Achievement

Trainee Kristine Nemec completed her dissertation on the relationship between diversity and resilience, focused on prairies in the Platte River region of Nebraska. She assessed the effects of tallgrass prairie plant diversity and seeding density on the provision of ecological functions and services including resistance to invasive plant species, abundance and diversity of predatory invertebrates, herbivory levels on two perennial forbs, and soil development. This study is among the first to compare the ecological functions provided by grassland seed mixes commonly used by practitioners, and found effects of both diversity and seeding density on a variety of ecosystem services.