RELIX Prairie Remnant Database
37,000 plant species records
353 prairie remnants
8 US States
Led by Dr. Jack Zinnen, a team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Illinois Natural History Survey, and Tallgrass Praire Center created the RELIX database of tallgrass prairie remnant plant communities in 2024. RELIX is a data set of nearly 37,000 vascular plant species records from 353 prairie remnants in eight states in the Midwestern United States, overlapping with the core historical extent of the tallgrass prairie. Species lists are collated from a variety of recent (post-2020) and historical sources, including academic publications, managers’ species lists, and floristic quality surveys. Remnant species lists are complemented with metadata for each remnant, including site location, environmental and ecological information, and characteristics about the data source.
Contact Justin Meissen (justin.meissen@uni.edu) or Jack Zinnen (jzinnen2@illinois.edu) for questions.
