Illinois Natural History Survey Reports

              1
I LLINOIS
NATURAL
HI STORY
S U R V E Y R e p o r t s
November/
December 1999
No. 360
I N S I D E
Midewin National
Tallgrass Prairie: His-tory
and
Current Research
2
Prairie Restoration Re-search
at the Savanna
Army Depot
3
Restoration of Bot-tomland
Forests in the
Cache River Watershed
4
Fen Wetland Restora-tion
in Northeastern
Illinois
5
How Prescribed Fire
and Management
Affect Plants and Ani-mals
in Central
Illinois’ Oak-Hickory
Forests
6
Community-Level Pa-rameters
as Indicators of
Restoration Success in
Fire-Effects Studies
7
Species Spotlight:
Little Brown Bat
9
The Naturalist's
Apprentice:
Build a House for Bats!
10 Continued on back page
Restoration Ecology and Research at
the Illinois Natural History Survey
Photo courtesy of Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie
Restoration ecology has be-come
a vital component of
efforts to conserve biodiver-sity
in Illinois. By applying
techniques and management
practices, such as prescribed
fi re and the planting or seed-ing
of desirable fl ora, degrad-ed
ecological systems can be
restored to some semblance
of their original state and
function. The use and devel-opment
of these techniques
is based on ecological prin-ciples,
and the environmental
benefi ts can be impressive.
Rather than focusing on a
single species, a group of species,
or even a community, the goal of
restoration ecology is to manage
ecosystems or major habitats to
at least a semi-natural condition.
In Illinois, these systems include
prairies, oak savannas, fl ood-plains,
wetlands, lakes, and even
whole watersheds. Given suf-fi
cient scale, restoration is even
relevant to the structure of entire
landscapes. The benchmark of a
successful restoration project is
an ecological system that is self-sustaining
or one that requires
only periodic application of
management techniques such as
prescribed fi re or fl ooding.
In this issue, we provide
an overview of the research in
restoration ecology that is be-ing
conducted at the Illinois
Natural History Survey. A few
key projects are highlighted that
demonstrate the diversity of these
research efforts. Scientists at the
Survey are working on restoration
with respect to plants, insects, soil
invertebrates, and birds in nearly
all of Illinois’ major ecosystems.
Research is being conducted
throughout the state and includes
projects in urban, suburban, and
rural settings. This research is
relevant to many conservation
issues faced by the citizens of Il-linois.
For example, the problem
of invasive or exotic species in
our natural areas may be dimin-ished
with the application of res-toration
techniques.
Understanding how to recon-struct
and sustain ecosystems
poses interesting challenges for
researchers. Restoration ecology
is a relatively new science and
fundamental questions persist
about the nature of ecosystems
and complex biological interac-tions.
The practice of restoration
has been called the acid test that
indicates how well ecologists
understand the functioning of
ecosystems. Practices such as
prescribed fi re have been in use
for most of the 20th century, but
the possible effects of fi re and
other restoration techniques on
a wide spectrum of organisms
and ecological phenomena are
unclear. These uncertainties,
coupled with the severe loss and
degradation of many important
ecosystems in Illinois, highlight a
complex suite of research needs.
Illinois is called the prairie state
but we have lost over 99% of the
prairies and nearly all of the oak
savannas and wetlands that were
here before European settlement.
Thus, research in restoration ecol-ogy
and ecosystem management
provides the citizens of Illinois
with the means and knowledge to
A prescribed burn at Goose Lake Prairie.