Partner Spotlight

Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

The USGS Northern Praire Wildlife Research Center (Jamestown, ND) is a key Mountain Prairie partner. Their web site offers an extensive collection of resources including species accounts, identification tools, resource management techniques, publications, distribution maps, and additional resources on the biotic resources of the Great Plains and the Prairie Pothole Region.

The Prairie Pothole Region

Prairie Pothole Wetlands
Prairie Pothole Wetlands in South Dakota [Photo: Don Poggensee, NRCS]

The Prairie Pothole Region of North America stretches from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in Canada to Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa. Prairie "potholes" are wetlands that fill with snowmelt and rain in the spring. Some of these wetlands are temporary and others are semi-permanent. They support more than 50% of North American migratory waterfowl, and they mediate flooding by absorbing enormous amounts of water. Because this region is highly productive, more than half of all prairie pothole wetlands have been drained or altered for agricultural use.


Research Publications

Resources About the Prairie Pothole Region
Showing 20 Results
CollapseAmerican Woodcock Conservation Plan: A Summary of and Recommendations for Woodcock Conservation in North America
Description: The goal of the Woodcock Conservation Plan is to halt the decline of woodcock populations and to return them to densities which provide adequate opportunity for utilization of the woodcock resource. The Plan contains a summary of population trends, breeding behavior, habitat requirements, limiting factors, and ecology of the American Woodcock. The Plan determines the extent of population loss from the early 1970s, as well as the loss of early succession habitat since that time. Then, authors calculated the acreage of early succession habitat that must be created in each bird conservation region (BCR) and state to return woodcock densities to those observed in the early 1970s.
Resource Type: Management Plans and Reports
Resource Format: PDF
Publisher: Wildlife Management Institute
ExpandBird Conservation Region 11: Prairie Potholes
ExpandChapter 11: Endangered Aquatic Habitats
ExpandConservation Planning in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States: Integration Between an Existing Waterfowl Plan and an Emerging Non-game Bird Model
ExpandDistribution and Abundance of Predators that Affect Duck Production
ExpandFish and Wildlife Habitat Management Leaflet: Shorebirds
ExpandGround-Water Hydrology of Prairie Potholes in North Dakota
ExpandInitial Results of Molecular Analysis of Major Members of the Microbial Community of a Semipermanent Prairie Pothole Wetland Soil
ExpandNorthern Mixed-Grass Prairie
ExpandNorthern Plains/Prairie Pothole Regional Shorebird Conservation Plan
ExpandPaddy O'Mallard Story
ExpandPartners in Flight Bird Conservation Plan for the Northern Mixed-Grass Prairie
ExpandPrairie Wetlands are Important for Carbon Storage
ExpandStatus and Trends of the Nation's Biological Resources - Grasslands
ExpandTypes of Wetlands
ExpandUpper Missouri Coteau
ExpandWetland Birds of the Northern Great Plains
ExpandWetlands of the Prairie Pothole Region: Invertebrate Species Composition, Ecology, and Management
ExpandWetlands: Prairie Potholes
ExpandWhat’s It Like Where You Live: Fresh Water Wetlands

Prairie Pothole Region

Map of the Prairie Pothole Region of North America
[Image: Aaron Jones, Big Sky Institute]

Species Supported by Prairie Potholes

Yellow-headed Blackbird
Yellow-headed Blackbird
[Photo: Tim McCabe, NRCS]

Western Grebe
Western Grebe [Photo: Tim McCabe, NRCS]

Turtles on a log
Turtles on a log [Photo: Dennis Larson, NRCS]

Great Egret
Great Egret
[Photo: Don Poggensee, NRCS]

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