in Ecology

How to help a prairie: bring on the hungry bison

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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT
  • 29 August 2022

North America’s largest land mammal can double the diversity of native grasses through its grazing.

Home on the range: the American bison’s taste for prairie grasses helps to boost diversity of native flora (pictured, stiff goldenrod, Solidago rigida). Credit: Jill Haukos/Kansas State University


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Grazing animals can shape the grasslands they dine on by preferentially eating certain species, allowing other species to find a foothold. To quantify this effect, Zak Ratajczak at Kansas State University in Manhattan and his colleagues analysed 29 years’ worth of data from plots in an unploughed native tallgrass prairie in eastern Kansas1. Since 1992, the plots have been managed in one of three ways: year-round grazing by bison (Bison bison); seasonal grazing by cattle; or no grazing at all.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02332-4

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