CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – It’s a cool spring morning as I stare at the patchwork of colorful leaves and blossoms on the trees outside my home office. The thought of another Earth Day has me pondering all the research conducted at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that has direct ecological implications. My colleagues and I have written about hundreds of these studies, and hundreds more are published every year.
Perhaps this is true of any land-grant university. After all, the university is rooted in agriculture; it’s to be expected that our scientists focus on agriculture and its effects on the environment. We also are embedded in what was once an extensive Midwestern prairie, so prairie plants, animals and insects are a natural fit for us. I am biased, but I think the university’s leadership in so many areas of environmental research is exceptional. Here’s why:
Illinois is an international leader in photosynthesis research and has been for decades. Our scientists have hacked and modeled and manipulated the photosynthetic process on computers and in plants to achieve sustainable yield increases in field crops. These advances will help feed the world while minimizing agriculture’s ecological impact.
Our engineers, too, are advancing the science of environmental preservation. For example, they were the first to design new materials that could repair themselves, opening up a new avenue of research into “self-healing” materials that will last longer, minimizing waste. Illinois scientists are designing materials that have antimicrobial properties or repel water or biodegrade more readily than existing materials. They are striving to turn waste products into energy-rich resources. They’re improving the efficiency of batteries and other energy-storage and energy-generating technologies. They’re tracking industrial pollution and byproducts into the landscape, while looking for more ecologically benign alternatives.
Illinois scientists also are making major contributions to ecological research and preservation.
For example, the university is a leader in honey bee research. Our scientists directed the sequencing of the honey bee genome and used it to dissect the honey bee’s social structure to better understand the relationship between genes, gene regulation and behavior. The genome also helped tease out some of the causes of colony collapse disorder, which threatens bee survival.
Other researchers at Illinois are delving into the brains, behavior, health and habits of organisms like fish, snakes, turtles, mussels, ants, wild bees, birds, carnivorous predators and scavengers. They are building prairies and sampling forests, grasslands and wetlands across Illinois and beyond to better understand the interplay of landscapes, insects, animals and plants. Their work often focuses on the role of climate change in altering these relationships.
Illinois scientists are tracking diseases and disease vectors like ticks across the landscape, monitoring chronic wasting disease in deer, and heartland virus, Lyme disease and other dangerous pathogens in ticks and mammals.
They are cataloguing and studying the metabolic needs of beneficial and potentially harmful fungi. They are learning how fungi and other microbes in the soil affect plant growth and health. They are tracking how forest fires alter the landscape, how hunting affects ecological health and how pharmaceutical products and microplastics end up in streams and rivers.
One study, in particular, highlights the special work that emerges from Illinois ecologists. Carol Augspurger, a professor emerita of plant biology at Illinois, spent 25 years visiting the same old-growth forest to track the changes in plant life there over time. With her colleagues at the Illinois Natural History Survey, Augspurger documented gradual shifts in the timing of plant emergence, flowering and decline – likely in response to climate change – that would not have been perceptible without such a steadfast commitment.
Much of this research offers insights that will help land managers, developers, scientists and citizens to preserve and protect what remains of the state’s ecological heritage. It’s worth considering on this Earth Day.
