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Upper Great Lakes Plain
(Area - 19,159,100 ha)
Description - The Upper Great Lakes Plain covers the southern
half of Michigan, northwest Ohio, northern Indiana, northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin,
and small portions of southwest Minnesota and northwest Iowa. Glacial moraines and
dissected plateaus are characteristic of the topography. Broadleaf forests, oak savannahs,
and a variety of prairie communities are the natural vegetation types. A “Driftless
Area” was not glaciated during the late Pleistocene and emerged as a unique area of
great biological diversity.
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Conservation recommendations and needs - There are many large urban centers in this area whose growth and sprawl will continue to consume land. The vast majority of the presettlement forest and oak savannah grasslands already have been converted to agriculture. The conversion to cropland may have benefitted some grassland birds, and forest birds still persist. Rates of cowbird parasitism and nest predation in this heavily fragmented region, however, are extremely high and it is possible that only those bird communities in the few remaining expanses of contiguous habitat are self-sustaining. Forest habitat needs to be retained or restored so that a significant number of patches of sufficient size and quality each support a healthy population of Cerulean Warblers. It is assumed that each of these patches will then support the full range of forest birds. The total area of savannah habitat also should be increased, although the need for large blocks is not as apparent. Those few areas of grassland that still exist should be retained.
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