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What is this blog all about?
Thank you for visiting The Prairie Ecologist. This blog is intended to be a forum for prairie management, prairie restoration, prairie natural history, and prairie photography. I’ll share my photos,...
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Report from the 2011 Grassland Restoration Network – Part 2: Grassland Birds
The Grassland Restoration Network’s 2011 annual meeting was at The Nature Conservancy’s Kankakee Sands prairie/wetland restoration site in Indiana. This year, we focused more than usual on creating...
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The Value of a Good Field Notebook
One of the most powerful tools of a prairie manager is a field notebook. There’s no substitute for recording observations and ideas as they happen. Memories can fade, but notes don’t (as long as you...
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It’s Bee Week!
Thanks to a return visit by Mike Arduser of the Missouri Department of Conservation, it’s bee week in the Platte River Prairies. Mike came out to our sites a year ago to help us start thinking about...
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How Do You Evaluate Your Prairie?
The most challenging aspect of prairie management may be evaluating what’s happening on the land and what to do about it. What should you focus on as you walk around a prairie? Which plant species...
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Making Smart Assumptions about Prairie Management
Some people say it’s dangerous to make assumptions. I disagree. In fact, assumptions are both necessary and empowering. Land managers make assumptions all the time. If we didn’t, we’d never get...
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What I Look For When I Walk Through My Prairies
Back in August, I posted some questions to readers about what they look for when evaluating their own prairies. I got some excellent responses, which I really appreciated. If you missed them, you can...
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A Day in the Bluffs
We spent a long day at our Rulo Bluffs property last week. The site is at the very southeast corner of Nebraska, and includes about 450 acres of mostly oak/hickory woodland with prairie and savanna...
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Photo of the Week – May 28, 2015
One difference between using cattle grazing and other grassland management options like fire or mowing is that cattle have brains. They can decide where they want to go (within our fences) and what...
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From Plant ID to Small Engine Repair – The Complex Life of a Land Steward
It’s been almost 19 years since I started my career with The Nature Conservancy as a land steward. My job was simple: restore and manage several thousand acres of prairie, wetland, and woodland...
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Prairie Word of the Day – Disturbance
It’s been too long since the initial installment of what was intended to be a regular feature of this blog – the Prairie Word of the Day. Since one blog post does not make a series, I figured I’d...
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Prairie Word of the Day – Habitat Heterogeneity
Do you know what time it is? It’s time for another PRAIRIE WORD OF THE DAY! Today’s Prairie Word of the Day (fine, it’s actually two words) is: Habitat Heterogeneity Heterogeneity is really just a...
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Hubbard Fellowship Blog – The Sky is My Mountain
This post was written by Eric Chien, one of our Hubbard Fellows. Eric comes from Minnesota and brings great energy to our prairie stewardship work. He’s also very bright, and an engaging writer, as...
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Hubbard Fellowship Blog – No “Earth” without “Art”
This post was written by Katharine Hogan, one of our Hubbard Fellows. Katharine is multifaceted and very talented – exactly the kind of person we like having in our Fellowship program. I used to be...
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Should We Manage for Rare Species or Species Diversity?
Land managers constantly make difficult decisions without really knowing the long-term consequences of their choices. Balancing the sometimes conflicting needs of rare plants like Canada milkvetch...
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Hubbard Fellowship Blog – The Nature of Human Intervention
This post is written by Eric Chien, one of our Hubbard Fellows. Eric has a solid background in land management and apparently thinks quite a bit while he’s doing stewardship work. Here are some of...
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What we know about managing soil carbon in prairies – a complete (but...
I’ve delayed writing a post about soil carbon and soil health in prairies for years because I haven’t been able to figure out how to do it. It’s a difficult subject to write about because we...
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The Show Must Go On
Almost a decade ago, I wrote about two competing metaphors for prairie restoration. I suggested we view prairie restoration like the reconstruction of a city after a disaster rather than like the...
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