Welcome to CRUE: Centre for Research in Urban Ecology

Current Projects

Grand Restoration Experiment (GRE)

The Grand Restoration Experiment (GRE) is a partnership involving the United States Forest Service Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie (MNTP), the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS), the Art Institute of Chicago, and the University of Illinois, Center for Research in Urban Ecology and Human-Dominated Landscapes (CRUE). The major objective of the proposed research is to conduct a long-term, landscape-scale experimental restoration that will examine mechanisms that structure the composition and dynamics of the tallgrass prairie and associated ecosystems.

More on the GRE...

Project Squirrel

You are invited to join Project Squirrel, a Citizen Science program for all ages. Participation only takes a few minutes--simply log on to ProjectSquirrel.org to tell us about the squirrels in your neighborhood. Join people all across Chicagoland as we learn more about the ecology of our neighborhoods through the eyes of squirrels.

For more information go to ProjectSquirrel.org or contact Steve Sullivan at sciurus@uic.edu.

Carbon Sequestration via Prairie Restoration at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie

We will quantify soil carbon dynamics at Midewin according to land use history and restoration practices. We will determine the magnitude and sustainability of carbon sinks via ecosystem restoration.

More on this project...

Chicagoland Avian Predation Project (CAPP)

The goal of the Chicagoland Avian Predation Project (CAPP) is to understand the role that predation plays in structuring urban bird communities. Urban bird communities are characterized worldwide by high abundances of few species. Researchers from UIC, Lincoln Park Zoo, and Roosevelt University are working to describe and quantify patterns of nest predation across habitats in the Chicago metropolitan region. In Stage I of the project, we used artificial nests to assay predation on open-cup nests in both residential and wildland habitat across the Chicago metropolitan region. We found reduced nest predation in residential habitats compared to urban wildlands. This result suggests a mechanism other than predation must be causing the low diversity bird communities typical of urban environments. Our next steps will focus on understanding those causal relationships.

Current Projects


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