When Europeans first reached North America, prairie land covered more than a quarter of the continental United States. A highly complex system of interdependent plants and animals, the prairie once supported some 60 million bison. By 1900, the American westward expansion had virtually wiped out the bison, the prairie and the Plains Indians who once lived there. Prairie plants are specially adapted to fire. Their deep root systems help them survive and are even stimulated by a blaze.
Bison like to graze on the young tender grass shoots that grow in the aftermath of a burn.
This basic interaction is the foundation of prairie ecosystems. The flowering plants the bison don t eat grow back in force since they have less competition from the grasses. These plants then attract an array of birds, insects and small mammals. Eventually the grasses grow back, they burn again, and the whole process starts over. Though the Great Plains may never return to their former glory, with carefully timed and rotating burns, the quintessential American ecosystem may return to at least this small portion of land.