Produced by Chris Curnow, Tom Cosmas, Joseph Cooper and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net University of Kansas Publications Museum of Natural History Volume 10, No. 3, pp. 77-127, 2 pls., 7 figs. in text, 4 tables December 31, 1956 The Forest Habitat of the University of Kansas Natural History Reservation BY HENRY S. FITCH AND RONALD L. MCGREGOR UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE 1956 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, A. Byron Leonard, Robert W. Wilson Volume 10, No. 3, pp. 77-127, 2 pls., 7 figs. in text, 4 tables Published December 31, 1956 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas PRINTED BY FERD VOILAND, JR., STATE PRINTER TOPEKA, KANSAS 1956 26-3855 The Forest Habitat of the University of Kansas Natural History Reservation By HENRY S. FITCH and RONALD L. MCGREGOR Introduction In northeastern Kansas, before it was disturbed by the arrival of white settlers in the eighteen fifties, tall grass prairies and deciduous forests were both represented. These two contrasting types of vegetation overlapped widely in an interdigitating pattern which was determined by distribution of moisture, soil types, slope exposure and various biotic factors. The early explorers who saw this region, and the settlers who came later, left only incomplete descriptions, which were usually vague as to the locality and the species of plants represented. As a result, there is but little concrete information as to the precise boundaries between the forests and grasslands, and opinions differ among ecologists. No representative sample of either type remains. It may be assumed that the plant communities existing one hundred years ago and earlier were far more stable than those of the present that have resulted from man's disruptive activities. This stability was only relative, however. Within the last few thousand years since the final withdrawal of the Wisconsinan ice sheet, fairly rapid and continual change must have occurred, as a result of changing climate, the sudden extinction of various large, dominant mammals, and finally the impact of successive aboriginal cultures.