NRES

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has announced the creation of a new administrative unit — the Division of Parks and Natural Spaces (DPNS) — to oversee Allerton Park and Retreat Center and the Illinois Arboretum. Headed by current Allerton Executive Director Derek Peterson, DPNS will ensure long-term sustainability of these public recreational spaces by focusing on conservation and community engagement.

A first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary center focused on creating a climate-smart circular bioeconomy is poised for significant growth, with the appointment of a director, two endowed professorships, and a major campus commitment to hire four new faculty in departments across the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Each spring, roughly 3.5 billion wild birds migrate from their warm winter havens to their breeding grounds across North America, eating insects, distributing plant seeds and providing a variety of other ecosystem services to stopping sites along the way. Some also carry diseases like avian influenza, a worry for agricultural, environmental and public health authorities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor of natural resources and environmental sciences Michael P.

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. But those flight paths may not be entirely innate, according to new research led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Evidence from over 18,300 hours of recorded flight calls suggests songbirds may “talk” to other species as they migrate, forming social connections and — just maybe — exchanging information about the journey.

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. But as an amateur back in 2006, he did something bold for the love of frogs that changed the trajectory of his life, not to mention the frogs’. 

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. Her goal is to understand the species-specific habitat factors that matter most to imperiled birds and optimize strategies for their conservation.  

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 likens it to a soda can. 

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.