Shortgrass prairie

The shortgrass prairie is an ecosystem located in the Great Plains of North America. The prairie includes lands to the west as far as the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains and extends east as far as Nebraska and north into Saskatchewan. The prairie stretches through parts of Alberta, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Kansas, and passes south through the high plains of Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico.

The prairie was formerly maintained by grazing pressure of American bison, which is the keystone species. The two most dominant grasses in the shortgrass prairie are blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) and buffalograss (Bouteloua dactyloides), the two less dominant grasses in the prairie are greasegrass (Tridens flavus) and sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula). Due to its semiarid climate, the shortgrass prairie receives on average less precipitation than that of the tall and mixed grass prairies to the east.