OutdoorNebraska

4 Adopting a Cinderella Ecosystem A Tale from Nebraska By Jim Locklear, Director of Conservation, Lauritzen Gardens L auritzen Gardens is a botanical garden set in the riverfront hills near downtown Omaha. We welcome more than 250,000 visitors a year, who come to enjoy beautiful gardens and landscape plantings and a spectacular conservatory. We also work beyond the garden on projects to support the conservation of plants and plant communities, some of which have been supported by the Nebraska Wildlife Conservation Fund. The Nebraska Natural Legacy Project has identified Biologically Unique Landscapes (BULs) across the state— regions that are of high priority for conservation efforts because they host unique natural communities and plants and animals of high conservation concern. One of these is the Sandsage Prairie BUL, located in the southwest corner of the state. Sandsage prairie occurs in association with sandy habitat and is a blend of grassland and shrubland dominated by sand sagebrush (Artemisia filifolia). This strong shrub component distinguishes sandsage prairie from the vast expanses of sand prairie that cloak the Nebraska Sandhills to the north. Excellent stands of sandsage prairie can be seen at Enders Reservoir State Recreation Area southeast of Imperial in Chase County. The range of sandsage prairie extends well beyond Nebraska, occupying about 12 million acres of dune habitat across eight different states in the western Great Plains. Yet, it is one of the region's most poorly understood and least appreciated plant communities. Lauritzen Gardens began a relationship with sandsage prairie in 2016 through a rare plant survey funded by the Nebraska Wildlife Conservation Fund. The aim of this project was to document the ecology and conservation needs of 14 at-risk plant species that occur in the Sandsage Prairie BUL, including sandsage prairie clover (Dalea cylindriceps). Our field studies in Nebraska revealed just how little was known about the characteristics of "healthy" sandsage prairie and led us to pursue a reconnaissance of sandsage prairie throughout its range, from Wyoming south into Texas and New Mexico. This research enabled us to write the first comprehensive account of the structure and dynamics of sandsage prairie vegetation, which was published in a scientific journal in 2019. Taking this work to the next level, in 2021 we published a paper in the Natural Areas Journal documenting the significant plant and animal diversity supported by sandsage prairie. Sandsage prairie hosts a surprisingly high level of biological diversity throughout its range and is especially important to grassland birds like Cassin's Sparrow (Peucaea cassinii). Stands of sandsage prairie also provide islands of natural habitat in an otherwise mostly- agricultural landscape. Because of this, we contend that this plant community is a biodiversity hotspot for the Great Plains worthy of landscape-scale conservation efforts. Thanks to research initiated through funding from the Nebraska Wildlife Conservation Fund, Lauritzen Gardens has taken on an unanticipated role as authority and advocate for this "Cinderella" plant community! 4 "The more modest sandhills of southwestern Nebraska... have languished for attention. They have been Nebraska's Cinderella sandhills, always in the shadow of the vast dune field to the north." Jon Farrar, NEBRASKAland, September 1993 Sandsage prairie in Perkins County. JIM LOCKLEAR

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