stewardship | The Prairie Ecologist

This was a really fun week, but it was one jam packed with social interactions. The America’s Grasslands Conference happened just down the road and I gave a few presentations and several tours associated (officially and unofficially) with that. I also had a great time meeting new people and catching up with old ones. By the end of Thursday, though, my social engine was pretty much out of gas (I should probably think about upgrading to a more eco-friendly social engine).

As a result, on Friday morning, I got up and drove down to our family prairie to catch sunrise. I spent most of my time in the 80×80 foot plot there tied to the post-grazing photography project I’m doing this year. It was just the thing to reinvigorate me.

Purple prairie clover (*Dalea purpurea*)

The prairie was full of life and activity, even on a dewy morning. Purple prairie clover is starting to bloom across my project area, adding a lot of color, but also drawing a lot of attention from various invertebrates (more on that below). Yarrow, flax, and daisy fleabane were still in flower, but obviously on the back end of their blooming period. Upright prairie coneflower, hoary vervain, and other wildflowers were also joining the party.

Upright prairie coneflower (*Ratibida columnifera*)

We’ve had good rains lately, so there were mushrooms around, including on manure piles. I was surprised to see what I think are the same species on manure from last season as well as from this season (in areas outside of my photography project area). I guess I’d expected to see mushrooms on fresh dung, but not necessarily on older piles. Or that maybe that the fungal species would differ between young and old piles. I’m not really sure why I thought that, but either way, I was wrong. Look at me – learning new things!

Back to the prairie clover, I saw a few crab spiders hanging around on them, and some drone flies had shaken off the dew and were making the rounds looking for pollen. I only saw one bee, but I assume that’s because the others were waiting for the dew to dry – prairie clover is usually one of the top bee-attracting wildflowers in our prairie when it’s blooming. I’ll go back soon and see what’s happening when the whole prairie isn’t soaking wet.

What I saw most on those prairie clover flowers were little katydid nymphs. They were ubiquitous. Tiny, long-antennaed, grasshopper-like creatures were hanging out and (I think) feeding on the pollen and/or anthers of many of the flowers. (I just had to convince my computer that “antennaed” is a word. It keeps underlining it to highlight the fact that it doesn’t think it’s correct. I even looked up the word to make sure I wasn’t the crazy one. What’s funny, of course, is that I looked it up online, which is a skill you’d think my computer would also have.)

Most of the tiny katydid nymphs were only about 1/4 inch long, but their antennae were several times longer than their bodies. As I’ve done countless times before, I wondered how they managed to move around in the prairie with those things sticking out like that. You’d think they’d get hung up in the vegetation over and over. Can you imagine trying to walk through a forest with 25-foot fiberglass poles stuck to your head? It must be similar. It’s just one more reason to admire katydids, I guess.

There were lots of other invertebrates around, of course, including ladybirds, grasshoppers (large and small), flies, lynx spiders, wolf spiders, funnel-web spiders, and many others. Damselflies were particularly noticeable as I walked carefully through the vegetation. As I’d step, a few would fly a short distance away from my feet and land again. The only way I could get close enough to photograph them was to lie prone on the ground and army crawl slowly toward them, keeping my head low. Even then, of course, only a few let me get close. One of them was distracted (I assume) by the small insect it was feeding on. I never did figure out what it was eating. Initially, I thought mosquito, but looking at the photos later, I’m not sure.

Damselfly and sparkling morning dew drops.

The biggest highlight of the morning was seeing purple coneflower in bloom. This is a species that I’ve only seen a few times at my family prairie, and never in this particular location.

Purple coneflower (*Echinacea angustifolia*)

A couple weeks ago, I spotted two different individuals of purple coneflower and it looked like both were going to bloom. One of them was doing just that on Friday morning, with three flowers in various stages of opening. The mystery now is whether those plants have been hiding there for many years and I just noticed them this year or whether they came in from seed.

I’ve been overseeding the site every year for the last 15 years or so – tossing seed out in the winter where cattle had grazed hardest the previous season. It’s been a slow, gradual process because I don’t have a ton of time to harvest seed. I know I’ve had some purple coneflower in my mix a few times over the years, but definitely not within the last 4-5 years. Either way, it’s pretty fun that the first time I’ve seen them bloom is the year AFTER their part of the prairie experienced a year and a half of heavy grazing (the last half of the 2023 growing season and all of the 2024 season).

Purple coneflower and dotted gayfeather.

After a couple hours of exploring the prairie, I left for home feeling much better. That happens after walking any grassland, but the feelings are especially strong after I leave a prairie with which I have a strong connection.

At work, I have built lots of prairie from the ground up (both harvesting and planting the seed – with help from others, of course). Our family prairie has been under my management for about 20 years now, counting the years I helped my grandmother when she was still around. In both cases, the emotions that come with those personal ties are awfully profound. I know that every plant, every insect, every bird, skunk, mushroom, or other organism I see in those places is responding to a chain of events I helped put in motion through my restoration and/or stewardship work.

I mean – wow. Just wow.

What if I told you tallgrass prairie is a human construct?

Would you think it’s less important? Less natural? Less real?

I don’t know if “human construct” is a totally fair description, but it’s certainly true that tallgrass prairie in the central United States exists because of people. In many places, it formed because of people, and throughout its range, it relies on human stewardship for its continued persistence.

Let’s step back in time a little.

While the actual timing of human arrival in North America is still being debated, there is consensus that people were here well before the ice sheets receded from the center of the continent (between 8,000 and 12,000 years ago). Those humans played pivotal roles in the ecosystems they lived in. They hunted, cultivated and transported plants, and, perhaps most influentially, actively used fire in many different ways.

As the continent warmed and bloomed after the ice age, human stewardship shaped plant and animal communities. In particular, people burned the landscape around them enough to create grasslands in what otherwise would surely have been wooded landscapes. That was particularly important in the eastern portions of the tallgrass prairie. Lightning fires were part of that story, too, but they were much less significant than the frequent, intentional use of fire by people.

In other words, if it hadn’t been for people and their stewardship of the land, tallgrass prairies would not have existed across much of what is now the Midwestern United States. Throughout subsequent millennia, people have continued their stewardship, allowing prairies to persist in places where trees would otherwise have moved in.

Chelsea Forehead ignites a prairie that will help keep woody plants from taking over this prairie landscape.

Today, the majority of tallgrass prairie has been lost, of course – mostly through conversion to row crops. The prairie that remains still relies on continuous, thoughtful stewardship by people. Without active management with prescribed fire, haying, grazing, and/or targeted invasive species suppression, tallgrass prairie transitions to something else – shrubland, woodland, or a low-diversity herbaceous community that no longer qualifies as “prairie”.

Does that reliance on people make tallgrass prairies unnatural? Does it mean we should “let nature take its course” and allow tallgrass prairie to become what it’s supposed to become?

You’re welcome to form your own opinion, of course, but I feel strongly that the answer to both questions is no. Most ecosystems on earth are strongly tied to human stewardship and have been for tens of thousands of years. It’s not that those ecosystems or the species that depend upon them would all be destroyed in the absence of people, but they’d change dramatically – and many species would suffer as a result. We humans have certainly not always done the best job at land management but that doesn’t mean we can or should abdicate our responsibility as stewards.

Speaking more locally, prairie is amazing, beautiful, and complex. The incredible, diverse ecological communities that live in tallgrass prairie rely upon our continued attention and stewardship. Losing those would be an immense tragedy.

This photo captures the essence of prairie. The more you look, the more you see.

Tallgrass prairie isn’t less important, natural, or real because it relies upon humans. Instead, our long-standing, interconnected, and interdependent relationship with the prairie should increase its relevance and value to us.

Just as with any other worthwhile relationship, though, we can’t just ignore the prairie and hope for the best. Only thoughtful, adaptable care will ensure we can keep this good thing going for a very long time.

Additional Reading. If you want to learn more about the long relationship between humans and nature (prairies and otherwise), here are a few recent journal articles you might enjoy. They’ll get you started and provide many other references you can dig into if you want to keep going:

Impacts of indigenous burning in the Great Plains

Presence of people after the North American ice sheets receded

The shaping of global ecosystems by people for more than 12,000 years

The Prairie Ecologist

Essays, photos, and discussion about prairie ecology, restoration, and management

Tag Archives: stewardship

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