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- Photo of the Week – May 16, 2013
- Join Us For The Platte River Prairies Field Day: July 12, 2013
- Keeping a Low Profile in the Spring
- Photo of the Week – May 9, 2013
- A Prickly Confrontation
- Photo of the Week – May 2, 2013
- Capturing Post-Wildfire Recovery Through Timelapse Photography
- A Dandy Little Predator
- A Prairie Ecologist’s Perspective on Arbor Day
- Photo of the Week – April 25, 2013
- Tuning Into Fire Frequency
- Photo of the Week – April 18, 2013
- The Annual Grassland Restoration Network Workshop – Coming to A Prairie Near You (If You’re Near Columbia, Missouri)
- A Weekend Walk in the Woods
- Photo of the Week – April 11, 2013
- An Ill Wind…
- Is Poison Hemlock Repelled By Plant Diversity? Early Results Say Yes
- Photo of the Week – April 5, 2013
- Why A Warming Climate Is Making This Spring So Cold (… and Last Spring So Warm)
- An Exciting New Discovery – Unless You’re a Bug
Category Archives: Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction
Join Us For The Platte River Prairies Field Day: July 12, 2013
Come spend a day on the Platte River Prairies! Our annual open house/field day, just south of Wood River, Nebraska, will provide opportunities to hike the prairies with a variety of grassland experts. – Learn about prairie reptiles and amphibians … Continue reading
The Annual Grassland Restoration Network Workshop – Coming to A Prairie Near You (If You’re Near Columbia, Missouri)
The Grassland Restoration Network is a loose affiliation of those of us trying to use prairie restoration (reconstruction) as a way to rebuild, conserve and sustain grassland ecosystems. Each year, we put on a workshop to share ideas, techniques, research results, and stories with other. Workshops are … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Management, Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction, Prairie Natural History
Tagged 2013, 2013 GRN, columbia, conference, conservation, grassland restoration, grassland restoration network, meeting, missouri, missouri department of conservation, prairie reconstruction, prairie restoration, workshop
3 Comments
Is Poison Hemlock Repelled By Plant Diversity? Early Results Say Yes
How important is plant diversity? Most ecologists think it’s a critical component of resilient ecosystems. Last week I collected some data that lends support to that view. In some experimental prairie plantings we’ve established in our Platte River Prairies, plant diversity appears to be suppressing the invasion … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Plants
Tagged prairie, prairie restoration, prairie reconstruction, plant diversity, research, grassland, nebraska, data, prairie seeding, species richness, value of plant diversity, prairie planting, seed mixture, poison hemlock, conium maculatum, platte river prairie, diverse seed mixture
8 Comments
Why A Warming Climate Is Making This Spring So Cold (… and Last Spring So Warm)
Melting sea ice might not seem important to those of us living in the middle of a continent. It is. Weather and climate have always been complicated and difficult to understand, so it’s no wonder that climate change is a … Continue reading
Busy Burning
I apologize for not having a pithy and thought-provoking post this week. I’m actually working on a couple different ideas, but was interrupted by a couple days of good prescribed fire weather. We had a long day yesterday and today looks like it’ll … Continue reading
Prairies Forever? Collaborative Conservation for Pheasants, Pollinators, and People.
Effective prairie conservation requires a collaborative effort among a wide variety of interests, including ecologists, naturalists, birdwatchers, ranchers, educators, hunters, and others. Each of these might approach prairie conservation from a different perspective, but they have more in common than … Continue reading
Posted in General, Prairie Management, Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction, Prairie Natural History
Tagged collaboration, CRP, grassland, hunters, hunting, nebraska, partnership, pete berthelsen, pheasant hunting, pheasants forever, pollinators, prairie, prairie conservation, prairie restoration, the nature conservancy
7 Comments
What I Don’t Know About Prairies – A Partial List
I’m a professional prairie ecologist. I write a blog and have published a book on prairie ecology and management, along with lots of magazine articles. Because of that, I’m often called a prairie expert. Being called a prairie expert makes … Continue reading
Lessons From a Project to Improve Prairie Quality – Part 2: Overseeding and Seedling Plugs
Last week, I posted a summary of some findings from a long project to enhance prairie habitat. I focused that post on the lessons we learned from the fire/grazing management portion of the project, including impacts on regal fritillary butterflies. This … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Management, Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction, Prairie Plants
Tagged adding plant species, grassland, great plains, interseeding, nebraska, overseeding, prairie, prairie habitat, prairie overseeding, prairie restoration, prairie seeding, rehabilitating prairie, seedling plugs, seedlings, state wildlife grants, transplanting
13 Comments
Lessons From a Project to Improve Prairie Quality – Part 1: Patch-Burn Grazing, Plant Diversity, and Butterflies
We recently completed a large multi-year restoration and management project at our Platte River Prairies. Our specific objectives were to improve habitat quality for various at-risk prairie species and evaluate the impacts of our management on at-risk butterflies – particularly … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Management, Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography, Prairie Insects, Prairie Plants, Prairie Animals
Tagged prairie, prairie management, fire, prairie restoration, the nature conservancy, patch-burn grazing, grassland management, research, grazing, grassland, platte river, conservation, nebraska, platte river prairies, lessons learned, prescribed fire, butterflies, regal fritillary, pollinators, burning, floristic quality, conservative plants, stewardship, state wildlife grant, land management, habitat quality, at-risk species, conservation grazing, grazing impacts on prairie, grazing prairie
13 Comments
