Research

The ACES International Global Food Security Fellowship, now in its third year, supports exceptional ACES graduate students who wish to conduct their thesis research in a developing country.

The selected students will work in collaboration with a mentor from an international agricultural research center in the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) or a national research institute devoted to food and agricultural issues. 

URBANA, Ill. – When we think of evolution, many of us conjure the lineage from ape to man, a series of incremental changes spanning millions of years. But in some species, evolution happens so quickly we can watch it in real time.

That’s the case for Xanthomonas, the organism that causes bacterial leaf spot disease in tomato and pepper plants. Like many microbes with short generation times, it can evolve at lightning speed to acquire beneficial traits, such as the ability to elude its host’s defense system.

URBANA, Ill. – Bat box designs vary widely, but many commercial varieties remain untested and risk cooking the animals they’re designed to shelter. Often small and painted dark colors, these boxes may rise to dangerous temperatures on sunny days in summer, putting mom and pup in harm’s way.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill., U.S. —  The world is warming quickly with no indication of slowing down. This could be catastrophic for the production of food crops, particularly in already warm areas. Today, research from the University of Illinois and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service shows that bypassing a photosynthetic glitch common to crops like soybean, rice, and wheat, can confer thermal protection under heat stress in the field. 

URBANA, Ill. – Soil organic carbon is a cornerstone of soil health. It improves soil structure while enhancing water- and nutrient-holding capacity, key factors for any agricultural production system. To build it up, farmers incorporate crop residues into soils.

So why, despite decades of residue inputs, is soil organic carbon diminishing in corn production systems? Short answer: it’s the nitrogen.

URBANA, Ill. – Not to pile on, but winter is coming and the COVID-19 pandemic is about to get worse. Not necessarily because of omicron – scientists are still working that one out – but because there’s more evidence than ever that COVID-19 is a seasonal disease.

We know this intuitively. It’s no surprise that moving indoors and closing windows bumps up transmission. But new analyses from University of Illinois researchers show that, underneath all the variants and waves, the disease has been cycling seasonally across the globe for nearly two years.

URBANA, Ill. – Wheat and barley growers know the devastating effects of Fusarium head blight, or scab. The widespread fungal disease contaminates grain with toxins that cause illness in livestock and humans, and can render worthless an entire harvest. As Fusarium epidemics began to worsen across the eastern U.S. in the 1990s and beyond, fewer and fewer farmers were willing to risk planting wheat.

URBANA, Ill. – University of Illinois weed scientists have confirmed resistance to the herbicide dicamba in a Champaign County waterhemp population. In the study, dicamba controlled 65% of the waterhemp in the field when applied at the labeled rate. And in the greenhouse, plants showed a 5-to-10-fold reduction in dicamba efficacy compared with sensitive plants.

URBANA, Ill. – China’s Père David’s deer was nearly gone in the late 1800s. Just 18 deer – the very last of their kind – were brought into captivity after the rest had been hunted to extinction. When 11 of the deer reproduced, the species had a chance. Today, after centuries of reintroductions and breeding under human care, the population sits at around 3,000.

URBANA, Ill. —  Two ACES researchers are amongst 6,600 researchers around the world recognized by Clarivate as Highly Cited Researchers. The highly anticipated annual list helps define the “who’s who” of influential researchers based on data and analysis performed by experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate.