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Oklahoma has a large
percentage of its land area covered by rangeland; over 50%,
that’s equal to about 23 million acres. These rangelands provide
a variety of services to the public either directly or in a
round-about way. Some of the more obvious ones would be wildlife
habitat and forage for livestock, but some of the more
inconspicuous benefits to the public include watershed
enhancement and carbon sequestration. Both of the latter
benefits are not very well known but they both help the
environment out greatly.
Oklahoma has a lot of
variation in its soil, topography, and climate. This variation
leads to variation in the state’s rangelands. Each one of these
rangelands has a unique vegetation, and rangelands are defined
by their vegetation, because of the combinations of
environmental factors that occur there. Some of the different
types of rangelands that occur across the Oklahoma landscape
include Crosstimbers, Shortgrass Prairie, Shinnery Oak
Grassland, Tallgrass Prairie, and Mesquite Grasslands. Because
of this large variety of vegetation types Oklahoma is home to
173 families of vascular plants; that is more than any other
state except for Texas and California!
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