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Prairie potholes

These panoramas show examples of intermountain depressional prairie potholes and Palouse prairie vegetation from the Bandy Ranch near Ovando, Montana. This landscape of rolling hills and depressional wetlands was created by glacial activity. The topographic and hydrologic variation affects the plant community composition and productivity. The zonation patterns ringing these wetlands are an example of a sharp change from one plant community to another, which is also referred to as an ecotone. The year these potholes were photographed (2005) was a relatively dry year (little snowfall that winter) and many of the photographed potholes lack standing water. The picture to the right shows a dumbbell shaped pothole with some leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula) invasion occurring in the upper right (see arrow). 

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