The Damschen Lab is thrilled to announce that we have joined the Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC), a regional consortium that unites academic, Tribal, and non-profit organizations with a focus on research and collaboration. In the Midwest, where winter climate is changing more rapidly than climate of other seasons, a key conservation concern is whether winter climate change impacts the restoration and management of our natural areas. The restoration and management of tallgrass prairie is of particular concern in our region, where more than 99% of prairies have been lost to urbanization, agriculture, and habitat conversion. Our work aims to help us understand the impact of management decisions on the climate resilience of prairies.

Left: Experimental design shown from above after fall mowing and burning. Photo by Adaptive Restoration, LLC.
Right: Experimental design shown in winter after reduced snowfall manipulation. Photo by E.I. Damschen.

Long-term restoration monitoring. Thanks to funding from the Midwest CASC, we can leverage an ongoing experiment developed by the Damschen Lab to address these concerns. This experiment allows us to gather long-term data on how plant communities are changing in response to winter climate change and various disturbance management practices. Our initial findings indicate that the interaction between experimental climate conditions and management treatments influences the temperature of prairie soils during winter and the timing of spring thaw, with reduced snowfall and fall burning leading to colder winters and earlier thaws. We suspect that these environmental changes will ultimately result in reduced establishment and abundance of stress-intolerant plant species, thereby compromising the resilience of prairies undergoing winter climate change when burned in the fall. While we have observed differences in plant communities among our various management treatments, there have been no observed changes in response to our climate treatments as of yet. Given that most prairie plants are long-lived perennials, understanding the long-term effects of climate change on prairies necessitates longer timescales, and we are just beginning to explore this aspect in our experiment.

Collaboration with the management community. Despite ongoing efforts to incorporate climate adaptation into restoration and management activities, the pace of climate change often exceeds the transfer of best management practices knowledge, highlighting the urgency of this research. Funding from the Midwest CASC also enables us to co-produce knowledge through our partnerships with the Prairie Enthusiasts, Adaptive Restoration, the Nature Conservancy, and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. We maintain regular communication with our management partners to conduct experimental site maintenance, address emerging concerns and questions, and ensure the applicability of our work. The knowledge derived from our research will be instrumental in guiding land managers in making informed decisions about the type and timing of disturbances used to maintain prairie habitat in a changing climate. It will also help identify plants that are more resilient to climate change, optimizing the use of limited resources for restoration and management through targeted selection of plants for seeding. Our direct engagement with our management partners, along with our outreach to numerous non-profit organizations, governmental agencies, private ecological restoration companies, and private landowners in our local community, ensures the transfer of this knowledge to relevant stakeholders and rights holders.

Opportunities for student research. Funding from the Midwest CASC also creates opportunities for students to gain valuable hands-on experience through field research. Graduate student Katherine has been involved in the project since 2020 and has played a key role in collecting plant community data and implementing climate treatments. Her research on plant community functional diversity will provide insights into the life history strategies best suited to cope with winter climate change under different management practices. Graduate student Michelle, who joined the project in 2022, will conduct a significant portion of her dissertation work within the ongoing experiment. Her research will advance our understanding of climate and management treatment effects on the early season phenology and priority effects of several common prairie plants. Both Katherine and Michelle have been mentors to undergraduate students who have contributed to data collection for the project and have pursued their own independent research. In the summer of 2022, undergraduate student Rosalie initiated a project examining the impact of climate and disturbance on soil processes and health. In the summer of 2023, undergraduate student Benji initiated a project exploring the impact of disturbance on nitrogen-fixing prairie plant fitness and fixation rates. Current undergraduate student Sam is studying how climate and disturbance influence seed germination as part of her senior thesis research.

Left: Rosalie collects soil respiration data for her independent project. Photo by K.T. Charton.
Center: Benji collects plant height and biomass data for their independent project. Photo by K.T. Charton.
Right: Students collect plant community data with graduate mentor Katherine. Photo by M.A. Homann.

Stay tuned for more results from this work! We will be sharing blog posts here (on our website) biannually throughout the next few years to keep you updated on our research progress, highlight new findings and stellar students, and provide access to communication materials on best management practices.