Located along the western gulf coast region of the United States, just inland from the coastal marsh, is the coastal prairie. The coastal prairie is a type of tallgrass prairie and is similar in many ways to the tallgrass prairie of the Midwest United States. This ecosystem once extended from Corpus Christi,TX, to its eastern limit at the margin of pine savanna along a north to south line running from Opelousas to Lafayette, LA (see map). The portion in southwest Louisiana is often called the "Cajun prairie" because it was settled in the early 19^th century by exiled Acadian settlers. The Cajun prairie originally extended from a narrow 11-mile (17.7 km) wide neck at the Sabine river and widened to its eastern limit. It is estimated that, in presettlement times, the Cajun prairie encompassed as much as 2.5 million acres of land. The Texas portion of the coastal prairie is estimated to have included about 6.5 million acres of habitat that extended in a band along the coast immediately inland from the marsh.

Today, substantially less than one tenth of a percent of the coastal prairie remains in a relatively undisturbed condition. The remaining 99.9 percent has been nearly eliminated for agriculture and development. While much of the former prairie has been converted to pasture for cattle grazing, the vast majority has been altered for the culture of rice and sugarcane. In Louisiana, the few remaining remnants of original upland prairie are found only on narrow strips of land along railroad tracks. Much more coastal prairie remains in southeast Texas; however, much of this prairie has lost species of grasses and wildflowers because of grazing.

The factors that contribute to the establishment and maintenance of prairie are rainfall, soil type, fire, and herbivory. Drought, fire, and competition from adapted grass and forb species combine to prevent the establishment of woody plants and maintain the grass-dominated ecosystem. Many prairie species depend on fire for seed set, satisfying seed dormancy, and the removal of accumulated biomass. Drought can occur in areas of low rainfall (west to central Texas), and in areas of high rainfall as a result of root restriction by a soil hard pan or by low water availability in heavy clay soils during dry summers (east Texas to Louisiana).

Previous page
Return to Top
Next page
Return to homepage