Related News

Single model predicts trends in employment, microbiomes, forests

an infographic line graph across a cityscape, a forest, and microbes under a magnifying glass
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers report that a single, simplified model can predict population fluctuations in three unrelated realms: urban employment, human gut microbiomes and tropical forests. The model will help economists, ecologists, public health authorities and others predict and respond to...

Ingenious: Field Guide - Victor Shelford

 Victor E. Shelford has been called “the father of animal ecology” because he was one of the first scientists to study natural environments as communities of complex relationships among animals and plants.His studies led to  “law of toleration,” which stated...

Researchers find new carbon-capture potential

Basalt is applied to fields at the University of Illinois Energy Farm. (Photo courtesy of iSEE)
A five-year study at the University of Illinois Energy Farm found applying ground-up silicate rock to Midwestern farm fields can capture significant amounts of carbon dioxide and prevent it from accumulating in the atmosphere.Working with Eion Corp., researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana...

Windows to the Deep Past

A cross section of a coal ball with the collection of others behind it.
 Paleobotanists at the University of Illinois understand one thing better than perhaps anyone in the world: Studying coal balls is a long-term commitment. The late plant biologist Tom Phillips began hauling the prehistoric objects out of the ground more than a half-century ago and filled a...

The Key to Species Diversity May Be in Their Similarities

graphic of plants in cog wheels
More than four decades ago, field ecologists set out to quantify the diversity of trees on a forested plot on Barro Colorado Island in Panama, one of the most intensively studied tracts of forest on the planet. They began counting every tree with a trunk wider than a centimeter.They identified the...