Written by Michelle A. Homann, Posted November 2025

One of the priorities that the Damschen Lab shares with the Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC) is ensuring that our research is both applicable and accessible to land managers, stakeholders, and the public. We were recently invited to participate in a symposium at the Midwest Climate Resilience Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this October, where we spent some time reflecting on the broader impacts of CASC funding in helping us disseminate our research findings. Below is a summary of ways we have been able to reach a broader audience through partnership with the Midwest CASC. 

Conference attendance

Since 2023, several students have had the opportunity to attend conferences and share results related to our ongoing winter climate research. Graduate and undergraduate students have attended Midwest CASC annual meetings to present posters and network with other researchers in the CASC community. Our attendance at other regional conferences includes the Midwest-Great Lakes Society for Ecological restoration annual meetings, as well as larger meetings including those of the Ecological Society of America. This year, we were also able to send a student to the 11th World Conference on Ecological Restoration in Denver, Colorado. Our next (virtual) conference attendance will be at The Prairie Enthusiasts 2026 Annual Conference on February 19. Supporting conference attendance has allowed us opportunities to travel, share our research, and learn about other important work being done in our field. 

Field trips

We have also shared our work a little closer to home by leading field trips to our research sites. This summer, we invited land management practitioners from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, The Prairie Enthusiasts, and our local land management partners at Adaptive Restoration to visit our field sites. As we will wrap up the research we are doing with the Midwest CASC in the summer of 2026, we discussed what the future directions for this ongoing project might look like. We received some excellent feedback and suggestions for continuing to monitor the effects of the treatments that we have been applying for nearly a decade. 

Publications

Dr. Katherine T. Charton, a former member of the Damschen Lab, recently led a publication regarding the effects of management and winter climate change on plant community composition. One of the key findings suggests that lower insulation over winter promotes more stress-tolerant plant species. The publication can be freely accessed here. 

Above: Graduate student Michelle A. Homann presents her research at the 2025 Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center Annual Summer Symposium (Photo taken by Mark E. Fuka).

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.