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Mark W. Schwartz Soon after we came into extensive meadows: and I was assured that those meadows continue for a hundred and fifty miles. being in winter drowned lands and marshes. By the dryness of the season they were now beautiful pastures, and here presented itself one of the most delightful prospects I have ever beheld; all low grounds being meadow, and without wood, and all of the high grounds being covered with trees and appearing like islands: the whole scene seemed an elysium. Capt. Thomas Morris. 1791 I am sitting in a 60-mile-an-hour bus sailing over a highway originally laid out for horse and buggy. The ribbon of concrete has been widened and widened until the field fences threaten to topple into the road cuts. In the narrow thread of sod between the shaved banks and the toppling fences grow the relics of what once was Illinois: the prairie.
List of contents
I. The Context: The Highly Fragmented Midwest.- 1. Forest Communities of the Midwestern United States.- 2. Savanna and Open-Woodland Communities.- 3. The Tallgrass Prairie Mosaic.- 4. Wetlands in the Midwest with Special Reference to Illinois.- II. Problems and Case Studies.- 5. Conservation in the Context of Non-Indigenous Species.- 6. Native Pests: The Impact of Deer in Highly Fragmented Habitats.- 7. Mammals of Illinois and the Midwest: Ecological and Conservation Issues for Human-Dominated Landscapes.- 8. Effectiveness of Small Nature Preserves for Breeding Birds.- 9. Impacts of Fragmentation on Midwestern Aquatic Organisms.- 10. Midwestern Fire Management: Prescribing a National Process in an Unnatural Landscape.- 11. Community Succession, Diversity, and Disturbance in the Central Hardwood Forest.- 12. The Biogeography of and Habitat Loss on Hill Prairies.- 13. Fragmentation and the Role of Seed Banks in Promoting Persistence in Isolated Populations of Collinsia verra.- 14. Effects of Livestock Grazing on Forest Habitats.- III. Conservation Strategies in Action.- 15. Terrestrial Nature Reserve Design at the Urban/Rural Interface.- 16. The Value of Small Preserves in Chronically Fragmented Landscapes.- 17. Nature Preserves, Natural Areas, and the Conservation of Endangered and Threatened Species in Illinois.- 18. An Aid to Conservation Strategy in Illinois: The Critical Trends Assessment Project.- 19. The History of Natural Areas Programs in Wisconsin.
