Stuart Wagenius’ eyes light up when he describes the dozens of species of bees native to a prairie in Western Minnesota where they pollinate purple coneflowers, Echinacea angustifolia. He only lists a few for the sake of time, but the excitement in his voice says he could go on much longer.
The excitement dwindles, however, when he discusses the threats to bees and other tallgrass prairie flora and fauna. Wagenius, a conservation scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, says the bees are threatened when farmers use pesticides on other species such as aphids. He also grows somber when discussing tallgrass prairie in general. The grasslands in central North America were vast, he says. “Now it’s corn and soybeans.”
While there are still some intact patches, they are only remnants of what used to be. Agricultural expansion has left many with genetic issues due to inbreeding, as well as a lack of bees and other pollinators in some locations, he says.
And these are not the only problems that threaten ecosystems. Conservation scientist Amy Iler studies the effects of climate change on when plants flower.
“For a lot of plants, what cues them to flower is temperature,” Iler says. “So when it’s warmer, they flower earlier, and when it’s colder, they flower later.”
Changes in flowering time could have significant effects like the mismatch of plants and pollinators if their “cues” don’t align. Plants may compensate the next year with their extra resources, though climate change can also result in population decline. When pollinators provide $235 billion to $577 billion in annual global food production, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, this is no light matter.
Chicago Botanic Garden chief scientists Greg Mueller, says there are three parts to dealing with climate change: identifying threats, identifying impacts, and mitigating impacts. The team emphasizes that this is no easy feat. Ecology already deals with plants interacting with soil and other organisms, so climate change is another layer on top of an already complex field.
“Things are still getting worse,” Mueller says about climate change, “but they would be getting worse a lot faster if we weren’t doing things.”
Of the other initiatives at the Chicago Botanic Garden, many scientists are leading the way. Conservation Scientist Jeremie Fant works to “bring zoo protocols into the botanic garden world” by facilitating plant growth in hopes of returning species to the wild. Senior Scientist Pat Herendeen does paleobotanical research in Mongolia, searching for angiosperm and gymnosperm fossils and “study[ing] the past to predict the future.” Graduate student Taran Lichtenberger looks at how seed traits such as weight and embryos impact germination and restoration success.
Another project of the Botanic Garden is the Dixon National Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank, managed by Dave Sollenberger. The Seed Bank, housed at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center, is a means of preserving the flora of the tallgrass prairie that spans midwestern United States, which has lost 96 percent of its land cover to human and agricultural activities, according to the Chicago Botanic Garden’s website. The seeds are stored in a cold, dry environment at-20 °C (-4 °F) as a means of ex situ conservation, meaning the seeds are stored away from the original site. The seed bank targets 545 species that are significant to diversity and conservation of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem, which is especially important considering the threats they are facing.
If the growth of “corn and soybeans” continues on top of climate change, these seeds and the other research at the Botanic Garden may play a significant role in restoration efforts in the near future.