Today grasses, flowers, sedges, rushes, and forbs—all native to the “prairie state”—are finally returning to the Midewin, located in Will County. Fueled by a $90,000 BP Leader Award, TWI began planting at two restoration sites within Midewin in 2003. TWI planted nearly 63,000 plugs from 79 species. In addition, TWI planted hundreds of pounds of native seeds representing 112 different species. Prior to planting, TWI completed removal of excess cottonwood and willow trees from the site. These trees had sprung up in abandoned farm fields, but are not part of the natural prairie landscape.

Other native species have propagated on their own, sprouting from the dormant seed bank beneath the fallow agricultural fields. Water plantain and sedges, two native species that respond to wet conditions, have been the most notable of these volunteers.

At one time, prairies dominated more than 60 percent of the Illinois landscape. Tallgrass prairie thrives in areas with more rainfall than in the shorter, mixed-grass prairies and Great Plains to the west. Aptly named, tallgrass prairies grew nearly to the height of a horse and rider, although the rich and diverse plant life also included shorter grasses and hundreds of species of wildflowers. Today, less than one-hundredth of one percent of true tallgrass prairie remains in Illinois.

When fully restored, this wetland/prairie landscape will provide habitat for a wide variety of wildlife and unprecedented open space for Chicagoland residents and visitors to enjoy. One of the TWI sites, called the Blodgett Road Restoration Area, will support rare dolomitic prairies and wetlands—communities that develop in thin soil over dolomitic bedrock. The Henslow’s sparrows, Nelson’s Sharp-tailed sparrow, and the pied-billed grebe are just some of the many animals that will find a home in this developing prairie.

Many agencies and foundations have made significant contributions to the restoration work at Midewin, including: BP, Conservation Fund, Corlands, Dr. Scholl Foundation, Field Foundation of Illinois, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Grand Victoria Foundation, Illinois Department of Natural Resources (C2000), Chauncey and Marion Deering McCormick Foundation, North American Wetland Conservation Act (NAWCA), Oberweiler Foundation, Siragusa Foundation, and the U.S. Forest Service.

In addition to restoration, TWI conducted a project at Midewin to evaluate the use of hyperspectral remote sensing (HSS) for the analysis of natural communities and monitoring of prairie restoration. For large-scale ecological restorations (100s–1000s of acres) such as those planned for Midewin, HSS offers a synoptic, yet detailed, perspective of plant community structure and development. The large-scale view, resolution of 1m2, and 120 discrete spectral wave bands enabled detection and assessment of native plant communities not possible with previous remote sensing platforms of lesser resolution and fewer wave bands. Cost-effective monitoring plans are now possible using image analysis coupled with ground truth data for changing soil-hydrologic conditions, adventive species incursions (and assessing success of restoration efforts). This potentially has broad implications for monitoring large-scale projects in the Chicago region and elsewhere. Click here for more information.

Links:

U.S. Forest Service's Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie

Location map (PDF)

Dolomitic Prairie Restoration Map (PDF)

South Patol Road Prairie Restoration Map (PDF)

The Use of Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Imagery for the Study of Prairie Ecosystems, a study by J.P. Tandarich, W.J. Sluis, L. Biehl, C. Johannsen, and P. Carter