How/Where did Grasslands come from?. A

[dreamer.]

Hi,

 

How did grasslands evolve? When/Where did they come from?.

 

And just like grasslands evolved (example: lets say from barren land to green grass,etc.) , is it possible that nature could create something else?. What I mean by that question is, could nature produce something else? Any idea or along those lines?.

 

[arc]

Hi dreamer,

 

I'm far from an expert in this but there are clues to these environs that can be ascertained when closely compared to the surrounding regions. The great American grasslands are located on the leeward side of the Rocky Mountains that are high enough to limit great amounts of rainfall, the mountains take most of this rain as snow.

 

So, grasslands are dependent and controlled by the amount of precipitation they receive, which is too low for extended periods for trees to establish forests. This means their rainfall is in turn highly seasonal in nature. They are between a forest and a desert in rainfall amounts. And additional to that, the grasses are able to retain the restricted amount of moisture they do receive because they have dense root mats that help control the soils amount of moisture evaporation and wind erosion.

 

And also the grassland in many locations are overlaying large deposits of loess, a wind blow silt from far away locations that covered vast areas of Asia and the American Midwest during the past glacial periods that occurred periodically over the last several million years. The grasslands were growing as these layers were accumulating making these areas vast depositories of valuable top soil.

 

edit: spelling.

Edited December 22, 2014 by arc

[dreamer.]

Hi dreamer,

 

I'm far from an expert in this but there are clues to these environs that can be ascertained when closely compared to the surrounding regions. The great American grasslands are located on the leeward side of the Rocky Mountains that are high enough to limit great amounts of rainfall, the mountains take most of this rain as snow.

 

So, grasslands are dependent and controlled by the amount of precipitation they receive, which is too low for extended periods for trees to establish forests. This means their rainfall is in turn highly seasonal in nature. They are between a forest and a desert in rainfall amounts. And additional to that, the grasses are able to retain the restricted amount of moisture they do receive because they have dense root mattes that help control the soils amount of moisture evaporation and wind erosion.

 

And also the grassland in many locations are overlaying large deposits of loess, a wind blow silt from far away locations that covered vast areas of Asia and the American Midwest during the past glacial periods that occurred periodically over the last several million years. The grasslands were growing as these layers were accumulating making these areas vast depositories of valuable top soil.

aaah o.k thank you very very much.

 

but you know just like the way there's the common green grassland that is very beneficial to animals and humans (by allowing humans to grow crops,etc,etc)...

 

is it possible, that there could be other types of basic foundation

example: on a high hill on one side it was all green grassland (like normal), but then right next to the pasture, there was another section. the ground on this side was wet,boggy,full of natural herbs,etc. one part of this section, there was a certain plant that looked like a yellow Sponge that you find in the sea.

 

 

o.k: so grassland for human use is beneficial for crops,living,wildlife,etc,etc.

 

now take the rainforest amazon for example, and the tribes living there. the people (most of the tribes) there live a peaceful and loving life. but from what I read the life expectancy

 

so take this example:

amazon rainforest:

- lots of rain, full of nature, green, plants,animals,wildlife,etc. all that is good.

but the tribes living there may have a low life expectancy because certain diseases from the wild (this is just from one source I read).

 

now think of the Sponge found in the sea. certain sponge's have natural antibiotic activities. but lets say a certain Sponge like Porifera evovled into a new certain grassland, and this certain grassland by tribes walking on it,etc instead of lets say a certain grassland that could cause diseases.

 

 

my point is:

think of there being no grassland. and in South Africa drought is a major problem. but then add the grassland to drought areas in South Africa. the grassland may help the problem.

 

 

so the Sponge or lets say some moss.

 

and in certain areas, a type of moss/fungi integrates with the grassland, and as a result that fungi/moss/etc helps protect nature but also promote growth and all that.

 

please note: when I said the Sponge idea, that was just a by the side concept/to give you an idea. so you replace Sponge with something else lets say.

 

 

 

I apologize if the question may be silly or whatever but its just of great interest and I have no knowledge what so ever and would just like to learn more . thanks.

[arc]

aaah o.k thank you very very much.

 

but you know just like the way there's the common green grassland that is very beneficial to animals and humans (by allowing humans to grow crops,etc,etc)...

 

is it possible, that there could be other types of basic foundation

example: on a high hill on one side it was all green grassland (like normal), but then right next to the pasture, there was another section. the ground on this side was wet,boggy,full of natural herbs,etc. one part of this section, there was a certain plant that looked like a yellow Sponge that you find in the sea.

 

 

o.k: so grassland for human use is beneficial for crops,living,wildlife,etc,etc.

 

now take the rainforest amazon for example, and the tribes living there. the people (most of the tribes) there live a peaceful and loving life. but from what I read the life expectancy

 

so take this example:

amazon rainforest:

- lots of rain, full of nature, green, plants,animals,wildlife,etc. all that is good.

but the tribes living there may have a low life expectancy because certain diseases from the wild (this is just from one source I read).

 

now think of the Sponge found in the sea. certain sponge's have natural antibiotic activities. but lets say a certain Sponge like Porifera evovled into a new certain grassland, and this certain grassland by tribes walking on it,etc instead of lets say a certain grassland that could cause diseases.

 

 

my point is:

think of there being no grassland. and in South Africa drought is a major problem. but then add the grassland to drought areas in South Africa. the grassland may help the problem.

 

 

so the Sponge or lets say some moss.

 

and in certain areas, a type of moss/fungi integrates with the grassland, and as a result that fungi/moss/etc helps protect nature but also promote growth and all that.

 

please note: when I said the Sponge idea, that was just a by the side concept/to give you an idea. so you replace Sponge with something else lets say.

 

 

 

I apologize if the question may be silly or whatever but its just of great interest and I have no knowledge what so ever and would just like to learn more . thanks.

 

No problem. Its fun to speculate, but you have to try to keep it as tight as you can or it gets hard to maintain consanguinity. The people that live in the warmest regions do have the lowest life expectancy rates. This can be due to diseases that propagate well in hot humid environments or simply that it is historically very difficult to establish large, safe and well organised societies in very hot and humid landlocked areas near the equator. They seem to have a rather short run at it and then fall into social and or environmental decline. The Maya for example, it may have been environmental changes that brought them into their decline.

 

Smaller groups have done best along the coastal margins where food is more abundant, the interiors where most grasslands occur, are often too dry for grassland and boarder on being deserts if not one already. They are prone to change as glacials and interglacials come and go, changing rain patterns for long periods.

 

The man made dust bowl in the 1930's almost turned the American grasslands into desert when the exposed soil, due to over plowing, was blown away as far as the Atlantic ocean and even Africa. South Africa probably lacks the soil and the continual supply of loess that in conjunction with the grass hold the moisture over the long dry periods between rains.

 

It takes very specific circumstances to develop grasslands; an environment that allows the accumulation of the airborne loess within a existing grassland that will in turn hold on to it by constantly growing up through the accumulations, incorporating it into the growing soil mass under the grass' root mat, and the seasonal rains that are wetter than that of deserts but lower than that associated to forests.

[overtone]

If one is thinking of a stereotypical grassland, prairie type landscape,

 

1) too dry for rapid tree growth

2) large enough and fertile enough to support wildfire with some frequency.

 

There are natural "grasslands" that don't fit this - bamboo forests, canebrakes, the Pantanal - but people don't usually think of them as "grasslands". There are landscapes that look like grasslands that don't fit this, because they are human created and maintained - the green sod hills of Ireland and England, the "buffalo commons" prairie extension up the Ohio River valley in North America.

[Harold Squared]

Burning can turn forests into prairies. So can swine, through rooting for acorns and other tree nuts.

[pavelcherepan]

Burning can turn forests into prairies. So can swine, through rooting for acorns and other tree nuts.

 

Only temporarily. If the region's ecosystem is supportive of tree growth, they will grow back again. Grasslands on the other hand is a specific ecosystem where trees are rare due to low amounts of precipitation and also infertility of local soils.