Project restores state prairies

Students and faculty members in the Department of Biological Sciences at IU-South Bend are participating in the Efroymson Restoration at Kankakee Sands, a project sponsored by The Nature Conservancy to restore prairie habitats in Newton County, Ind.\n"Over 90 percent of the prairie, wetland and savannah communities that were present in Indiana in the early 1800s have been converted to cropland, industry, business or housing developments," participating IUSB assistant professor Deborah Marr said.\nOnly small tracts of railroad rights-of-way, private property and Indiana Department of Natural Resources lands remain prairie, and none are larger than 30 acres, she said. Marr added that even in existing prairies, plant and animal species are declining in numbers.\nIn the fifth year of a projected 15-year endeavor, the Conservancy aims to connect these small reserves to form an 8,000-acre restored prairie by relocating native plant and animal species into the region.\nThe IUSB team is working with a group from Butler University to analyze the success of the Conservancy's work. Now in its third year of participation, the IU research team has reason to be optimistic.\nWilson's phalarope, a bird that was thought to be extinct in Indiana, nested at the Kankakee Sands restoration for the first time in 2002. Despite these early successes, the team said it feels a sense of urgency.\n"Once a community has been destroyed, it cannot be replaced," Marr said.\nIUSB senior Stuart Orr's research has helped prove the theory that restored prairies can sustain habitats that are found in native prairies. \n"Our findings so far show that as restorations age they are becoming more similar to native prairies in species diversity," Marr said.\nOne of the team's concerns is that the rates of reproduction and herbivory, animals' eating plants, seem to be lower in restored prairies. Kari Kubalanza, a second-year biology student at IUSB, is researching whether animals are eating more plants, which could be causing lower fruit production in certain plants and an unbalanced ecosystem.\nOrr presented his results at the Ecological Society of America meeting in Savannah, Ga., this summer, and he and Kubalanza will present their findings at the 2003 IU Undergraduate Research Conference in November. \nReactions to the restoration on the IU-Bloomington campus are positive but muted. \n"It's an admirable project," said sophomore Patrick O'Neill, a biochemistry major. "And it will help us better preserve and build ecosystems in the future since we can see how they look and act in their early stages." \n--Contact staff writer John Keucher at jkeucher@indiana.edu.