Tucker Prairie is the only sizable remnant of claypan-soil tallgrass prairie that once blanketed central and northeast Missouri (Nigh and Schroeder 2002). It is owned and managed by the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Tucker Prairie is rotationally burned in the spring by MU faculty, staff, and students (not a "threat" but required management to maintain prairie vegetation). The prairie serves a tallgrass prairie research site.