little Rock, Arkansas. Today, less than 400 acres remains in scattered fragments. Much of what remains is in the Railroad Prairie Natural Area, sandwiched between US Hwy 70 and an abandoned railroad surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of rice fields. A number of other
small-patch grasslands occur throughout the region, including sandhill and saline barrens and numerous types of rocky glades associated with outcroppings of limestone, chalk, sandstone, and igneous rock.
This newspaper ad from 1904 offers 10,000 acres of virgin prairie for sale in Prairie Co., Arkansas, by A. Boysen.
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INTERIOR HIGHLANDS The Interior Highlands are comprised of the Ozark Plateaus, Arkansas Valley, and Boston and Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Each of these ecoregions includes several grassland types. Scattered tallgrass prairies and savannas occurred historically in the Ozark Plateaus and Arkansas Valley. Cherokee Prairie (cover of this packet), one of the few large remnants in the Arkansas Valley, is truly stunning at sunset with its thousands of pale purple coneflowers.
Yellow coneflower (Echinacea paradoxa) on an Ozark Dolomite Barren in Missouri. (Photo: Jesse Miller)
Glades and barrens, perhaps more than anywhere else in the Southeast, occur throughout the region on a variety of rock types, including sandstone, limestone, dolomite, shale, and igneous rock. They resemble miniature deserts and are home to collared lizards, tarantulas, scorpions, foot-long centipedes, and cacti. Some of the largest glades and barrens are the rocky dolomite barrens found on knobs, slopes, and river clifftops in the White River Hills of the Ozarks of Missouri and Arkansas. Great examples can be observed on portions of the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri.
“The Barrens, or Kentucky Meadows, comprise an extent from sixty to seventy miles in length, by sixty miles in breadth…I conceived I should have had to cross over a naked space, sown here and there with a few plants…Instead of finding a country as it had been depicted to me, I was agreeably surprised to see a beautiful meadow, where the grass was from two to three feet high.” (Francois A. Michaux, from south-central Kentucky, 1802) Pennyroyal Plain Prairie, Montgomery Co., Tennessee. (Photo: Dwayne Estes)
INTERIOR PLATEAUS The Interior Plateaus extend from Alabama north to southern Illinois, Indiana, and southwestern Ohio. This region includes a wide variety of prairies, savannas, and barrens, but is best known for the limestone glades of central Tennessee and north Alabama, which support more than 20 endemic plants found nowhere else. The glades were once embedded in oak savannas that now are virtually extinct. Efforts are currently underway to restore the imperiled mosaic of glades and savannas at Couchville Glades and Barrens Natural Area just outside Nashville. However, hundreds of glades remain unprotected and are threatened by urban sprawl.
Some of the largest prairies and savannas in the Midsouth occurred in this region, including the Pennyroyal Plain Prairie (3.7 million acres of central Kentucky and Tennessee) and the Highland Rim Savanna (more than 1 million acres of Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky). These once extensive prairies have long been converted to some of the most productive cropland in the Southeast. Perhaps the largest remaining tallgrass prairie in the Southeast, at 25,000
This pond in Logan Co., Kentucky, would have been surrounded by prairie 200 years ago. (Photo: Frank Lyne)
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acres, is found in the impact zone at Fort Campbell Army Base, but it is completely off-limits to visitation due to unexploded ordnance. A variety of wetlands were associated with the Interior Plateau grasslands and are known to support nearly three dozen species of waterfowl and shorebirds. Most are now embedded in agricultural fields (left). In 1836, C.W. Short provided the only known reference to the ponds and lakes that so commonly dotted the Pennyroyal Plain prairies 200 years ago: “Now, would burst upon the view a smooth sheet of water… its surface covered over with…large and floating leaves and splendid flowers…then, in endless vistas, was stretched before the eye a waving sea of gigantic grasses.”
RIDGE AND VALLEY The Ridge and Valley, also known as the “Great Valley,” stretches from Alabama to New England and was one of the most important migration routes as Europeans pushed west past the Appalachian Mountains. Throughout its length, it consists of a series of parallel valleys separated by long straight ridges. The wide valley served as a nearly continuous “savanna highway” that probably has been open for millions of years. In northeast Tennessee, at the Gray Fossil Site, researchers have found evidence of lightning fires dating back 3.5-7 million years and hypothesize that the grasslands were pine-oak savannas grazed by now extinct shovel-tusk elephants. The earliest reference to Ridge and Valley savannas dates to the Hernando de Soto expedition of 1540, where they encountered savannas in southeastern Tennessee.
Missionaries described extensive savannas along the western base of the Great Smoky Mountains in the late 1700s. Farther south, in the Coosa Valley of northeast Alabama and northwest Georgia, there were once extensive longleaf pine-pitcher plant savannas. Some extended upslope into adjacent mountains, where today, patches of old-growth mountain longleaf pine remain at the Mountain Longleaf Pine National Wildlife Refuge. The savannas on deep soils have largely disappeared. What few grasslands remain are restricted to rocky soils on steep slopes of ridges or fields too rocky to plow. These include the shale barrens of Virginia and West Virginia; the limestone glades and barrens near Chattanooga, Tennessee; and the recently discovered Ketona dolomite barrens southwest of Birmingham, Alabama. The Ketona “glades,” as they are popularly known, are featured on U-Haul vans. Their discovery in the 1990s was heralded as the “Discovery of a Botanical
Lost World in Alabama.” At just a few scattered sites along a 10-mile stretch of the Little Cahaba River, researchers found a completely undescribed grassland ecosystem with 10 “new” plant species that occur nowhere else worldwide.
Steep limestone barren overlooking Tennessee River, Meigs Co., Tennessee. (Photo: Adam Dattilo)
“Previous to the year 1750…the solitary cabins were found upon the borders of prairies, and in the vicinity of canebrakes, the immense ranges abounding with wild game, and affording sustenance the whole year, for herds of tame cattle. Extensive tracts of country between the Yadkin and the Catawba, now waving with thrifty forests, then were covered with tall grass, with scarce a bush or shrub…the abundant grass luxuriating in its native wildness and beauty….” [Quote from Historian William Foote’s (1846) Sketches of North Carolina describing area north of Charlotte, North Carolina, prior to 1750] Suther Prairie, a virgin wet prairie dominated by Atamasco Lily and Indian Paintbrush, Cabarrus Co., North Carolina. (Photo: John Suther)
PIEDMONT The Piedmont, stretching from Alabama to Pennsylvania, is a gently rolling to slightly hilly region that lies between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Atlantic Coastal Plain. The French mapped large areas of the Piedmont as “savana” in 1720 (map on pg. 6). Early descriptions of this landscape indicate it was dominated by savanna with prairie-like patches. Because
the Piedmont was one of the first places in the eastern U.S. to be settled, most of its grasslands disappeared 100 years before the other grasslands of the South, due to fire suppression and overgrazing. By the late 1700s, they were gone. Today, only a handful of remnants remain (e.g., Suther Prairie), and nearly all are restricted to powerline rights-of-ways and roadsides.
The Piedmont is home to a variety of rocky grasslands (outcrop and glades), known locally as “flatrocks.” These occur abundantly near Atlanta, where many are threatened by urban sprawl and quarrying. These miniature rocky grasslands are home to approximately 15 endemic plant species found nowhere else in the world. Other rocky types occur from Charlotte north to Virginia on a rare rock type known as diabase.
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CONCLUSION
W
hen most people think of the natural landscapes of the Southeast, grasslands are probably the last thing that comes to mind. This is because our grasslands were nearly all destroyed so long ago that they have escaped the collective memory of our modern society. The places we love, the parks we visit, and the scenery we drive by daily, were very different just 200 years ago. Many of our grasslands were not photographed or painted, and very few stories of their former greatness have been passed down to current generations. The majority of our former grasslands have literally been forgotten. In recent years, ecologists have been struggling to reconstruct the grassland puzzle. As the pieces fall into place, we
are beginning to see the picture we have been missing for the past century. The fragments of grasslands that managed to persist into the mid-20th century are mostly gone. As we push toward 2020, pieces continue to fall into place, and the picture is becoming clearer, yet there are many pieces that are still missing that we may never find. It is telling us that we need a paradigm shift in our conservation priorities and concepts of land management if any of our Southern grasslands are to survive into the 22nd century. The paradigm shift we so desperately need is hindered by our love of forests. Our desire to have a forested landscape has encouraged trees where they did not exist historically. This has led to the collapse of
large portions of our native biodiversity, even on existing conservation lands. There are thousands of acres of former grasslands “locked up� in state forests, state parks, wildlife management areas, nature preserves, national parks, and national forests that are silently trying to tell us that they are suffering. The evidence is there in plain sight. These areas need their open lands restored with tree removal and fire. This is the simplest and most costeffective way to restore many of our native grasslands. In other areas, our grasslands have been nearly completely replaced with cropland and pastureland. It will take a major effort, but we must move to re-create grasslands to stop the collapse of biodiversity. The time for change is now.
Pennyroyal Plain Prairie Remnant, Hart Co., Kentucky. (Photo: KY Nature Preserves Comm.)
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