Management techniques should be chosen for their beneficial effects. Such management techniques should be carefully applied to small portions of each biological community, so as to leave a refuge for species which may be harmed by the given management technique. In general, prairies thrive by occasional influence of grazing and fire. Without such influences, the prairie grasslands progress by succession to poor quality woodlands. Grazing is a natural phenomenon.
Herbivores are an important component of the prairie ecosystem.
They cause considerable damage to woody vegetation by browsing, gnawing and rubbing. Grazing, like fire, probably was fairly random and irregular, although sometimes locally intense and repetitive. Fire patterns were probably patchy, random, and irregular, depending on wind, temperature, terrain of the land, and the amount of fuel left by grazers. Some fires were started by Native Americans. These factors would have left unburned swaths of land, which allowed the survival and enhancement of species adversely affected by fire.