Lauren Lynch is one of 16 Illinois students and recent graduates to win Fulbright grants to pursue international education, research, and teaching experiences around the world this coming year. Lynch is completing her doctorate in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and in wildlife and fisheries conservation from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a master’s in natural resource management from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

This week’s 5 Questions Friday features Haru Hill, a junior transfer student in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. The outdoorsy Chambana native is always looking for new connections; say hi if you see them on campus!

Where did you grow up? Do you have an agriculture background? If so, please describe.

URBANA, Ill. -- University of Illinois researchers were part of a multi-institutional team that has significantly improved the performance of numerical predictions for agricultural nitrous oxide emissions using novel modeling that combines artificial intelligence and process-based knowledge. 

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Plants release chemical distress signals when under attack from chewing insects. These “911 calls,” as entomologist Esther Ngumbi refers to them, alert other bugs that dinner or a nice place to lay their eggs is available nearby. If predatory or parasitic insects detect the right signal, they swoop in like saviors to make a meal out of – or lay their eggs in – the bodies of the herbivore insects.

Read more from the Illinois News Bureau.

URBANA, Ill. – Imagine if you had to catch every bite of your dinner with your mouth, while flying, in the dark. You’d be exhausted, and probably pretty hungry. Though some bats go for sedentary insects, most catch their food on the wing every single night. Let that sink in.

URBANA, Ill. – Deep in a Panamanian rain forest, bird populations have been quietly declining for 44 years. A new University of Illinois-led study shows a whopping 70% of understory bird species declined in the forest between 1977 and 2020. And the vast majority of those are down by half or more.

URBANA, Ill. – In neighborhoods lacking tree cover, residents suffer poorer health and incur hundreds of dollars more in medical costs than neighbors on leafier blocks. That’s according to a new University of Illinois study of 5 million Americans over a 13-year period.

There is much more carbon stored in Earth’s soil than in its atmosphere. A significant portion of this soil carbon is in organic form (carbon bound to carbon), called soil organic carbon (SOC). Notably, unlike the inorganic carbon in soils, the amount of SOC, and how quickly it is built up or lost, can be influenced by humans. Since its advent about 10,000 years ago, agriculture has caused a significant amount of SOC to be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, contributing to climate change. 

Agricultural runoff from Midwestern farms is a major contributor to a vast “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. Nitrogen, phosphorous and other farm nutrients drain into the Mississippi River, which empties into the Gulf, spurring algae to overpopulate and suffocating other aquatic life. Illinois is a main culprit in this ongoing environmental blight. News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates spoke with U. of I.

Ensuring long term sustainability is the goal of College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) professor Mike Ward’s ongoing work to track and study grassland birds that migrate between the United States and Mexico.