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Science 13 September 1996:
Vol. 273. no. 5281, pp. 1555 - 1558
DOI: 10.1126/science.273.5281.1555
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Reports

Ecological Determinants of Species Loss in Remnant Prairies

Mark K. Leach and Thomas J. Givnish

Recensuses of 54 Wisconsin prairie remnants showed that 8 to 60 percent of the original plant species were lost from individual remnants over a 32- to 52-year period. The pattern of species loss was consistent with the proposed effects of fire suppression caused by landscape fragmentation. Short, small-seeded, or nitrogen-fixing plants showed the heaviest losses, as did species growing in the wettest, most productive environments. The interruption of landscape-scale processes (such as wildfire) by fragmentation is an often overlooked mechanism that may be eroding biodiversity in many habitats around the world.

Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA.


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