Plainly Speaking: Life on India's Grasslands
PIED: Ah, road trips. Are you a frequent road-tripper like me? If so, you'll recognise three quintessential elements of each road trip: a bag of snacks in the car boot, a playlist of road trip tunes, and grasslands. *record scratch* Wait: grasslands? Yes, grasslands. Grasses cover the vast majority of India's interior, from Kutch to Kaziranga. And it's not just India: North America, Africa (mostly south of the Sahara), Australia, and southern South America also have vast grasslands. Unfortunately, these grasslands are at risk. North Americans drive through what's left of the prairies. Here in India, new roads cut through the plains. This tragedy makes grasslands a quintessential element of a long road trip: go far enough inside a continent, and you'll be in a grassland or desert. How did grasses get this successful? What's it like out on a grassland? And how are these liminal plains threatened by human activity? I'll attempt to answer these ...