There’s a longstanding attitude in many farming communities that trees and agriculture don’t mix. But agroforestry — the intentional integration of trees and shrubs in agricultural systems, such as planting trees as windbreaks, integrating trees on pastures, or growing tree crops intercropped with annual crops — can provide a multitude of benefits to both farmers and landscapes. So far, in the U.S. Midwest, these benefits have gone unrealized, with vanishingly small adoption rates.  

The night sky teems with migrating songbirds, aloft in their millions following routes etched in evolutionary time.

Devin Edmonds isn’t like most amphibian hobbyists. For one thing, he’s now a trained herpetologist, studying frogs and turtles as a doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Wendy Dorman is determined to map a brighter future for grassland birds. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign doctoral student will use a $150,000 investment from NASA to develop robust maps of grassland habitat across the Midwest and beyond.

In the upper reaches of a Minnesota watershed, the water is so full of dissolved nitrous oxide that University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign hydrologist Zhongjie Yu

If you’re a crayfish, location is everything. Here in North America, times are tough for the mini crustaceans. Habitat destruction, damming, and pollution have decimated local populations, such that many species are in dire need of help. But when some of the same species were exported to Europe, they found a much more favorable environment and are thriving. A little too much — American expats bully European crayfish and spread disease, driving many local species to the brink.

Two researchers in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2024 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list. The list recognizes research scientists and social scientists who have demonstrated exceptional influence – reflected through their publication of multiple papers frequently cited by their peers during the last decade. 

Food systems for humans and wildlife was the theme of a symposium held Oct. 17-18 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The annual symposium focuses on a particular aspect of international food security each year.

Jordyn Chace is a huge fan of classic murder mysteries. As a geneticist and wildlife biologist, she considers herself an investigator.

But instead of solving human crimes, she uncovers clues that may help contribute to the recovery of a once-common North American mammal: the little brown bat, Myotis lucifugus, a species now on the brink of extinction.

Invasive silver carp have been spreading throughout the Mississippi River Basin since their introduction a half-century ago. Yet, try as they might, the fish have not advanced beyond a particular stretch of the Illinois River north of Kankakee.