Chicago Botanic Garden Winter 2019

study the best ways to sustain and enrich similar high-quality landscapes across the region and internationally. Kramer notes that the Garden’s areas are unique. Some, such as the McDon- ald Woods, have soil that was never plowed or engineered; the woods now hosts an exceptional diversity of native plant and animal species. Others, in- cluding the Dixon Prairie, Garden Lakes and Shorelines, and Skokie River Corridor, have engineered soils (sand, gravel, or topsoil laid down over a sub- soil of clay), where our ecologists are working to re-create di erent habitats that were once common in the Chicago region. “In most of our natural areas, we allow natural processes to operate, using management techniques like prescribed burning and invasive species control to support the widest diversity of native species possible,” Kramer says. One of her key goals is to leverage the Garden’s natural areas and its research and training capacity to close the loop between Chicago-area land managers and scientists while training the next generation. Kramer has an extensive background working with federal agen- cies to conduct research in support of natural area restoration in regions like the Colorado Plateau, and she’s apply- ing that same collaborative knowledge to her new role. “I was trying to do something similar in the western United States, working with the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service across large re- gions like the Great Basin to under- stand how to produce and use diverse native seed stock for restoration. I’m bringing a similar approach to my new role, focusing on strengthening part- nerships with the Forest Preserves of Cook County and other regional land-managing agencies,” Kramer says. Beyond their critical role in cleaning our air and water and supporting healthy soils, plants, and wildlife, natural areas serve another important function. “Research in- creasingly shows the im- portance of natural areas to human health, happiness, and well- being, and doctors are increasingly pre- scribing nature to patients for a variety of reasons,” Kramer says. “I know my stress level goes down the minute I walk into one of our natural areas, and I am grateful to work in a place that so clearly values and provides access to these beautiful places.” The evolution of the Garden’s natural areas Skokie River Corridor en: Originally a wet prairie, the hab- itat was converted into a drainage ditch in the early 1900s. Now: is 22-acre mixed habitat hugs the brick-walled berm along the Gar- den’s western perimeter. Senior ecolo- gist Joan O’Shaughnessy has led the transformation of the oodplain wet- lands, upland prairie, and oak savanna woodland that provide important habi- tat for the region’s plants and wildlife. Dixon Prairie en: In the 1980s, the Garden em- barked on constructing a complex prai- rie habitat that had been erased throughout Illinois by centuries of ag- riculture and industrial and residential development. Now: e 15-acre prairie celebrates six prairie types—the gravel hill prairie, sand prairie, fen, tallgrass prairie, wet prairie, and savanna—each with its own topography and na- tive plant species. McDonald Woods en: For more than 30 years, senior ecologist Jim Ste en and volunteers have removed invasive species such as buckthorn and garlic mustard and re-seeded por- tions of the forest oor with grass, sedges, and wild owers. Now: e 100-acre oak woodland dif- fers from the other natural areas be- cause its soil has not been plowed or engineered. As a result, it is incredibly rich in biodiversity and provides a rare window into the plants, insects, fungi, and small mammals that historically thrived in the Chicago region. Garden Lakes and Shorelines en: For decades, steep shoreline slopes, turf grass, and poor soils domi- nated the lakeshores. But in 2000, fol- lowing an Illinois Clean Lakes Program study, the Garden began restoring its eroding shorelines. Now: Native shoreline habitats along the lakeshores—previously nonexis- tent—now expand from the lake edge from several feet to 30 feet or more and are home for 500,000 plants represent- ing more than 240 native species. Woman’s Board Curator of Aquatics Peter Nagle manages more than four miles of this habitat and is preparing for further expansion with the opening of our Shade Evaluation Garden in fall 2021. Learn more chicagobotanic.org/gardens Andrea Kramer chicagobotanic.org 21