Nash Prairie Hey Meadow
Glenda Senion
SCI 256 Version Three
August 15, 2011
Professor Dr. Kamran Shoaei

Nash Prairie Hay Meadow A natural beauty to behold, probably one that has too many times been forgotten or perhaps just dismissed, is the Nash Prairie Hay Meadow located about 60 miles southwest of Houston, Texas. It is a wonderful representative natural ecosystem that is receiving worthy considerations for native species preservation and management. There is no roadside sign to announce the Nash Prairie, no fence around more than 400 acres of tall grasses that have never been plowed. The grassland remained unplowed because of the farming methods. Cattle infrequently grazed on the property, and the landowners harvested hay once, maybe twice, a year and never in the same pattern, which allows plants time to regenerate. This has resulted in a rich and subtle ecosystem. Serious bird watchers, wildflower enthusiasts, and botanists tend to know about this place and its native grasses. Laura Huffman, Texas director of the Nature Conservancy (an environmental group) says that “this prairie is a beautiful representation of what Texas really looked like.” It is said to be a beauty in a haystack for many reasons. According to Wiley Plus (2009) publication, the structural and functional dynamics of this ecosystem is comprised of nonliving and living fundamentals. The nonliving part is the physical-chemical environment, including the local atmosphere, water, and mineral soil (on land) or other substrate (in water). The living part, called the ecological community, is the set of species interacting within the ecosystem. There are two basic kinds of processes that must occur in an ecosystem: a cycling of chemical elements and a flow of energy in order for it to sustain life on earth. Sustaining life on Earth requires more than individuals or single populations or species. Life is sustained and benefitted by the interactions of many organisms functioning together and interacting through their physical and chemical environments. Over time, during the natural and chemical processes of necessary interactions of ecosystems to bring about purposed or desired results, things change. An ecosystem changes over time and can undergo development through succession. The processes that occur in an ecosystem are necessary for the life of the ecological community, but no member of that community can carry out these processes alone. What affects one affects the others. Therefore, it is very important to understand environmental issues about the structure and functions of natural ecosystems to be able to imagine and benefit from the beauty and necessity of preserving the Nash Prairie. Knowledge about the ecosystem’s structure and functions can help to develop plans for its management and restoration because the realization of benefits seems to become more apparent and appreciative. David J. Rosen, a biology professor at Lee College in Baytown, has identified 311 plant species on the site, including many rare finds. One species – the buttonbush flat sedge, a three to four foot tall plant with a sandpaper-like texture was thought to have vanished from Texas. Rosen also said that restoration of Nash Prairie is invaluable and is also the habitat for about 120 bird species. The previous owners had no clue of this prairie’s real value. It is the original vegetation and the original landscape. It is almost like a museum.
It may be impossible to recreate the prairie’s intricate diversity says the experts, but environmentalists say a small amount of the prairie is better than none. To expand the Nash Prairie, the Nature Conservancy will try to stitch together grasslands through easements, which would put restrictions on how the land is used. It will be a challenge to expand because the prairie is located close to the fourth largest city in the country and this is a very good reason why it should be done. Preserving prairies has become an urgent theme. After 200 years of houses, farms and freeways, less than 1% of the coastal tall-grass prairie in Texas and Louisiana remains. The Nature Conservancy recently purchased the Nash Prairie for $1.8 million in January and a smaller meadow nearby in an attempt to save this slice of the state’s heritage. The virgin land will become a preserve, as well as a laboratory and seed bank to help landowners within a 300-mile radius to restore their property to its natural state. This prairie also serves a critical role by minimizing runoff and reducing erosion along the Brazos River as it winds its way to the Gulf of Mexico. The ability to hold and filter water is lost when the land is plowed or paved, and that is an important point during one of the worst droughts in Texas history, Huffman says. Human may have affected biogeochemical cycles in the Nash Prairie ecosystem by creating a disturbance in the community-level interactions of the community effect. We are living in a state with a water supply that is not set up for the next 50 years of population growth. Conservation is about saving water and landscapes. Humans have built highways, bypasses, overpasses, and buildings that have destroyed and disturbed some of nature’s best resources. Sometimes, when humans manage or domesticate individuals or populations, we separate them from their ecosystems. When this happens the ecosystem must replace the energy flow and chemical cycling that is needed with humans own actions. There is no way to know the birthing and death of one underlying ecosystem. Therefore all are affected. A biogeochemical cycle is the complete path a chemical takes through the four major components of Earth’s system and they are: 1) Atmosphere, 2) Hydrosphere, 3) Lithosphere, and 4) Biosphere. Therefore the loss or harm to Nash Prairie’s grassland could leave the habitats without food, water, chemicals and protection. Parks and preserves provide important ecological functions that make them an in dispensable element in the conservation of global biodiversity. They play significant roles in maintaining those ecological processes that depend on natural ecosystems, such as purifying water and air by natural ecological processes. In addition, the natural functioning of nutrient cycles and energy flows is facilitated by parks and preserves. They also help to preserve species diversity and genetic variations within species, and human invoked stress on the ecosystems. The Biotic components, Producers – Consumers – Decomposers, and their environmental involvement is significant

References:
The Nature Conservancy Publication Article, Lisa Spangler
The Hawk Eye, Article by Matthew Teasaugue – Houston Chronicle
Wiley Plus: Environmental science: Earth as a living planet (7th ed.) (Botkin & Keller)
www.libraryindex.com/Ecological-value-Parks-Preserves.html