Creating the Prairie Xeriscape

Family Life on the Prairie

The prairie vole has become a flagship species for the biomedical exploration of the neurobiology of social bonding (Carter et al., 1995; Young et al., 2005). It is a species native to the prairies of Midwest North America, and adults show social “ monogamy” – a suite of behaviors including the formation of an emotional pair-bond with an adult partner; shared care of offspring including male ca...

Patterns of the Prairie Houses

This paper attempts distillation of the essential design themes of Frank Lloyd Wright’s prairie houses in pattern form. The result is a pattern language fragment that documents the key features of Wright’s architectural style and an interpretation of Wright’s design justifications and motivations. The exercise serves to illustrate the use of patterns and pattern languages in post hoc design doc...

Vegetation of Prairie Dog Colonies and Non-Colonized Shortgrass Prairie

Black-tailed prairie dogs have declined by 98% in the past century. Due to continued declines, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the species as a candidate for listing in 2000. Prairie dogs foster both plant and animal diversity, and their continued presence is a concern in the Great Plains. We compared vegetation structure and composition of black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludov...

The influence of aridity and fire on holocene prairie communities in the eastern Prairie Peninsula.

The role of climate and fire in the development, maintenance, and species composition of prairie in the eastern axis of the tallgrass Prairie Peninsula intrigued early North American ecologists. However, evaluation of the long-standing hypotheses about the region's environmental history has been hampered by the scarcity of paleorecords. We conducted multiproxy analyses on early and middle Holoc...

The Vegetation Regions of the Prairie Province