The Northern Shortgrass Prairie spans the northern Great Plains across five US states (Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska) and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is dominated by short-statured grasses such as grama, needlegrass, and wheatgrass, with big sagebrush and cacti on drier sites and isolated uplands like the Black Hills and Bighorn Mountains rising from the plains. The climate is continental and harsh, with cold snowy winters, a short growing season, and periodic severe droughts. The black-tailed prairie dog is the ecoregion's flagship species, but the prairie is poorly protected, with only about 4% of its area within protected areas.

At a glance

About the temperate grasslands, savannas & shrublands biome

Temperate prairies, steppes, and pampas of grasses and forbs with few trees, under continental climates of hot summers and cold winters. Their deep, fertile soils have made them among the most extensively converted biomes for agriculture.

National refinement sub-regions

Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion

Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 (1991-2020 climatology) via ArcGIS FeatureServer published current zone range, with the CHELSA mid-century warming delta applied for the projection. Plants whose stated range falls outside both the current and projected zone end up dropped; the rest land in one of the three buckets below.

Collections for this ecoregion

Curated multi-plant collections whose members all fit this ecoregion's zone range — no won't-grow members smuggled in. Overall fit class shown per collection is the weakest link across its members.

Related ecoregions