KBS LTER

Kellogg Biological Station | Long-Term Ecological Research

FacebookTwitterRSSemailweather
  • Home
  • WHO WE ARE
    • KBS LTER PROGRAM
    • OUTREACH AND EDUCATION
    • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
      • CLIMATE CHANGE
      • LANDSCAPE DIVERSITY
      • SOIL MICROBES
      • CLEAN WATER
    • PEOPLE
    • IN THE NEWS: RECENT HIGHLIGHTS
    • PROJECT HISTORY
    • LTER NETWORK
  • WHO WE HELP
    • CURRENT RESEARCHERS
    • NEW RESEARCHERS AND STUDENTS
    • K-12 EDUCATORS
    • AG PROFESSIONALS
      • MiSTRIPS
    • THE MEDIA
  • RESEARCH
    • AREAS OF RESEARCH
      • AGRONOMY
      • MICROBIAL ECOLOGY
      • PLANT DYNAMICS
      • INSECT DYNAMICS
      • BIOGEOCHEMISTRY
      • REGIONALIZATION
      • ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
      • BIOFUELS
    • SITE DESCRIPTION AND MAPS
      • SITE DESCRIPTION
      • SITE HISTORY
      • SOIL DESCRIPTION
      • PLOT LAYOUTS
      • THEMATIC MAPS
    • LONG-TERM EXPERIMENTS
    • RESEARCH PROTOCOLS
    • PUBLICATIONS
      • ALL PUBLICATIONS
      • PUBLICATIONS BY EXPERIMENT
      • DISSERTATIONS only
      • SYNTHESIS BOOK only
      • SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS
      • PUBLICATION DATASETS
      • LTER MEETING ABSTRACTS
    • CONDUCTING RESEARCH
      • RESEARCH FACILITIES
      • SITE USE POLICY/FORMS
      • ASSOCIATED PROJECTS
    • ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  • DATA
    • DATA CATALOG
    • DATA NUGGETS
    • RESEARCH PROTOCOLS
    • AIRPHOTOS
    • SATELLITE IMAGERY
    • GIS DATA
    • TERMS OF USE
    • DATA SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
  • PHOTOS
  • GET INVOLVED
    • TOUR OUR RESEARCH
    • EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
    • COLLABORATE ON RESEARCH
    • GRADUATE OPPORTUNITIES
    • ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE
    • GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS
      • Fellowship Awards for Long-term Ecological Research
      • Awards for Small Graduate Grants
    • JOB OPENINGS
  • BLOG
  • CONTACT US

Article featuring KBS research wins outstanding paper award

1.30.23

A paper that examines best practices for improving soil health over time has been recognized as outstanding by the American Society of Agronomy, or ASA. The paper, spearheaded by W.K. Kellogg Biological Station resident faculty and MSU assistant professor Christine Sprunger, detailed research that was conducted at the KBS Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center site. Tvisha Martin and Meredith Mann also contributed to the paper, titled “Systems with greater perenniality and crop diversity enhance soil biological health,” which was originally published in 2020 in the journal Agricultural

Read More

The ABC’s – Agriculture, Beneficial Beetles and Conservation: Reflections from an LTER Fellow

10.13.22

Cynthia Fiser is a graduate student in Doug Landis's lab in the Michigan State University Department of Entomology. Her research looks at the impact of perennial prairie strips on the dispersal of ground beetles in row crop agriculture. Rolling hills of wheat, corn and soybean are a beautiful and nostalgic feature of the summer landscape in the Midwest. Here, agriculture is as much a part of the culture as the economy – anyone who attends a county fair would agree! However, the pressure placed on our agricultural landscapes to meet global demands for food, fuel and fiber takes a toll on

Read More

Little strips of prairie can go a long way

8.1.22

A narrow green strip of prairie runs through a wheat field.

New research out of MSU shows that it is possible to manage farmland to address two challenges simultaneously – protecting biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem services. The key is to strategically place native perennial vegetation within agricultural systems, using the innovative practice of prairie strips. Today, 38% of the landscape in the Midwest is planted in row crop agriculture. “We need to make this land habitable for species for the ecosystem services the increased biodiversity can provide to the farms” said Lindsey Kemmerling, the first author of the MSU-led study

Read More

Transforming Michigan’s agricultural landscapes – Do prairie strips diversify insect communities in squash production?: Reflections from an LTER Fellow

6.16.22

Jen Zavalnitskaya is a graduate student in Zsofia Szendrei's lab in Michigan State University's Department of Entomology. Her research interests include plant-insect interactions, insect behavior, integrated pest management, and agroecology By the time I began my PhD, I knew I was passionate about promoting the biodiversity of agricultural landscapes. From my masters research in Zsofia Szendrei’s lab, I learned that the ways farmers manage their fields plays an important part in insect pest dynamics. However, the local landscape plays a large role as well. This creates a challenge,

Read More

Sarah Evans named to prestigious 2022 Earth Leadership Program cohort

5.18.22

Michigan State University microbial ecologist Sarah Evans is one of 22 leading sustainability scientists named to the 2022 North American cohort of the Earth Leadership Program (ELP). The ELP provides outstanding academic researchers with the skills, approaches, and theoretical frameworks for catalyzing change to address the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges, emphasizing new forms of individual and collective leadership. The program enables scientists to work collaboratively with diverse stakeholders and become agents of change within and beyond their

Read More

Prairie strip ecology, art, and advocacy in the LTER: Reflections from an LTER Fellow

2.23.22

Corinn Rutkoski is a graduate student in Sarah Evan's lab at the Kellogg Biological Station. She is broadly interested in the use of perennials in agricultural systems, science policy, and soil health. Her research path has been propelled by a reciprocal inspiration among ecology, conservation, and creativity.   In September 2018, Lisa Schulte Moore was scheduled to give a seminar at KBS titled Prairie strips improve biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services from corn-soybean croplands. At the time, I was a technician in Sarah Evans’ lab at KBS, considering graduate school

Read More

Studying small populations using big experiments: Reflections from an LTER Fellow

2.1.22

plants in greenhouse

Isabela Borges is a graduate student in Sarah Fitzpatrick's lab in the Integrative Biology department at Michigan State University. Isabela won the J.S. Karling Graduate Student Research Award from the Botanical Society of America for her work on plant inbreeding on the legume-rhizobia mutualism. She is broadly interested in the feedbacks between community ecology and contemporary evolution, and their consequences for the persistence of small populations. Summer 2021 was a busy one. When I first proposed to conduct an experiment on two thousand plants, that just seemed like a nice large

Read More

Disentangling the complex effects of climate change on above and belowground communities: Reflections from an LTER Fellow

1.24.22

Open top chambers

Graduate researcher, Moriah Young, is a Ph.D. student in Dr. Phoebe Zarnetske’s lab at Michigan State University. The lab uses open top chambers (OTCs) to study how biotic interactions and climate change directly and indirectly affect community structure and function at the KBS LTER.  Climate change is a pressing threat to ecosystems around the world. From warmer temperatures to more unpredictable rainfall, climate change has shown to have a myriad of effects on ecosystems. Most research has focused on direct effects of climate change on species. For example, how does warming

Read More

Species interactions in prairie strips: Reflections from an LTER Fellow

1.12.22

Prairie strips at the KBS LTER

Graduate researcher, Alice Puchalsky, is a Ph.D. student in Dr. Nick Haddad's lab at Michigan State University. Her research focus is on moths, butterflies, and interaction networks. When I began graduate school, I did not imagine myself eagerly watching a caterpillar writhe around in a plastic cup, wondering about its fate. But, that is where I found myself this past summer. I also did not imagine the delight I would feel in checking on that caterpillar the next day and finding that approximately 30 very small parasitic flies had emerged from that caterpillar’s body. I was hoping that

Read More

Scaling-up conservation practices: How much can farmers afford?

1.3.22

East Lansing, MI – Prairie strips planted into row crops have the potential to contribute a suite of ecosystem services, such as improved soil health, water quality, and wildlife habitat. When it comes to implementation, farmers have to weigh these environmental benefits as well as the economic cost of taking land out of production. In a new study, released online by Land Economics, Michigan State University (MSU) researchers find that 20% of corn and soybean farmers in the Eastern Corn Belt are willing to convert 5% of their largest corn-soybean fields to prairie strips if paid the same

Read More

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 10
  • Next Page »

Recent News and Events

  • Article featuring KBS research wins outstanding paper award
  • Welcoming the new LTAR Associate Director for Engagement, Tayler Ulbrich
  • KBS LTER helps prospective biological science grad students envision the field
  • Building relationships by the ocean
  • The ABC’s – Agriculture, Beneficial Beetles and Conservation: Reflections from an LTER Fellow

Blog Categories

  • Education and Outreach News
  • Events
  • Research News

Copyright © 2023 Michigan State University Board of Trustees | East Lansing, MI | 48824

  • LEGAL
  • MSU HOME
  • SITEMAP