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Applied Quiz: Prairie Plants and Grasslands

A second set of questions on this chapter, weighted toward using the ideas rather than recalling them. Each one puts you in a situation and asks what the chapter's framework says to do.

1. A neighbor watches a crew burn a restored prairie in April and calls the city to report that they destroyed it. Using this chapter, what has he misread?

  1. Nothing — spring burns do set restorations back a year
  2. Prairie plants keep their growing points underground in root crowns, rhizomes, taproots and corms, so fire removes thatch and woody seedlings while the prairie itself survives and regrows within weeks
  3. Burning is only safe in fall, so he is right about the timing
  4. Fire helps wildflowers but kills the grasses
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. This is the counterintuitive core of prairie ecology: the visible plant burns, the living plant does not. Option D reverses the chapter's point — warm-season grasses like Big Bluestem are the species most strongly favored by fire.

Concept Tested: Fire Ecology

See: Chapter 3

2. A prairie remnant has gone unburned for 25 years. What would you expect to find, and why?

  1. A richer prairie, because nothing has disturbed it
  2. Thick thatch smothering new growth, encroaching shrubs and tree seedlings, and declining wildflower diversity — the prairie converting toward shrubland
  3. No change at all; prairies are stable without management
  4. More warm-season grass, because fire suppresses it
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter's fire cycle diagram runs thatch accumulation → smothered growth and establishing tree seedlings → and only fire breaks that loop. Without it the succession runs to shrubland and eventually forest. Option A is the intuition the chapter is written to correct: for prairie, "leave it alone" is a management decision with a predictable outcome.

Concept Tested: Woody Encroachment and Prairie Management

See: Chapter 3

3. You seed a new prairie in spring. By August the site is dominated by Canada Wild Rye and there is very little Big Bluestem. Should you be worried?

  1. Yes — the seed mix was clearly wrong
  2. No — cool-season natives like Canada Wild Rye establish quickly and hold the ground while slower warm-season grasses develop their root systems; this is the expected first-year pattern
  3. Yes — Canada Wild Rye is an invasive species
  4. No, but only because Big Bluestem never grows in Minnesota
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter describes exactly this role for native cool-season grasses in restorations — fast establishment and ground cover while the warm-season species take hold. Option C confuses a native cool-season grass with the genuinely problematic non-native ones, Smooth Brome and Kentucky Bluegrass.

Concept Tested: Warm-Season vs. Cool-Season Grasses

See: Chapter 3

4. Two grasses grow side by side. One greens up in April and browns in July heat; the other barely appears until June and peaks in August. What does this chapter say is going on?

  1. The second one is diseased
  2. The first is a cool-season (C3) grass and the second is warm-season (C4); their photosynthetic pathways make them efficient at different temperatures, so they split the growing season between them
  3. The second was planted later
  4. The first is native and the second is not
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. C4 photosynthesis is more efficient in hot, bright conditions, which is why warm-season grasses dominate July and August while cool-season grasses do their work at the shoulders of the season. This complementarity is a large part of why a prairie stays productive all year.

Concept Tested: C3 and C4 Photosynthesis

See: Chapter 3

5. A developer strips and stockpiles topsoil from a prairie remnant, then spreads it back after grading and reseeds with prairie species. Establishment is poor. What does the chapter's soil ecology suggest?

  1. The seed was bad
  2. Prairie soil is a living system — stripping and stockpiling destroys the mycorrhizal fungal networks that more than 80% of prairie plant species depend on for water and phosphorus
  3. Topsoil should never be replaced after grading
  4. The site needs more fertilizer
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter describes a teaspoon of prairie soil holding billions of bacteria and miles of fungal hyphae, and names the mycorrhizal dependence explicitly. Moving soil moves the mineral fraction but wrecks the biology. Option D can actively make it worse, since high fertility favors weeds over prairie species.

Concept Tested: Prairie Soil Ecology and Mycorrhizae

See: Chapter 3

6. Someone argues that prairie stores less carbon than forest because the plants are smaller. What does this chapter let you say?

  1. They are right — above-ground biomass is what counts
  2. About two-thirds of prairie biomass is below ground, in roots reaching 6 to 15 feet, so judging prairie by what shows above the surface badly undercounts it
  3. Prairies store no carbon at all
  4. Carbon storage is irrelevant to prairie ecology
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter's vertical-structure diagram labels the below-ground section as two-thirds of biomass, with Compass Plant and Leadplant roots reaching 10 to 15 feet. Prairie carbon lives in the soil, which is also why it persists after a fire that removes everything visible.

Concept Tested: Prairie Root Systems

See: Chapter 3

7. You have a dry, rocky, south-facing slope with thin soil. Which of these five prairie grasses is the best fit?

  1. Big Bluestem, because it is the signature tallgrass species
  2. Little Bluestem, which is adapted to dry, rocky, low-fertility ground and holds copper color through winter
  3. Switchgrass, because it tolerates any condition
  4. None — prairie grasses all need deep rich soil
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter separates the big five by niche rather than treating them as interchangeable. Big Bluestem wants moist deep soil, Switchgrass leans wet, and Little Bluestem is the dry-site species. Option D contradicts the chapter's whole framing of prairie as a set of matched niches.

Concept Tested: Prairie Grass Niches

See: Chapter 3

8. A land manager wants to increase wildflower diversity in a prairie dominated by Big Bluestem. Based on this chapter, what lever does she have?

  1. Burn every spring, since spring burns favor forbs
  2. Vary burn timing and frequency — spring burns favor warm-season grasses, while fall burns and longer intervals give some forbs a better chance
  3. Stop burning entirely
  4. Add fertilizer to boost flowering
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter states that species differ in their fire response and that this variation is precisely why managers change frequency and timing to steer composition. Option A picks the burn regime that pushes hardest toward grass dominance, which is the opposite of the goal.

Concept Tested: Prescribed Burn Management

See: Chapter 3

9. A prairie restoration is bordered by an old hayfield of Smooth Brome. What ongoing problem should you plan for?

  1. None — brome is a grass, so it fits in a prairie
  2. Smooth Brome is a non-native cool-season grass that aggressively invades remnants and restorations; the edge will need continued management or it will push inward
  3. Brome will be shaded out automatically by Big Bluestem
  4. The hayfield will convert to prairie on its own
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter names Smooth Brome and Kentucky Bluegrass specifically as aggressive non-native invaders of prairie ground. Because they are cool-season, they get going before the warm-season natives each spring, which is what makes option C's hope unreliable.

Concept Tested: Non-Native Cool-Season Grass Invasion

See: Chapter 3

10. Minnesota's prairie soils were rich enough to make the state farmland. What does the chapter identify as the irony in that?

  1. The soil was never actually fertile
  2. The organic matter that made the soil valuable took prairie plants thousands of years to build, and cultivation has steadily depleted it
  3. Farming improves prairie soil over time
  4. Prairie soils are only fertile where they were never plowed
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter states this directly. The deep dark Mollisols were built by millennia of roots dying back and adding organic matter, and row-crop agriculture draws that stock down faster than it rebuilds. Option D is close to true in a narrow sense but is not the irony the chapter names.

Concept Tested: Prairie Soil Formation and Depletion

See: Chapter 3