The Jackson Prairie is a

temperate grassland Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands is a terrestrial biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The predominant vegetation in this biome consists of grass and/or shrubs. The climate is temperate and ranges from semi-arid to semi ...

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of l ...

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. It is a disjunct of the Black Belt (or Black Prairie)

physiographic Physical geography (also known as physiography) is one of the three main branches of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere, h ...

area.

Description

The prairie is a narrow strip across the state from the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

to the border of

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

. It is only across at its widest, and generally wide. It runs in a diagonal line from near

Jackson Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Q ...

in the northwest, through

Bienville National Forest Bienville National Forest is a United States National Forest in central Mississippi, named for Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. In descending order of land area, it lies in parts of Scott, Smith, Jasper, and Newton counties and has an area ...

and southeast to the Alabama border. The contrast between the

alkali In chemistry, an alkali (; from ar, القلوي, al-qaly, lit=ashes of the saltwort) is a basic, ionic salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as a base that dissolves in water. A solution of a ...

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...

of the prairies and the

acid In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...

ic soil of the forests causes the sharp delineation in plant types in each region. In the western portion of the prairie, the

is a brown

loess Loess (, ; from german: Löss ) is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loess or similar deposits. Loess is a periglacial or aeolian ...

loam Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–sil ...

over

calcareous Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines. In zoology ''Calcareous'' is used as an adje ...

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

. In hilly areas, the clay is covered by red and yellow

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...

from the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58depend on periodic outbreaks of fire to keep the forest from overgrowing the prairie.

Flora and fauna

The prairie used to support quantities of

bobwhite quail The northern bobwhite (''Colinus virginianus''), also known as the Virginia quail or (in its home range) bobwhite quail, is a ground-dwelling bird native to Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Cuba, with introduced populations elsewhere in th ...

(''Colinus virginianus''),

eastern wild turkey The wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') is an upland ground bird native to North America, one of two extant species of turkey and the heaviest member of the order Galliformes. It is the ancestor to the domestic turkey, which was originally de ...

(''Meleagris gallopavo silvestris''), and a variety of

songbird A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 500 ...

species.

Conservation

Because of the soil and climate, this ecoregion is ideally suited for farming, leading to most of the prairie being converted into farmland and crop agriculture. There are a few remaining sections in the

, including the largest remaining undisturbed portion at the

Harrell Prairie Botanical Area Harrell Prairie Botanical Area or Harrell Prairie Hill is a tallgrass prairie nature preserve located within Bienville National Forest near Forest, Mississippi. It is a rare remaining example of the Jackson Prairie Belt in Mississippi. It was ...

. The

Grassland Reserve Program The Grasslands Reserve Program (GRP) was a United States government program, administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, that provided financial assistance to farmers and landowners to restore grasslands. The 2002 farm bill authoriz ...

of 2002 enabled agencies to purchase

conservation easement In the United States, a conservation easement (also called conservation covenant, conservation restriction or conservation servitude) is a power invested in a qualified private land conservation organization (often called a "land trust") or gove ...

s to protect prairies.

References

{{coord, 32.389473, -89.624519, display=title Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands Grasslands of Mississippi

Description

Flora and fauna

Conservation

See also

References