Landscape Ecology of Prairie Patches in Southern Missouri.

Habitat fragmentation is the process where large complex habitats are divided and separated into smaller "patches" with little transitional habitat between one habitat type to the next. Fragmentation is largely an anthropogenic issue caused by development, spread of agriculture, and improper management of land. Prairies and grasslands are particularly at risk and these habitats are home to species of plants, mammals and other wildlife groups that rely on large unfragmented grasslands to thrive. The historic prairies of Missouri have been heavily fragmented and isolated from one another and many of the prairie patches are surrounded by agriculture and other less than ideal landcover types. Here, I aim to understand the effects of agriculture on the native plant communities within prairie patches of southern Missouri. Using the Quantum Geographic Information System (QGIS) and the statistical programing language R, we show that increased agriculture surrounding a prairie decreases native plant richness within the plant community of the prairie patches in our study. Missouri's landscape is dominated by agriculture and the remnants of prairie are likely becoming both encroached upon and isolated from one another by agricultural land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]