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The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America. Natural and anthropogenic fire as well as grazing by large mammals (primarily bison) were historically agents of periodic disturbance, which regulates tree encroachment, recycles nutrients back to the soil, and catalyzes some seed dispersal and germination processes. Prior to widespread utilization of the steel plow, which enabled conversion to agricultural land use, tallgrass prairies expanded throughout the American Midwest and smaller portions of southern central Canada, from the transitional ecotones out of eastern North American forests, west to a climatic threshold based on precipitation and soils, to the southern reaches of the Flint Hills in Oklahoma, to a transition into forest in Manitoba. They were characteristically found in the central forest-grasslands transition, the central tall grasslands, the upper Midwest forest-savanna transition, and the northern tall grasslands ecoregions. They flourished in areas with rich loess soils and moderate rainfall of around per year. To the east were the fire-maintained eastern savannas. In the northeast, where fire was infrequent and periodic windthrow represented the main source of disturbance, beech-maple forests dominated. In contrast, shortgrass prairie was typical in the western Great Plains, where rainfall is less frequent and soils are less fertile. Due to expansive agricultural land use, very little tallgrass prairie remains. ==History of origin and demise== Retreating glaciers deposited the parent material for soil in the form of till, i.e. unsorted sediment, about 10,000 years ago. Wind dropped loess and organic matter accumulated resulting in the deepest level of topsoil recorded anywhere. Animals like buffalo, elk, deer and rabbits added nitrogen to the soil through urine and feces. Prairie dogs, a ground-squirrel-like rodent that is considered a keystone species, dug tunnels that "aerated the soil and channeled water several feet below the surface."〔Pam Graham: “Tallgrass Prairie”ProQuest Discovery Guides http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/discoveryguides-main.php Released November 2011.〕 For 5,000 to 8,000 years, more than of prairie grasslands were a major feature of the landscape.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Microbes Beneath the Surface )〕 Between 1800 and 1930 the vast majority were destroyed. Settlers transformed what they named "The Great American Desert," or "The Inland Sea," into farmland. Major reasons for the prairie's demise were the confined grazing pattern of European cattle versus bison, the near-extermination of prairie dogs, and the plowing and cultivation of the land, which breached tallgrass root systems and interrupted reproduction. Further, extensive tile drainage has changed the soil's water content and hydrodynamics, and ongoing soil erosion results in its increasing loss. There are different estimates of how much original tallgrass prairie survives, ranging from less than 1 percent mostly in "scattered remnants found in pioneer cemeteries, restoration projects, along highways and railroad rights-of-way, and on steep bluffs high above rivers"〔 to 4 percent. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tallgrass prairie」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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