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Non-calcareous Foothill Grassland

Ecoregion in Rocky Mountains, MT

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The Non-calcareous Foothill Grassland ecoregion slopes down from the lower mountain treeline to the plains. Its hills and scattered buttes are dissected by shrub- and tree-covered, mountain-fed streams. Ecoregion 43s is physiographically different from the mountains of Ecoregion 17 and the plains of Ecoregions 43. Potential natural vegetation is mostly foothills prairie and contrasts with the sagebrush steppe of the Dry Gneissic-Schistose- Volcanic Hills (17ab). A variety of mostly non-carbonate rocks underlie Ecoregion 43s; lithology, stream quality, and aquatic biota are different than in the Limy Foothill Grassland (43u) and the carbonate-rich Pryor-Big Horn Foothills (43v). Ecoregion 43s typically receives more precipitation than the plains below and less than the mountains above. It can be affected by chinooks. Ranching is common. The broad, mostly treeless Shield-Smith Valleys ecoregion lies east of the Continental Divide. It is mostly underlain by Tertiary sediments and late-Cretaceous water-laid volcanics which are unlike the carbonate-rich, Mesozoic-Paleozoic sedimentary rocks of the Limy Foothill Grassland (43u). Stream quality and aquatic biota are also distinct from those of Ecoregion 43u. Potential natural vegetation consists of sagebrush steppe and foothills prairie; it contrasts with the foothills prairie and grama-needlegrass-wheatgrass of the Townsend Basin (17w). Currently, the area is mostly grazed in contrast to the nearby but lower Ecoregion 17w which has a mix of farming, grazing, and urban-suburban-industrial land uses.

— EPA

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Non-calcareous Foothill Grassland

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