The Nature Pages

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	Playas of the Great Plains by Loren M. Smith University of Texas Press, 2003
	Playas, the shallow wetlands found in semi-arid to arid environments with little elevation change, are one of the most overlooked and least studied ecoregions in American natural history. This text surveys the state-of-the-field in Great Plains playa ecology and conservation.
	"I define them as shallow, depressional recharge wetlands occurring in the Great Plains region that are formed through a combination of wind, wave and dissolution processes with each wetland existing in its own watershed," author Loren Smith explains. Not only do playas provide critical habitat for many animals and migratory birds, they also recharge aquifers and support many native plants that could now survive elsewhere.		"Perhaps because of mid-twentieth century views of most Great Plains wetlands as impediments to agriculture and as sources of disease, their value and consistent importance to human cultures throughout time has not been fully appreciated."
	A professor of wildlife ecology at Texas Tech University, Smith has been studying playas with his students since 1984, authoring more than 100 scientific articles on related subjects. He edited the award-winning "Habitat Management for Migrating and Wintering Waterfowl in North America."
	While playas are found throughout the Great Plains, extending into northeast Colorado, eastern Wyoming and Nebraska, they are most numerous in the "Playa Lakes Region" of the Southern Great Plains stretching from west Texas and New Mexico northward into Oklahoma and Kansas. It is here that Smith has conducted most of his research, and it is this region that defines playa ecology in North America.		"The immediate response of invertebrates to a playa filling with water can be astrounding. A couple of weeks after basins have filled, the water's surface can literally bubble with activity."
Search our selection of new, used and out-of-print books.	"Playas and other wild places must be preserved for future generations," Smith points out. "To do any less with what we have been charged with conserving would be morally and ethically wrong."		"Although most people from forested and mountainous areas outside of the Plains may find the western plains aesthetically 'boring,' geologists consider the High Plains one of the most interesting and challenging areas in North America."