Grassland

A grassland is an area where most of the plants are grasses. Some trees may grow in grasslands also, but most of the ground is covered in grasses or annual plants that people often call “weeds.” Many farmed areas are basically grasslands, including fields where people have planted row crops (crops like wheat and corn are grasses) or graze livestock (cows, sheep, etc.). Natural grasslands usually grow in areas where there’s not enough rain to support forest growth or where wildfires and grazing animals keep trees from dominating the grasses. Many areas that are farmed grasslands in Michigan were once forests, but the trees were cut down to make land for farming.

 
University of Michigan Museum of ZoologyNational Science Foundation

BioKIDS home  |  Questions?  |  Animal Diversity Web  |  Cybertracker Tools

BioKIDS is sponsored in part by the Interagency Education Research Initiative. It is a partnership of the University of Michigan School of Education, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, and the Detroit Public Schools. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DRL-0628151.
Copyright © 2002-2024, The Regents of the University of Michigan. All rights reserved.

University of Michigan