We are far from experts on prairie vegetation, but we can summarize some contributions that academic biology-ecology, biogeography, population genetics, etc.-has attempted to make to conservation, assess their value, and comment on whether they may be useful in prairie conservation. Most current academic interest in conservation stems from the observation that, in the face of increasing human population, habitats of all sorts are increasingly insularized. This is as true of prairie as it is of forest. Effects of this insularization can conveniently be divided into two classes: 1) ecological and 2) genetic. We will treat both, though far more has been written and far more information is available about ecological consequences of insularization than about genetic consequences