SCIENCE
Lessons of the Prairies Research in the Grand River Grasslands helps develop sustainable agriculture
Traveling the highways and backroads near the border of Missouri and Iowa, most people never see the fragments of the land’s deep history. But they are there. Hidden in aging hay fields, overlooked cow pastures and even the odd roadside ditch, clusters of telltale grasses and wildflowers flag the presence of resilient prairies. Dr. Thomas Rosburg, a professor of ecology and botany at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, describes these hard-to-spot remnants of unplowed prairie as “the invisible prairie”. “You can see cattle and pasture out there, but you don’t really get the sense of what’s really there until you get out and walk around and see it up close,” Rosburg says. Exploring the prairie up close is exactly what Rosburg has done for more than three decades. After starting his career as a wildlife biologist for federal and state agencies, he decided in the early 1980s to return to his family’s farm
in western Iowa to see for himself the possibilities of sustainable farming practices. The five-year experiment sparked an interest in soil health, which led him to prairies. He was fascinated by the grasslands’ ability to support hundreds of species in such a way that built deep, rich soils, rather than depleting them. “It’s the model for how agriculture can be more sustainable,” he says. “Prairie has figured out how to be one of the most productive ecosystems on Earth and provide a home for the most species on Earth.” He eventually earned a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology, and in 2003, he established Drake Prairie Rescue, a program that provides students with hands-on experience restoring prairie sites. Rosburg’s work has long informed The Nature Conservancy’s understanding of prairies and connected landscapes
within what is now known as the Grand River Grasslands, a region of roughly 160,000 acres that sprawls across the Missouri-Iowa border and includes TNC’s Dunn Ranch Prairie in Missouri’s Harrison County. Twice in the early 2000s, TNC tapped Rosburg to explore large swaths of the countryside to identify and map prairie remnants in the region. The first survey, in 2003, covered a portion of the southeastern corner of Iowa. In 2005, Rosburg headed south into Missouri to survey land from the state line to the northern border of Dunn Ranch Prairie. The Missouri Department of Conservation then hired him in 2015 to do the same just south of Dunn. Each project covered blocks of 18,000 to 20,000 acres of private land. With permission of the landowners, Rosburg traversed the fields on foot, using a compass and paper aerial maps to walk
THIS PAGE Bisons’ effect on the grasslands is under study at Dunn Ranch Prairie. © Doyle Murphy/TNC
12 MISSOURI : ACTION AND IMPACT
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