Influence of Cows on Soil Carbon Sequestration in Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie
The focus of the study was to understand the effects of prairie transformation into pastures on soil carbon content in field sites located at the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, Joliet, Illinois. This research was done under the guidance of Dr. Miquel Gonzalez-Meler in the Biological Sciences Department at UIC.
Pastures and restored prairies with varying ages of restoration were the observational land-use types sampled for this research. For this study, each site was randomly sampled four times within 40 meters of distance between the first and fourth samples. Each sample was segmented every 5 cm and analyzed to understand carbon and nitrogen by depth, excluding roots.
Carbon content in both pastures and prairies were nearly equal (2.43% difference), with pastures having a greater bulk density and more soil within the top 25 cm due to compaction from grazing, when compared to prairie. We also found a dominance of C3 vegetation by applying a mixing-model to estimate the contribution of C3 and C4 plants in total soil C across both land-use types and still plan future work related to the influence of bison in restored prairies.
Image of Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie
Photo taken during soil sampling in pasture
Poster Presentation
One of the requirement as an Honors College student at UIC is to present your research at an event. The poster presentation below covers the importance, methods, and results from the experiment.