This project seeks to engage landowners and land managers to protect grassland and biodiversity through development of climate change adaptation strategies in the Grand River Grasslands (southern Iowa and northern Missouri). The focus will be on examining how grasslands are managed. Researchers will identify priorities for the conservation of grassland ecosystems, identify the vulnerability to climate change of a suite of plant species, identify options that land managers can take now to prepare for future climate conditions, and evaluate these options with landowners and land managers to determine which options are most socially and economically feasible to implement.
Diane Debinski is the chair of the Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology department at Iowa State University. Her areas of research include conservation biology, landscape ecology and restoration ecology. She holds a Ph.D. in biology from Montana State University.
Email: debinski@iastate.edu
Chris Anderson, ISU Agronomy Department
Hongli Feng, Economics Department, Michigan State University
Jim Miller, Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois