01758nas a2200157   4500008004100000245008400041210006900125260003000194300001300224520118500237653002201422100002001444700001601464700001701480856010301497       1997                        eng d00aAvian community responses to fire, grazing and drought in the tallgrass prairie0 aAvian community responses to fire grazing and drought in the tal  aNew YorkbSpringer Verlag  a167 -1803 aVegetation typical of the tallgrass prairie occurs east of the Great Plains in bottomland “openings” and as small “glades” or “balds” within the eastern deciduous forest. West of the Mississippi River, however, coverage by tallgrass prairie expands with the increasingly greater aridity under the deepening rainshadow of the western mountains. Along the Kansas-Missouri border on the western fringe of the deciduous forest, prairie is present across 50–80% of the region (Schroeder 1983). Forested area within this prairie-forest mosaic continues to diminish, decreasing to as little as 7% in the Flint Hills Uplands (Knight et al. 1994). The portion of the Great Plains characterized by the tallgrass prairie community exists in a climate that allows the development of forest as a bordering “gallery” along stream courses. These naturally occurring forest fragments, these island remnants of the continental forest to the east, remain an integral aspect of the tallgrass prairie landscape, contributing a disproportionately greater component, considering the small extent of their coverage, to the regional avian species richness (Faanes 1984, Zimmerman 1993).10atallgrass prairie1 aZimmerman, J.L.1 aKnopf, F.L.1 aSamson, F.B.  uhttp://129.130.186.12/content/avian-community-responses-fire-grazing-and-drought-tallgrass-prairie