Temperate grasslands stretch across every continent except Antarctica, forming vast open landscapes wherever moderate rainfall, seasonal temperature swings, and periodic disturbance keep trees from taking over. The largest expanses lie in the interiors of North America, South America, and Eurasia, but significant patches also survive in southern Africa, southeastern Australia, and New Zealand. Despite their global reach, these grasslands are among the most transformed and least protected ecosystems on Earth, with only about five percent formally conserved within protected areas.
The Great Plains of North America
The most familiar temperate grassland for many readers is the Great Plains, which once covered a wide belt from central Canada south through the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, and into Texas. This region historically supported three broad grassland types, grading from west to east with increasing rainfall. Shortgrass prairie hugged the drier western edge near the Rockies, tallgrass prairie occupied the wetter eastern fringe where grasses could reach head height, and mixed-grass prairie filled the transition in between. Much of the tallgrass prairie has been plowed for corn and soy, while the drier shortgrass regions survive in greater proportion because they are harder to farm. Pockets of native prairie persist in places like the Flint Hills of Kansas, one of the last large tracts of unplowed tallgrass left.
Smaller temperate grasslands in North America also include the Palouse prairie of the Pacific Northwest and the intermountain grasslands of the northern Rockies. These are often overlooked because they sit in the rain shadow of mountain ranges, and their plant communities look different from the classic Great Plains flora. But they share the defining trait of all temperate grasslands: a climate with warm summers, cold winters, and enough moisture for grasses to thrive but not enough (or too seasonally distributed) for dense forest to establish without help.
The Eurasian Steppe
The world’s largest continuous grassland belt runs across Eurasia, from Hungary and Ukraine in the west through Kazakhstan and Mongolia all the way to northeastern China. This is the steppe, a word borrowed from Russian that has become the global shorthand for vast, treeless grassland. A forest-grassland mosaic within this zone covers roughly 4.7 million square kilometers, shaped by a combination of climate, topography, soils, herbivory, and fire.1PubMed Central. How climate, topography, soils, herbivores, and fire control forest-grassland coexistence in the Eurasian forest-steppe In drier parts of the belt, grass dominates outright; in wetter or more sheltered areas, patches of forest interleave with open grassland.
The steppe’s history is deeply tied to human activity. During the Soviet Union’s Virgin Lands Campaign from 1954 to 1963, roughly 23 million hectares of steppe grassland in northern Kazakhstan alone were converted to cropland.2Environmental Research Letters. Long-term agricultural land-cover change and potential for cropland expansion in the former Virgin Lands area of Kazakhstan Some of that land was later abandoned when yields dropped, but the original grassland vegetation has not fully recovered in many areas. Further east, temperate grasslands in northeastern China and southeastern Mongolia follow a precipitation gradient, with plant communities shifting as annual rainfall changes across the landscape.3Journal of Arid Environments. Plant functional types and climate along a precipitation gradient in temperate grasslands, north-east China and south-east Mongolia
The Pampas and Patagonian Steppe of South America
South America’s answer to the Great Plains is the Río de la Plata Grasslands, better known as the Pampas, which cover more than 700,000 square kilometers across central-eastern Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil between about 28° and 38° south latitude.4Elsevier. Characterizing fragmentation in temperate South America grasslands Grassland remains the dominant land cover in the Pampas, occupying about two-thirds of the region, though the proportion varies. The southeastern Flooding Pampa retains more native grass cover because its waterlogged soils discourage cultivation, while the northern Rolling Pampa has lost a larger share to farming.4Elsevier. Characterizing fragmentation in temperate South America grasslands
South of the Pampas, the Patagonian steppe extends into the cold, windy interior of southern Argentina. This is a harsher landscape with lower rainfall and shorter grasses, but it qualifies as temperate grassland in the broad sense. The combination of Atlantic and Pacific weather systems, the rain shadow of the Andes, and the latitude all work together to keep this region open. Patagonia’s grasslands face overgrazing pressure from sheep ranching, which has degraded large areas since European settlement in the nineteenth century.
Southern Africa’s Highveld Grasslands
A less well-known concentration of temperate grassland sits on the high interior plateau of South Africa, commonly called the Highveld. These grasslands occupy a wide altitudinal range, supported by tall and medium-tall grasses that thrive across a variety of conditions.5South African Journal of Botany. Temperate grassy wetlands of South Africa: Description, classification and explanatory environmental factors Wetness and altitude are the strongest environmental factors shaping the plant communities in these grassy wetlands, which can extend beyond the core grassland biome into adjacent vegetation types.5South African Journal of Botany. Temperate grassy wetlands of South Africa: Description, classification and explanatory environmental factors
South Africa’s grasslands are unusual among temperate systems because they sit in the subtropics but at high enough elevation (typically 1,200 to 1,800 meters) to experience cool winters with frost, which functionally makes them temperate. They share the global pattern of being heavily converted for agriculture and urban expansion, especially around Johannesburg and Pretoria, which sit squarely in what was once open grassland.
Australia and New Zealand
Temperate grasslands in Australia are scattered across the southeastern part of the continent, particularly in Victoria, parts of New South Wales, and the Australian Capital Territory. These grasslands are among the most endangered plant communities in Australia, reduced to small fragments by urban sprawl and farming. Restoration projects in urban and peri-urban Australia now use satellite imagery to track how well restored grasslands match the seasonal growth patterns of native remnants, and the results so far suggest that restored sites closely resemble remnant reference sites in their vegetation cycles.6Applied Vegetation Science. Pixel Patchwork: Monitoring Temperate Grassland Restoration Success With Sentinel‐2 Phenology Metrics in Urban Australia
New Zealand has its own distinctive temperate grasslands, dominated by tussock grasses rather than the sod-forming species typical of other continents. Before European settlement, indigenous grasslands covered roughly 82,000 square kilometers, or about 31 percent of New Zealand’s land area.7New Zealand Journal of Botany. The conservation status of New Zealand’s indigenous grasslands Most of this grassland was in the South Island, which held the greatest extent of all four major tussock types. The drier, lower-elevation grasslands have suffered the greatest losses, while high-altitude snow tussock grasslands in the mountains have fared better because they are harder to convert.7New Zealand Journal of Botany. The conservation status of New Zealand’s indigenous grasslands
High-Altitude Grasslands at the Edges of “Temperate”
The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau deserves a mention even though its grasslands are technically classified as alpine rather than temperate. It is the largest single area of alpine grassland on Earth and serves as an important gene pool of alpine biological resources.8Grassland Research. Revitalizing the grassland on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau The plateau sits so high (averaging over 4,000 meters) that it has cold temperatures year-round, making it a different beast from the lowland or mid-elevation temperate grasslands discussed above. Still, its plant communities share many functional traits with temperate grasslands, and researchers studying global grassland distribution often include it in broad surveys because of its sheer size and ecological significance.
Other high-altitude grasslands blur the boundary between temperate and alpine in the Andes, the Ethiopian Highlands, and the mountains of Central Asia. The classification depends on whether you define “temperate” by latitude, by temperature regime, or by the plant species present. In practice, many grasslands in transitional zones share ecological processes with true temperate systems, including the same dependence on fire, grazing, and seasonal drought to prevent woody plant invasion.
What Keeps Grasslands Open
A common misconception is that grasslands exist only because it is too dry for trees. Rainfall matters, but many temperate grasslands receive enough precipitation to support woodland. What keeps them open is a combination of fire, grazing, and seasonal water stress working together. Remove any of these pressures and shrubs or trees often start moving in.
Fire is arguably the single most important force maintaining grasslands in wetter regions. Grasses survive fire easily because their growing points sit at or below ground level, while many woody seedlings are killed outright. In tallgrass prairie, prescribed burning combined with browsing by large herbivores reduced the cover of resprouting shrubs by about 90 percent and boosted grass cover by roughly 80 percent in one study.9PubMed. Browsing and fire decreases dominance of a resprouting shrub in woody encroached grassland In European temperate grasslands, where fire has been used less aggressively, researchers have found that both burning and cutting can control shrub encroachment, though the treatments need to be intensive enough to damage resprouting buds.10Applied Vegetation Science. Resprouting of woody species encroaching temperate European grasslands after cutting and burning
Large herbivores also play a central role. Bison grazing in semi-arid grasslands can trigger an overcompensatory response in plants, where grazed grasses actually produce more biomass than ungrazed ones because of improved nutrient cycling, increased light penetration, and soil moisture changes.11PubMed Central. The role of bison (Bison bison) herbivory in the function of semi‐arid grasslands of Arizona This kind of grazing-adapted resilience is not unique to bison; wild horses on the Eurasian steppe, guanacos in Patagonia, and various antelope species in South Africa all exert similar pressures that help keep grasslands from converting to shrubland or forest.
Indigenous peoples have also shaped grassland landscapes for millennia through cultural burning, which has deep cultural, ecological, and societal significance.12PubMed Central. Plant Responses to a Re-emergence of Cultural Burning in Long-Unburnt, Threatened Temperate Woodlands In many parts of Australia and North America, the suppression of Indigenous fire management over the past two centuries has contributed to woody encroachment and the decline of grassland extent.
The Soils Beneath Temperate Grasslands
Temperate grasslands sit on some of the richest agricultural soils on the planet, which is both their ecological signature and the main reason so many have been plowed. The characteristic soil type is the Mollisol, recognized by its deep, dark topsoil loaded with organic carbon from centuries of grass roots decomposing in place. Globally, the average topsoil layer of a Mollisol is about 50 centimeters thick, and the top 30 centimeters hold an average organic carbon pool of roughly 84 tonnes per hectare. Mollisols under grassland store more carbon than those under crops or forest.13Geoderma. Organic carbon in Mollisols of the world − A review
In Canada, these soils are classified as Chernozemic soils, and their carbon storage varies dramatically by climate zone. In the driest Brown soil zone, carbon stocks run around 60 to 80 tonnes per hectare, while in the wetter Black soil zone they reach 120 to 150 tonnes per hectare.14Canadian Journal of Soil Science. Chernozemic soils of Canada: Genesis, distribution, and classification The difference tracks closely with the annual water deficit: drier conditions mean less grass growth and less organic matter reaching the soil. This gradient repeats worldwide. The black soils of Ukraine’s steppe and the rich chernozems of the Argentine Pampas developed through the same basic process of deep grass root systems delivering carbon below ground, where it accumulates over thousands of years.
Tillage disrupts this carbon accumulation. Conventional plowing homogenizes the soil’s organic matter within the plow layer and preferentially breaks down the freshest, most nutrient-rich organic compounds, leaving behind chemically processed residues.15European Journal of Soil Science. Depth and Tillage Dependent Stoichiometry of C, N, S, and H in Ukrainian Mollisol Shallower, less invasive tillage preserves a more natural layering of organic matter, keeping the soil closer to its grassland state. This finding has practical implications for farmers on former grassland soils who want to maintain long-term productivity: reducing tillage intensity helps preserve the soil carbon and structure that centuries of grass built up.
Why Temperate Grasslands Are the Least Protected Biome
Globally, only about 4.6 percent of native temperate grasslands fall within formally protected areas, making them the least protected of all terrestrial biomes.16Biodiversity and Conservation. Global plight of native temperate grasslands: going, going, gone? This low figure partly reflects the fact that grasslands occupy flat, fertile land that governments and settlers have historically prioritized for agriculture. Protected area systems worldwide were built around scenic landscapes: mountains, forests, coastlines, and deserts. Flat grassland, no matter how ecologically rich, has rarely inspired the same protective impulse.
The best remaining opportunities to expand grassland protection lie in central, eastern, and western Asia, where landscape-scale tracts of native grassland still exist in reasonable condition.16Biodiversity and Conservation. Global plight of native temperate grasslands: going, going, gone? Conservation strategies in these regions are increasingly looking to Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas as legitimate, recognized forms of protection. In regions like the Great Plains or the Pampas, where conversion is already extensive, conservation focuses more on managing remnants and restoring degraded patches than on large-scale protection.
Water, Drought, and a Drying Trend
Temperate grasslands are precipitation-driven systems, and their water balance is often precarious. In Inner Mongolia, long-term monitoring has revealed a persistent drying trend in deeper soil layers, driven by declining rainfall totals and a shift toward fewer large storm events.17American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. Evapotranspiration and soil moisture dynamics in a temperate grassland ecosystem in Inner Mongolia China Surface soil moisture showed no obvious trend because shallow layers recharge quickly from small rain events, but the deeper layers that grasses rely on during dry spells have been losing moisture steadily. Regional groundwater overdraft may compound the problem, though separating its effect from climate-driven drying is difficult.
This kind of slow soil drying can shift the competitive balance between plant species. Shallow-rooted annual grasses gain an advantage when only surface moisture is available, potentially replacing deeper-rooted perennials that anchor the soil and store more carbon. The water dynamics of temperate grasslands are not something most people think about, but they are central to understanding why these ecosystems look different from decade to decade even when rainfall totals seem similar.
How Climate Change Is Shifting Grassland Boundaries
Warming temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns are already changing which types of grasses dominate temperate grasslands. Climate projections for North and South America suggest that warm-season grasses will expand at the expense of cool-season grasses across most of the temperate grassland range, with warm-season species projected to increase their relative abundance by more than ten percent throughout much of the study area.18Journal of Biogeography. The relative abundance of three plant functional types in temperate grasslands and shrublands of North and South America: effects of projected climate change Cool-season grasses were projected to decline nearly everywhere except parts of the northwestern Great Plains and north-central Argentina.18Journal of Biogeography. The relative abundance of three plant functional types in temperate grasslands and shrublands of North and South America: effects of projected climate change
Shrub dynamics under climate change are murkier. Some models project shrub increases in Patagonia and the desert Southwest of the United States, while others show decreases, and the geographic patterns vary across models. What this means in practice is that the boundaries and character of temperate grasslands are likely to shift over the coming decades, not disappearing entirely but looking different. Ranchers and land managers in grassland regions will need to adapt their expectations about which forage species grow well and how seasonal growth patterns change.
Restoring Grasslands That Have Already Been Lost
Restoring a temperate grassland is much harder than destroying one. Plowing a prairie takes a season; rebuilding the plant community takes years or decades, and even then the results are imperfect. A recurring challenge in grassland restoration is that certain ecologically important plant species simply fail to return even after years of management. Researchers have developed diagnostic tools to identify why target species are missing from restored sites, examining factors that range from genetic limitations and seed availability to soil chemistry and land-management history.19Frontiers in Conservation Science. Why are some plant species missing from restorations? A diagnostic tool for temperate grassland ecosystems
Weed invasion is arguably the single biggest obstacle. A global review of temperate grassland restoration efforts found that no single technique reliably controls weeds across all sites, but using a combination of at least four restoration techniques together, such as herbicide treatment, prescribed fire, native seed addition, and mowing, produced the highest levels of success.20Land Degradation & Development. Weed management for landscape scale restoration of global temperate grasslands Any form of transferring target plant material to the site, whether through direct seeding, transplanting plugs, or spreading hay from a donor meadow, significantly improved outcomes and reduced exotic plant cover.20Land Degradation & Development. Weed management for landscape scale restoration of global temperate grasslands The same review stressed that ongoing weed management should be budgeted into every restoration project from the start, because exotic species do not simply fade away once natives are established.
In urban Australia, satellite monitoring of restored grasslands found that the peak vegetation greenness of restored sites was only about eight percent lower than that of remnant native grasslands, while sites dominated by non-native species had values 44 percent higher than the restored sites, largely because non-native vegetation produces more leaf area.6Applied Vegetation Science. Pixel Patchwork: Monitoring Temperate Grassland Restoration Success With Sentinel‐2 Phenology Metrics in Urban Australia Counterintuitively, “greener” does not mean healthier in this context. A restored grassland that looks less lush to a satellite sensor is actually more closely mimicking the structure of the original native community. Remote-sensing tools like this are giving restoration practitioners a way to track success at scale without needing to survey every site on foot.