NRES

URBANA, Ill. – Who should make decisions about the management and fate of national parks and other protected areas? For a long time, especially in national parks, natural resource management decisions have centered around tourists, leaving local landowners and other stakeholders out of the picture. Now, a movement known as inclusive conservation is bringing local stakeholders to the table, and a research group from the University of Illinois is leading the effort in Alaska’s Denali National Park.    

URBANA, Ill. – On the Hawaiian island of Oahu, it is possible to stand in a lush tropical forest that doesn’t contain a single native plant. The birds that once dispersed native seeds are almost entirely gone too, leaving a brand-new ecological community composed of introduced plants and birds. In a first-of-its-kind study published today in Science, researchers demonstrate that these novel communities are organized in much the same way as native communities worldwide.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study finds that Medicare costs tend to be lower in counties with more forests and shrublands than in counties dominated by other types of land cover. The relationship persists even when accounting for economic, geographic or other factors that might independently influence health care costs, researchers report.

The analysis included county-level health and environmental data from 3,086 of the 3,103 counties in the continental U.S.

URBANA, Ill. – A new report issued today showed how U.S. farmers—facing a surge of weather events and disease outbreaks—can increase production and revenues with innovations produced by federally funded agricultural research.

The U.S. needs to increase its investment in agricultural research or it risks falling further behind China, according to a new report issued by the Supporters of Agricultural Research (SoAR) Foundation and 20 FedByScienceresearch institutions.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Chicago’s vacant lot-repurposing program is enhancing not just the curb appeal of blighted properties across the city, but also the culture and safety of the surrounding communities, residents said in a new study.

Chicago’s Large Lot Program allows existing property owners to buy up to two vacant residential lots on their blocks for $1 each.

URBANA, Ill. – Since they were first released as live bait in the mid-twentieth century, rusty crayfish have roamed lake bottoms in northern Wisconsin, gobbling native fish eggs, destroying aquatic plants, and generally wreaking havoc on entire lake ecosystems. Today, in some lakes, traps can routinely pull up 50 to 100 rusty crayfish at a time, compared to two or three native species. But in other lakes nearby, populations seem to be declining.

URBANA, Ill. – The U.S. Corn Belt produces about a third of the world’s corn and soybean supply, but with further intensification and a changing climate, it’s not clear whether the Corn Belt can remain environmentally sustainable over the long term. With a new five-year project, funded by the National Science Foundation’s flagship CAREER award, Illinois scientist Kaiyu Guan aims to find out.

URBANA, Ill. – Spending time in nature boosts children’s academic achievement and healthy development, concludes a new analysis examining hundreds of studies.

The following are reflections from Yushu Xia, a PhD student in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, on her research project partially funded by an ACES International Graduate Grant: “Improving Agricultural Nitrogen Models for Nitrogen Management Assessment at a Field Spatial Scale.” Yushu’s advisor is Dr. Michelle Wander.

From classifying mosquitos in the Amazon to conserving natural resources in a war zone, Dr. McKenzie Johnson brings significant international experience to the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES), where she recently joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences.  

Johnson is also a recent recipient of an ACES International Seed Grant for a project she will initiate this spring: “Environment and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in Colombia.”