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B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I ON 1 2 7 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 3 5 6 –3 6 1 
available at www.sciencedirect.com 
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon 
Restoration, reconciliation, and reconnecting with 
nature nearby 
James R. Miller* 
Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management and Department of Landscape Architecture, 
Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3221, USA 
A R T I C L E I N F O 
Article history: 
Received 16 December 2004 
Received in revised form 
28 June 2005 
Accepted 4 July 2005 
Available online 18 October 2005 
Keywords: 
Biotic homogenization 
Grassland birds 
Midwestern United States 
Habitat restoration 
Urbanization 
Reconciliation ecology 
Prairie 
A B S T R A C T 
Biotic homogenization is in many ways a function of spatial and temporal scale. Another 
aspect of this phenomenon that perhaps receives somewhat less attention is related to 
‘‘the scale of human experience’’, particularly in the way that people view homogenization. 
Here, I examine the relationship between scale and efforts to reverse the loss of native spe-cies 
using two case studies in the Midwestern U.S. Both of these are focused on the resto-ration 
of prairie, one in a rapidly urbanizing area and one in a rural context. At a large 
reserve in a rural area, it is possible to restore prairie at a scale that is sufficient to accom-modate 
populations of grassland obligate birds. This is an unrealistic goal, however, for 
small reserves in the midst of suburban development and rapidly escalating land prices. 
Small reserves in this context may be suitable for taxa with smaller habitat requirements, 
but also have a vital role in reversing biotic homogenization by enabling people to experi-ence 
nature directly. Not only does this improve their quality of life, but may also foster 
support for efforts to maintain biodiversity in more remote locations. Thus, the goals of 
conservation and ecological restoration at various points on the land-use gradient are 
somewhat different but complementary and inter-related. Conservation scientists have 
an obvious role in the restoration and management of large reserves, but they also have 
an important part to play in restoring and maintaining elements of biodiversity in cities 
and suburbs. 
 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 
1. Introduction 
Biotic homogenization is in many ways a function of scale. As 
native habitats are replaced by agriculture or urban develop-ment, 
biodiversity is reduced regionally (and ultimately at 
global scales) as a relatively small number of species that 
thrive in human-dominated landscapes replace those that 
do not (McKinney and Lockwood, 1999). Spatial patterns of 
species replacement can be viewed as the product of a tempo-ral 
sequence in which extirpation due to habitat loss is fol-lowed 
by range expansion due to habitat gain (McKinney 
and Lockwood, 2001), although these two phases often over-lap. 
Locally, there may be a temporary increase in diversity 
as human-adapted species are added to the existing biota. 
Species loss may be forestalled depending on the pace of hab-itat 
conversion, colonization rates of human commensals, 
and the length of time that ‘‘sink’’ species can persist once 
their source habitats have disappeared (Pulliam, 1988; Tilman 
et al., 1994; Rosenzweig, 1995). 
Temporal scale also affects public perception of biotic 
homogenization Kahn (2002) observed that environmental 
conditions encountered during childhood form the baseline 
* Tel.: +1 515 294 6764; fax: +1 515 294 2348. 
E-mail address: jrmiller@iastate.edu. 
0006-3207/$ - see front matter  2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 
doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2005.07.021
B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I O N 1 2 7 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 3 5 6 –3 6 1 357 
against which people measure environmental degradation 
later in life and termed this phenomenon ‘‘environmental 
generational amnesia’’. Thus, the extent of biodiversity loss 
that is recognized and appreciated by the general public is 
lessened every few decades. 
In this paper, I examine the relationship between scale 
and efforts to mitigate biotic homogenization resulting from 
human settlement. I consider spatial and temporal scale, 
the ‘‘scale of human experience’’ (Karasov, 1997), and two 
key strategies for reducing or reversing homogenization. 
The first is habitat restoration and the second is reconcilia-tion 
(Rosenzweig, 2003), or the purposeful design of human 
land use to meet the needs of native species. To illustrate 
my points, I draw on two case studies in the Midwestern Uni-ted 
States, one in a rapidly urbanizing area and, for purposes 
of comparison, the other in a more sparsely populated rural 
setting. 
2. Case studies 
The first wave of biotic homogenization in the upper Midwest 
was initiated in the mid-1800s with European settlement and 
the conversion of prairie to agriculture. One hundred years la-ter, 
this was followed by a second wave during which rota-tion- 
based cropping systems were converted to row-crop 
monocultures (Jackson, 2002). The end result was the replace-ment 
of a diverse grassland mosaic by monotonous expanses 
of corn and soybeans. In Iowa, native prairie that once cov-ered 
85% of the state has been reduced to 0.1% and the native 
grasslands that once occupied 60% of Illinois have been re-duced 
to 0.04% (Knopf, 1994; Robertson et al., 1997). 
Although the prairie had nearly vanished by the dawn of 
the twentieth century, the form of agriculture that initially re-placed 
it still maintained important processes and elements of 
the prairie ecosystem (Jackson, 2002). Extensive hayfields, for 
example, continued to provide habitat for many grassland 
birds. Circumstances have changed since the second plow-down 
and the shift to landscapes dominated solely by annual 
crops, and during the latter half of the twentieth century grass-land 
birds have experienced greater declines than any other 
avian group in North America (Peterjohn and Sauer, 1993). 
Both of the case studies discussed below involve attempts 
to restore prairie to landscapes that have been greatly trans-formed 
since settlement. My colleagues and I are conducting 
research at both locations to evaluate these efforts in terms of 
providing habitat for avian species that are grassland 
obligates. 
2.1. Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve 
The largest contiguous prairie in the state of Iowa is located 
in Plymouth County at the northern terminus of the Loess 
Hills (Fig. 1). Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve comprises 
1200 ha in the northwest part of the state and is owned 
and managed by The Nature Conservancy. Broken Kettle is 
bordered by the 340 ha Five Ridge Prairie Park, originally pur-chased 
by The Nature Conservancy in the early 1980s and la-ter 
ceded to Plymouth County. An additional 650 ha of private 
Fig. 1 – Locations of Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve in the Loess Hills, Iowa, and Kane County, Illinois.
358 B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I ON 1 2 7 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 3 5 6 –3 6 1 
land surrounding the preserve is now under a permanent 
conservation easement. 
It is no accident that the largest prairie in a state that was 
once 85% native grassland occurs in the Loess Hills. This inter-nationally 
unique landform was created over 12,000 years ago 
from wind-blown loess deposits and sculpted by the erosive 
force of water. Prior to settlement, the hills were dominated 
by prairie in the uplands and woodland plant communities 
in valleys and ravines (Mutel, 1989). Much of the prairie has 
since been converted to agricultural uses, but the intricately 
dissected topography and highly erodable soils prevented 
the wholesale conversion to row crops so prevalent in the rest 
of the Midwest. Such conditions had two important conse-quences: 
grasslands in the Loess Hills were more often re-placed 
by pastures and hay meadows, and a relatively large 
percentage (3–5%) of native prairie remained (Mutel, 1989). 
Remnant grasslands throughout the Hills have been de-graded 
by the encroachment of woody vegetation as a conse-quence 
of fire suppression (Mutel, 1989), but this impact has 
been less pronounced in the northernmost part of the land-form. 
Here, the Loess Hills are characterized by rolling terrain, 
quite distinct from the steeper slopes and near vertical bluffs 
found to the south, and this enabled more widespread clear-ing 
of trees and shrubs to facilitate the grazing of livestock 
(S. Hickey, The Nature Conservancy’s Loess Hills Project 
Director, personal communication). The combination of rela-tively 
open, rolling landscape and lower land prices than else-where 
in the region led to The Nature Conservancy’s focus on 
the Broken Kettle area. The cost of land around the preserve 
remains low, compared to properties further south, at 
$2750–3750 (U.S.)/ha and this has allowed The Nature Conser-vancy 
to continue enlarging the preserve. Although the popu-lation 
of Plymouth County declined by 0.5% between 2000 and 
2003 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2003), exurban development 
has begun to appear in the vicinity of the preserve. It is too 
early to ascertain the extent to which developers will compete 
for properties with conservation organizations or how much 
land prices will escalate as a result. 
In 2003, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources 
underscored the importance of Broken Kettle in preserving 
avian diversity by designating it as the focal point of the 
state’s third Bird Conservation Area. The Bird Conservation 
Area model was first developed in Wisconsin (Sample and 
Mossman, 1997) and has since been applied to grassland 
areas of the United States. Intended to maintain viable pop-ulations 
at the landscape scale, the model specifies that a 
protected core area of P800 ha should be embedded in a 
4000 ha matrix that includes P1000 ha of grassland habitat. 
Field surveys suggest that several grassland obligate species, 
most notably the Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savan-narum) 
and Dickcissel (Spiza americana), occur in substantial 
numbers at Broken Kettle and on surrounding properties; 
moreover, monitoring of Grasshopper Sparrow nests indicate 
that the preserve is a source habitat for this species (Walker, 
2005). 
2.2. Kane County 
Approximately 700 km to the east of Broken Kettle Grass-lands, 
Kane County, Illinois, is located in the central 
forest/grassland transition zone (Ricketts et al., 1999). Grass-lands 
covered just over 60% of the 1325 km2 county at the 
time of settlement and the remainder was forested (Kilburn, 
1959), reflecting the overall composition of Illinois during this 
period. Although the first wave of biotic homogenization in 
this area was similar to that experienced in the Loess Hills, 
the subsequent conversion to row-crop agriculture was 
much more pronounced and now accounts for 50% of Kane 
County’s land cover (Illinois Department of Agriculture, 
2001). The county’s forests, virtually all of which are sec-ond- 
growth, have been reduced by 76%. Grasslands still 
cover nearly 24,000 ha, but these are mainly pastures and 
hayfields, remnants of a dairy industry that once was much 
larger relative to that of other counties in northeastern Illi-nois 
(Greenberg, 2002). The fate of original prairie in the 
county mirrors its decline in the state as a whole, where 
this habitat has been reduced by 99.9% (Robertson et al., 
1997). 
The second wave of biotic homogenization following con-version 
to row-crop agriculture put Kane County on a differ-ent 
trajectory from Plymouth County, Iowa, in terms of 
potential for conserving grassland bird habitat. The differ-ence 
has been made more profound as a result of the third 
wave of homogenization. Whereas Plymouth County has wit-nessed 
a slight decline in population and modest increase in 
exurban development in recent years, Kane County has expe-rienced 
the full brunt of sprawl emanating from Chicago. As 
in many metropolitan areas in the U.S., the amount of area 
consumed by sprawl has been disproportionate to the in-crease 
in population; Chicago expanded by 40% between 
1990 and 1996, while its population increased by only 9% 
(Sierra Club, 1998). 
The rapid spread of the metropolitan area meant that it 
reached Kane County, 95 km from the city of Chicago, in a rel-atively 
short period of time. Growth rates in the county have 
sky-rocketed over the last 15 years, with the population 
expanding 27.3% from 1990 to 2000 and another 13.1% from 
2000 to 2003 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2003). Indeed, growth 
now appears to be exponential, with rates projected to in-crease 
to 13% for 2004 (D. Ullberg, Kane County Forest Pre-serve 
District, personal communication). This would mean 
that with 500,000 people, Kane County’s population would 
be 20 times greater than that of Plymouth County, but in 
60% of the area. By 2030, this population is projected to ex-ceed 
800,000. 
The rapid pace of urbanization has imposed real limits on 
the ability of the Kane County Forest Preserve District to ac-quire 
property. The Forest Preserve District was established 
in 1925 and, like its counterparts in other Illinois counties, ini-tially 
focused on acquiring and managing lands that con-tained 
‘‘natural’’ forests (Greenberg, 2002). Since that time, 
they have been given greater latitude in the lands they can 
purchase and their mission has broadened to include habitat 
restoration. In Kane County, the District currentlymanages 58 
properties totaling nearly 5500 ha and continues to augment 
these holdings, adding 690 ha in 2003 (Kane County Forest 
Preserve District, 2004), but finds it increasingly difficult to 
compete with developers. Land prices in the more heavily 
developed eastern third of the county currently exceed 
$74,000/ha (25· values in the vicinity of Broken Kettle) and
B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I O N 1 2 7 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 3 5 6 –3 6 1 359 
continue to rise (D. Ullberg, personal communication). More-over, 
land acquisition by the District is not solely driven by 
ecological value, but rather by a variety of considerations that 
reflect different aspects of its mission, such as providing rec-reational 
opportunities and preserving cultural and historic 
resources. 
Formal grassland bird surveys have as yet not been con-ducted 
on District holdings in Kane County. Nonetheless, 
recreational birders have noted the presence of grassland 
obligate species on a number of properties that comprise 
hayfields or restored prairies. Recent analyses of nest data 
from five Midwestern states suggest that relatively small 
prairie fragments (100 ha) may function as population sinks 
for grassland birds and that the protection and restoration of 
large (1000 ha) areas should be the focus of conservation ef-forts 
for these species (Herkert et al., 2003). The largest con-tiguous 
grassland in Kane County is 142 ha. Given escalating 
land prices, it seems unlikely that the objective of acquiring 
and restoring ‘‘large’’ prairie tracts is attainable in Kane 
County without substantial increases in current funding 
levels. 
3. Prairie restoration and reconciliation ecology 
At Broken Kettle, prairie restoration is conducted over rela-tively 
broad spatial scales; hundreds of hectares may be 
burned in a given year. In fact the preserve is large enough 
that The Nature Conservancy is planning to establish a bison 
(Bison bison) herd in order to mimicmore closely historic graz-ing 
patterns (Scott Moats, Director of Stewardship, Broken 
Kettle Grasslands Preserve, personal communication). Public 
access is limited, minimizing potential conflicts between 
recreation and conservation goals. In comparison, habitat 
restoration in Kane County occurs at finer scales, as exempli-fied 
by the District’s strategy of managing prairie in 16-ha 
blocks. High levels of public access are expected, given the 
District’s mission statement, and coupled with limited bud-gets 
may limit the extent to which conservation objectives 
can be met. 
The relatively small size of nature reserves in Kane County 
are typical of the Midwestern U.S. (Schwartz and van Mant-gem, 
1997), a situation largely resulting from the combination 
of the high agricultural value of the land and a lack of appre-ciation 
at the time of settlement for the aesthetics of prairies 
as compared to, say, landscapes in the American West. There 
are exceptions to this rule, represented by scattered federal 
and state holdings, and a few properties in the portfolios of 
non-governmental organizations such as Broken Kettle. 
Although augmentation of existing reserves or the establish-ment 
of new ones tends to be most affordable in rural areas, 
there are still opportunities to acquire and restore habitats in 
urbanizing regions. 
Despite the challenges posed to habitat acquisition and 
restoration in the Chicago region, it represents one of the 
world’s great success stories in terms of mitigating biotic 
homogenization in an urbanizing context. The 13-county Chi-cago 
metropolitan area contains relatively more natural hab-itat 
than those parts of the Midwest that are dominated by 
agriculture, thanks in large part to the efforts of the forest 
preserve districts and establishment of state parks (Brawn 
and Stotz, 2001). Over 250,000 ha of prairies, savannas, wet-lands, 
and woodlands have been protected; conservation 
and habitat restoration in this regional nature reserve are 
coordinated by a coalition of 175 public and private organiza-tions 
(including the Kane County Forest Preserve District) 
known collectively as the ‘‘Chicago Wilderness’’ (http:// 
www.chicagowilderness.org). 
This group has done much to enhance prospects for bio-diversity 
in the area by coordinating conservation activities 
among its members, instituting monitoring and inventory 
programs, developing educational and outreach activities, 
and training thousands of volunteers. Moreover, individuals 
associated with this organization have done much to 
advance the science of ecological restoration, particularly 
with regard to prairies and savannas (Packard and Mutel, 
1997). 
Chicago’s regional reserve network and achievements in 
habitat restoration there are remarkable, but these tools alone 
may not be sufficient to sustain many elements of biodiver-sity 
over the long term. Rosenzweig (2003) observed that at 
global and continental scales, it is unlikely that much more 
than 5% of natural habitats will be protected in reserves, 
and that the amount of land added through ecological resto-ration 
is likely to be even less. This pattern appears to hold 
true at regional scales in some environments; protected areas 
included in the ChicagoWilderness cover approximately 5.7% 
of the city and its metropolitan region (Openlands Project, 
1999). Rosenzweig goes on to suggest a third strategy to sup-plement 
reserves and restoration, and has termed it ‘‘recon-ciliation 
ecology’’, or the third ‘R’ of conservation biology. 
The goal of this approach is to reconcile human needs with 
those of native species by designing our surroundings in ways 
that will also meet their habitat requirements (Rosenzweig, 
2003). 
The notion of reconciliation ecology is appealing, but re-quires 
a much broader base of support than currently exists 
if it is to be effective. Still, there are encouraging examples 
that suggest the potential of this idea. For instance, an alter-native 
to typical forms of suburban development is begin-ning 
to appear in many parts of the U.S. and is predicated 
on identifying and protecting environmentally sensitive 
areas on-site prior to laying out streets or lot lines. Conser-vation 
subdivisions (Arendt, 1996; Arendt, 2004) may pre-serve 
up to 70% of a site as open space while maintaining 
the same overall density as in a conventional development 
by clustering units on the remaining land. Such a framework 
may be a particularly effective conservation tool in places 
like Kane County, where funds for land acquisition are lim-ited. 
With planning at regional scales, this form of develop-ment 
could be used to augment greenway networks and 
buffer existing reserves. 
Conservation subdivisions can further reconcile human 
needs with those of other species by implementing features 
of low-impact development, a site-level approach to creat-ing 
hydrologically functional landscapes (Prince George’s 
County, 1999). One of the major homogenizing effects of 
development is the degradation of streamside and aquatic 
habitats through increased surface runoff and decreased 
infiltration (Schueler, 1994). Replacing impervious surfaces
360 B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I ON 1 2 7 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 3 5 6 –3 6 1 
and conventional stormwater conveyance systems with 
low-impact development practices, which treat stormwater 
at the source, can greatly reduce such degradation. Design-ers 
in the Midwestern U.S. have expanded the low-impact 
development approach by constructing on-site wetlands 
and prairies in an attempt to mimic the ecological function 
of historic landscapes (Broughton and Apfelbaum, 1999). 
Pioneered in the Chicago area, these features in combina-tion 
with low-impact development practices are projected 
to reduce annual runoff from a site by up to 70%, decrease 
peak discharge during storm events by 60%, and reduce 
waterborne contaminants by 70–100% (Broughton and 
Apfelbaum, 1999). 
4. Reconnecting with nature 
When measuring the effectiveness of efforts to reverse bio-tic 
homogenization in rural or urban settings, it is impor-tant 
to look beyond the direct benefits for biodiversity in 
a given place. If this is our only yardstick, nature reserves 
or conservation action in urban environments often pale 
in comparison to their rural counterparts. The contribution 
of Broken Kettle Grasslands to preserving grassland birds is 
far superior to that of Kane County, based on the area of 
contiguous prairie and habitat requirements of these spe-cies. 
A somewhat different assessment emerges if one also 
considers the accrual of social and educational assets (Box 
and Harrison, 1994). 
Others have suggested that one of the root causes of bio-diversity 
loss is the extinction of experience (Pyle, 1978; 
Pyle, 1993), or direct contact between people and nature, 
as our world becomes increasingly urbanized. Exacerbating 
this situation is a phenomenon termed environmental gen-erational 
amnesia (Kahn, 2002), or the tendency for people 
to use the natural environment encountered during child-hood 
as the baseline against which environmental degrada-tion 
is measured later in life. In other words, not only are 
direct encounters with nature on the decline, but the 
encounters that do occur tend to be in environments of 
progressively lower quality. To paraphrase Gould (1991), 
how likely is it that people will save what they have not 
come to know and love? 
There are essentially two ways to reverse this estrange-ment 
from the natural world: encourage people to move to 
more remote locations where ongoing contact with biologi-cally 
rich environments is more likely, or enhance this pos-sibility 
where people are already living (Turner et al., 2004). 
Until we become much more adept at reconciling human 
settlement with the needs of native species, the first option 
is unlikely to produce a favorable outcome for biodiversity. 
In fact, just the opposite is what’s needed from the conser-vation 
perspective—to stem the tide of exurban and subur-ban 
growth in and around our remaining wildlands and 
biodiversity hotspots. This objective is not unrelated to our 
second option, enhance opportunities for meaningful inter-actions 
with nature in areas that are currently developed 
(or soon will be). 
Improving the quality of life for city-dwellers may domuch 
to reduce development pressures elsewhere (Shutkin, 2000; 
Merrill, 2004). Incorporating natural features in urban design 
has positive effects on human health and well-being that 
have been extensively documented at the scale of individual 
parcels, and can be reasonably extrapolated to the scale of 
neighborhoods and entire cities (Jackson et al., 2004). Further-more, 
a growing number of studies support the hypothesis 
that ongoing contact with familiar natural environments 
greatly enhances children’s emotional and intellectual devel-opment 
(Kellert, 2002). 
Together, these observations suggest that the goals of 
conservation and ecological restoration at various points 
on the land-use gradient are somewhat different but inter-related, 
and also scale-dependent. At Broken Kettle, the 
target of restoration is the best approximation of a prairie 
ecosystem as it existed prior to settlement, with the goal 
of maintaining as many elements of biodiversity as possi-ble, 
including viable populations of grassland obligate bird 
species. Although the scale of reserves in Kane County 
may not be conducive to sustaining populations of grass-land 
birds, they may be adequate for other taxa such as 
prairie-obligate butterflies (D. Taron, Chicago Academy of 
Sciences, personal communication). The assets of these 
smaller set-asides should also be measured at the scale of 
human experience. By sheer virtue of their accessibility, 
these areas may do much to enhance the value of a prairie 
in the minds of those who live nearby. This in turn 
may translate into a more widespread recognition of the 
necessity of conserving more extensive grasslands 
elsewhere. 
Just as conservation scientists have an obvious role in 
maintaining or restoring biodiversity in large reserves that 
are distant from major population centers, they also have 
an important part to play in reversing biotic homogenization 
in places like Kane County. Their voices need to be heard by 
policy-makers. Their active participation in research and 
management is needed if the full potential of small urban re-serves 
and the promise of reconciliation ecology are to be 
realized. Achieving these goals will require new collabora-tions 
with social scientists, designers, and planners. It will 
also require a broader appreciation for the connections be-tween 
biodiversity conservation and quality of life in the 
places where most of us live. 
Acknowledgements 
Thanks to Adam Skibbe and Tracy Walker for their diligence 
on these research projects and for providing data. I am grate-ful 
to Susanne Hickey and Scott Moats (The Nature Conser-vancy) 
for all of their assistance in the Loess Hills, to Jon 
Duerr and Drew Ullberg (Kane County Forest Preserve Dis-trict), 
to Tim Mesden (Kane County GIS Department), to 
Stephanie Snyder and Bob Haight (U.S. Forest Service) for 
their collaboration on the Kane County project, and especially 
to John Dwyer, whose support ultimately made that project 
possible. Comments from George Hess and two anonymous 
reviewers were quite helpful in revising this manuscript. Fi-nally, 
thanks to Mike McKinney and Julie Lockwood for invit-ing 
me to participate in the symposium. This work was 
supported by the USDA Forest Service North Central Research 
Station and State Wildlife Grant T-1-R-4 from the Iowa 
Department of Natural Resources.
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Restoration, Reconciliation, and Reconnecting with Nature Nearby

  • 1. B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I ON 1 2 7 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 3 5 6 –3 6 1 available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon Restoration, reconciliation, and reconnecting with nature nearby James R. Miller* Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management and Department of Landscape Architecture, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3221, USA A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 16 December 2004 Received in revised form 28 June 2005 Accepted 4 July 2005 Available online 18 October 2005 Keywords: Biotic homogenization Grassland birds Midwestern United States Habitat restoration Urbanization Reconciliation ecology Prairie A B S T R A C T Biotic homogenization is in many ways a function of spatial and temporal scale. Another aspect of this phenomenon that perhaps receives somewhat less attention is related to ‘‘the scale of human experience’’, particularly in the way that people view homogenization. Here, I examine the relationship between scale and efforts to reverse the loss of native spe-cies using two case studies in the Midwestern U.S. Both of these are focused on the resto-ration of prairie, one in a rapidly urbanizing area and one in a rural context. At a large reserve in a rural area, it is possible to restore prairie at a scale that is sufficient to accom-modate populations of grassland obligate birds. This is an unrealistic goal, however, for small reserves in the midst of suburban development and rapidly escalating land prices. Small reserves in this context may be suitable for taxa with smaller habitat requirements, but also have a vital role in reversing biotic homogenization by enabling people to experi-ence nature directly. Not only does this improve their quality of life, but may also foster support for efforts to maintain biodiversity in more remote locations. Thus, the goals of conservation and ecological restoration at various points on the land-use gradient are somewhat different but complementary and inter-related. Conservation scientists have an obvious role in the restoration and management of large reserves, but they also have an important part to play in restoring and maintaining elements of biodiversity in cities and suburbs. 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Biotic homogenization is in many ways a function of scale. As native habitats are replaced by agriculture or urban develop-ment, biodiversity is reduced regionally (and ultimately at global scales) as a relatively small number of species that thrive in human-dominated landscapes replace those that do not (McKinney and Lockwood, 1999). Spatial patterns of species replacement can be viewed as the product of a tempo-ral sequence in which extirpation due to habitat loss is fol-lowed by range expansion due to habitat gain (McKinney and Lockwood, 2001), although these two phases often over-lap. Locally, there may be a temporary increase in diversity as human-adapted species are added to the existing biota. Species loss may be forestalled depending on the pace of hab-itat conversion, colonization rates of human commensals, and the length of time that ‘‘sink’’ species can persist once their source habitats have disappeared (Pulliam, 1988; Tilman et al., 1994; Rosenzweig, 1995). Temporal scale also affects public perception of biotic homogenization Kahn (2002) observed that environmental conditions encountered during childhood form the baseline * Tel.: +1 515 294 6764; fax: +1 515 294 2348. E-mail address: jrmiller@iastate.edu. 0006-3207/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2005.07.021
  • 2. B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I O N 1 2 7 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 3 5 6 –3 6 1 357 against which people measure environmental degradation later in life and termed this phenomenon ‘‘environmental generational amnesia’’. Thus, the extent of biodiversity loss that is recognized and appreciated by the general public is lessened every few decades. In this paper, I examine the relationship between scale and efforts to mitigate biotic homogenization resulting from human settlement. I consider spatial and temporal scale, the ‘‘scale of human experience’’ (Karasov, 1997), and two key strategies for reducing or reversing homogenization. The first is habitat restoration and the second is reconcilia-tion (Rosenzweig, 2003), or the purposeful design of human land use to meet the needs of native species. To illustrate my points, I draw on two case studies in the Midwestern Uni-ted States, one in a rapidly urbanizing area and, for purposes of comparison, the other in a more sparsely populated rural setting. 2. Case studies The first wave of biotic homogenization in the upper Midwest was initiated in the mid-1800s with European settlement and the conversion of prairie to agriculture. One hundred years la-ter, this was followed by a second wave during which rota-tion- based cropping systems were converted to row-crop monocultures (Jackson, 2002). The end result was the replace-ment of a diverse grassland mosaic by monotonous expanses of corn and soybeans. In Iowa, native prairie that once cov-ered 85% of the state has been reduced to 0.1% and the native grasslands that once occupied 60% of Illinois have been re-duced to 0.04% (Knopf, 1994; Robertson et al., 1997). Although the prairie had nearly vanished by the dawn of the twentieth century, the form of agriculture that initially re-placed it still maintained important processes and elements of the prairie ecosystem (Jackson, 2002). Extensive hayfields, for example, continued to provide habitat for many grassland birds. Circumstances have changed since the second plow-down and the shift to landscapes dominated solely by annual crops, and during the latter half of the twentieth century grass-land birds have experienced greater declines than any other avian group in North America (Peterjohn and Sauer, 1993). Both of the case studies discussed below involve attempts to restore prairie to landscapes that have been greatly trans-formed since settlement. My colleagues and I are conducting research at both locations to evaluate these efforts in terms of providing habitat for avian species that are grassland obligates. 2.1. Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve The largest contiguous prairie in the state of Iowa is located in Plymouth County at the northern terminus of the Loess Hills (Fig. 1). Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve comprises 1200 ha in the northwest part of the state and is owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy. Broken Kettle is bordered by the 340 ha Five Ridge Prairie Park, originally pur-chased by The Nature Conservancy in the early 1980s and la-ter ceded to Plymouth County. An additional 650 ha of private Fig. 1 – Locations of Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve in the Loess Hills, Iowa, and Kane County, Illinois.
  • 3. 358 B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I ON 1 2 7 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 3 5 6 –3 6 1 land surrounding the preserve is now under a permanent conservation easement. It is no accident that the largest prairie in a state that was once 85% native grassland occurs in the Loess Hills. This inter-nationally unique landform was created over 12,000 years ago from wind-blown loess deposits and sculpted by the erosive force of water. Prior to settlement, the hills were dominated by prairie in the uplands and woodland plant communities in valleys and ravines (Mutel, 1989). Much of the prairie has since been converted to agricultural uses, but the intricately dissected topography and highly erodable soils prevented the wholesale conversion to row crops so prevalent in the rest of the Midwest. Such conditions had two important conse-quences: grasslands in the Loess Hills were more often re-placed by pastures and hay meadows, and a relatively large percentage (3–5%) of native prairie remained (Mutel, 1989). Remnant grasslands throughout the Hills have been de-graded by the encroachment of woody vegetation as a conse-quence of fire suppression (Mutel, 1989), but this impact has been less pronounced in the northernmost part of the land-form. Here, the Loess Hills are characterized by rolling terrain, quite distinct from the steeper slopes and near vertical bluffs found to the south, and this enabled more widespread clear-ing of trees and shrubs to facilitate the grazing of livestock (S. Hickey, The Nature Conservancy’s Loess Hills Project Director, personal communication). The combination of rela-tively open, rolling landscape and lower land prices than else-where in the region led to The Nature Conservancy’s focus on the Broken Kettle area. The cost of land around the preserve remains low, compared to properties further south, at $2750–3750 (U.S.)/ha and this has allowed The Nature Conser-vancy to continue enlarging the preserve. Although the popu-lation of Plymouth County declined by 0.5% between 2000 and 2003 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2003), exurban development has begun to appear in the vicinity of the preserve. It is too early to ascertain the extent to which developers will compete for properties with conservation organizations or how much land prices will escalate as a result. In 2003, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources underscored the importance of Broken Kettle in preserving avian diversity by designating it as the focal point of the state’s third Bird Conservation Area. The Bird Conservation Area model was first developed in Wisconsin (Sample and Mossman, 1997) and has since been applied to grassland areas of the United States. Intended to maintain viable pop-ulations at the landscape scale, the model specifies that a protected core area of P800 ha should be embedded in a 4000 ha matrix that includes P1000 ha of grassland habitat. Field surveys suggest that several grassland obligate species, most notably the Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savan-narum) and Dickcissel (Spiza americana), occur in substantial numbers at Broken Kettle and on surrounding properties; moreover, monitoring of Grasshopper Sparrow nests indicate that the preserve is a source habitat for this species (Walker, 2005). 2.2. Kane County Approximately 700 km to the east of Broken Kettle Grass-lands, Kane County, Illinois, is located in the central forest/grassland transition zone (Ricketts et al., 1999). Grass-lands covered just over 60% of the 1325 km2 county at the time of settlement and the remainder was forested (Kilburn, 1959), reflecting the overall composition of Illinois during this period. Although the first wave of biotic homogenization in this area was similar to that experienced in the Loess Hills, the subsequent conversion to row-crop agriculture was much more pronounced and now accounts for 50% of Kane County’s land cover (Illinois Department of Agriculture, 2001). The county’s forests, virtually all of which are sec-ond- growth, have been reduced by 76%. Grasslands still cover nearly 24,000 ha, but these are mainly pastures and hayfields, remnants of a dairy industry that once was much larger relative to that of other counties in northeastern Illi-nois (Greenberg, 2002). The fate of original prairie in the county mirrors its decline in the state as a whole, where this habitat has been reduced by 99.9% (Robertson et al., 1997). The second wave of biotic homogenization following con-version to row-crop agriculture put Kane County on a differ-ent trajectory from Plymouth County, Iowa, in terms of potential for conserving grassland bird habitat. The differ-ence has been made more profound as a result of the third wave of homogenization. Whereas Plymouth County has wit-nessed a slight decline in population and modest increase in exurban development in recent years, Kane County has expe-rienced the full brunt of sprawl emanating from Chicago. As in many metropolitan areas in the U.S., the amount of area consumed by sprawl has been disproportionate to the in-crease in population; Chicago expanded by 40% between 1990 and 1996, while its population increased by only 9% (Sierra Club, 1998). The rapid spread of the metropolitan area meant that it reached Kane County, 95 km from the city of Chicago, in a rel-atively short period of time. Growth rates in the county have sky-rocketed over the last 15 years, with the population expanding 27.3% from 1990 to 2000 and another 13.1% from 2000 to 2003 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2003). Indeed, growth now appears to be exponential, with rates projected to in-crease to 13% for 2004 (D. Ullberg, Kane County Forest Pre-serve District, personal communication). This would mean that with 500,000 people, Kane County’s population would be 20 times greater than that of Plymouth County, but in 60% of the area. By 2030, this population is projected to ex-ceed 800,000. The rapid pace of urbanization has imposed real limits on the ability of the Kane County Forest Preserve District to ac-quire property. The Forest Preserve District was established in 1925 and, like its counterparts in other Illinois counties, ini-tially focused on acquiring and managing lands that con-tained ‘‘natural’’ forests (Greenberg, 2002). Since that time, they have been given greater latitude in the lands they can purchase and their mission has broadened to include habitat restoration. In Kane County, the District currentlymanages 58 properties totaling nearly 5500 ha and continues to augment these holdings, adding 690 ha in 2003 (Kane County Forest Preserve District, 2004), but finds it increasingly difficult to compete with developers. Land prices in the more heavily developed eastern third of the county currently exceed $74,000/ha (25· values in the vicinity of Broken Kettle) and
  • 4. B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I O N 1 2 7 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 3 5 6 –3 6 1 359 continue to rise (D. Ullberg, personal communication). More-over, land acquisition by the District is not solely driven by ecological value, but rather by a variety of considerations that reflect different aspects of its mission, such as providing rec-reational opportunities and preserving cultural and historic resources. Formal grassland bird surveys have as yet not been con-ducted on District holdings in Kane County. Nonetheless, recreational birders have noted the presence of grassland obligate species on a number of properties that comprise hayfields or restored prairies. Recent analyses of nest data from five Midwestern states suggest that relatively small prairie fragments (100 ha) may function as population sinks for grassland birds and that the protection and restoration of large (1000 ha) areas should be the focus of conservation ef-forts for these species (Herkert et al., 2003). The largest con-tiguous grassland in Kane County is 142 ha. Given escalating land prices, it seems unlikely that the objective of acquiring and restoring ‘‘large’’ prairie tracts is attainable in Kane County without substantial increases in current funding levels. 3. Prairie restoration and reconciliation ecology At Broken Kettle, prairie restoration is conducted over rela-tively broad spatial scales; hundreds of hectares may be burned in a given year. In fact the preserve is large enough that The Nature Conservancy is planning to establish a bison (Bison bison) herd in order to mimicmore closely historic graz-ing patterns (Scott Moats, Director of Stewardship, Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve, personal communication). Public access is limited, minimizing potential conflicts between recreation and conservation goals. In comparison, habitat restoration in Kane County occurs at finer scales, as exempli-fied by the District’s strategy of managing prairie in 16-ha blocks. High levels of public access are expected, given the District’s mission statement, and coupled with limited bud-gets may limit the extent to which conservation objectives can be met. The relatively small size of nature reserves in Kane County are typical of the Midwestern U.S. (Schwartz and van Mant-gem, 1997), a situation largely resulting from the combination of the high agricultural value of the land and a lack of appre-ciation at the time of settlement for the aesthetics of prairies as compared to, say, landscapes in the American West. There are exceptions to this rule, represented by scattered federal and state holdings, and a few properties in the portfolios of non-governmental organizations such as Broken Kettle. Although augmentation of existing reserves or the establish-ment of new ones tends to be most affordable in rural areas, there are still opportunities to acquire and restore habitats in urbanizing regions. Despite the challenges posed to habitat acquisition and restoration in the Chicago region, it represents one of the world’s great success stories in terms of mitigating biotic homogenization in an urbanizing context. The 13-county Chi-cago metropolitan area contains relatively more natural hab-itat than those parts of the Midwest that are dominated by agriculture, thanks in large part to the efforts of the forest preserve districts and establishment of state parks (Brawn and Stotz, 2001). Over 250,000 ha of prairies, savannas, wet-lands, and woodlands have been protected; conservation and habitat restoration in this regional nature reserve are coordinated by a coalition of 175 public and private organiza-tions (including the Kane County Forest Preserve District) known collectively as the ‘‘Chicago Wilderness’’ (http:// www.chicagowilderness.org). This group has done much to enhance prospects for bio-diversity in the area by coordinating conservation activities among its members, instituting monitoring and inventory programs, developing educational and outreach activities, and training thousands of volunteers. Moreover, individuals associated with this organization have done much to advance the science of ecological restoration, particularly with regard to prairies and savannas (Packard and Mutel, 1997). Chicago’s regional reserve network and achievements in habitat restoration there are remarkable, but these tools alone may not be sufficient to sustain many elements of biodiver-sity over the long term. Rosenzweig (2003) observed that at global and continental scales, it is unlikely that much more than 5% of natural habitats will be protected in reserves, and that the amount of land added through ecological resto-ration is likely to be even less. This pattern appears to hold true at regional scales in some environments; protected areas included in the ChicagoWilderness cover approximately 5.7% of the city and its metropolitan region (Openlands Project, 1999). Rosenzweig goes on to suggest a third strategy to sup-plement reserves and restoration, and has termed it ‘‘recon-ciliation ecology’’, or the third ‘R’ of conservation biology. The goal of this approach is to reconcile human needs with those of native species by designing our surroundings in ways that will also meet their habitat requirements (Rosenzweig, 2003). The notion of reconciliation ecology is appealing, but re-quires a much broader base of support than currently exists if it is to be effective. Still, there are encouraging examples that suggest the potential of this idea. For instance, an alter-native to typical forms of suburban development is begin-ning to appear in many parts of the U.S. and is predicated on identifying and protecting environmentally sensitive areas on-site prior to laying out streets or lot lines. Conser-vation subdivisions (Arendt, 1996; Arendt, 2004) may pre-serve up to 70% of a site as open space while maintaining the same overall density as in a conventional development by clustering units on the remaining land. Such a framework may be a particularly effective conservation tool in places like Kane County, where funds for land acquisition are lim-ited. With planning at regional scales, this form of develop-ment could be used to augment greenway networks and buffer existing reserves. Conservation subdivisions can further reconcile human needs with those of other species by implementing features of low-impact development, a site-level approach to creat-ing hydrologically functional landscapes (Prince George’s County, 1999). One of the major homogenizing effects of development is the degradation of streamside and aquatic habitats through increased surface runoff and decreased infiltration (Schueler, 1994). Replacing impervious surfaces
  • 5. 360 B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I ON 1 2 7 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 3 5 6 –3 6 1 and conventional stormwater conveyance systems with low-impact development practices, which treat stormwater at the source, can greatly reduce such degradation. Design-ers in the Midwestern U.S. have expanded the low-impact development approach by constructing on-site wetlands and prairies in an attempt to mimic the ecological function of historic landscapes (Broughton and Apfelbaum, 1999). Pioneered in the Chicago area, these features in combina-tion with low-impact development practices are projected to reduce annual runoff from a site by up to 70%, decrease peak discharge during storm events by 60%, and reduce waterborne contaminants by 70–100% (Broughton and Apfelbaum, 1999). 4. Reconnecting with nature When measuring the effectiveness of efforts to reverse bio-tic homogenization in rural or urban settings, it is impor-tant to look beyond the direct benefits for biodiversity in a given place. If this is our only yardstick, nature reserves or conservation action in urban environments often pale in comparison to their rural counterparts. The contribution of Broken Kettle Grasslands to preserving grassland birds is far superior to that of Kane County, based on the area of contiguous prairie and habitat requirements of these spe-cies. A somewhat different assessment emerges if one also considers the accrual of social and educational assets (Box and Harrison, 1994). Others have suggested that one of the root causes of bio-diversity loss is the extinction of experience (Pyle, 1978; Pyle, 1993), or direct contact between people and nature, as our world becomes increasingly urbanized. Exacerbating this situation is a phenomenon termed environmental gen-erational amnesia (Kahn, 2002), or the tendency for people to use the natural environment encountered during child-hood as the baseline against which environmental degrada-tion is measured later in life. In other words, not only are direct encounters with nature on the decline, but the encounters that do occur tend to be in environments of progressively lower quality. To paraphrase Gould (1991), how likely is it that people will save what they have not come to know and love? There are essentially two ways to reverse this estrange-ment from the natural world: encourage people to move to more remote locations where ongoing contact with biologi-cally rich environments is more likely, or enhance this pos-sibility where people are already living (Turner et al., 2004). Until we become much more adept at reconciling human settlement with the needs of native species, the first option is unlikely to produce a favorable outcome for biodiversity. In fact, just the opposite is what’s needed from the conser-vation perspective—to stem the tide of exurban and subur-ban growth in and around our remaining wildlands and biodiversity hotspots. This objective is not unrelated to our second option, enhance opportunities for meaningful inter-actions with nature in areas that are currently developed (or soon will be). Improving the quality of life for city-dwellers may domuch to reduce development pressures elsewhere (Shutkin, 2000; Merrill, 2004). Incorporating natural features in urban design has positive effects on human health and well-being that have been extensively documented at the scale of individual parcels, and can be reasonably extrapolated to the scale of neighborhoods and entire cities (Jackson et al., 2004). Further-more, a growing number of studies support the hypothesis that ongoing contact with familiar natural environments greatly enhances children’s emotional and intellectual devel-opment (Kellert, 2002). Together, these observations suggest that the goals of conservation and ecological restoration at various points on the land-use gradient are somewhat different but inter-related, and also scale-dependent. At Broken Kettle, the target of restoration is the best approximation of a prairie ecosystem as it existed prior to settlement, with the goal of maintaining as many elements of biodiversity as possi-ble, including viable populations of grassland obligate bird species. Although the scale of reserves in Kane County may not be conducive to sustaining populations of grass-land birds, they may be adequate for other taxa such as prairie-obligate butterflies (D. Taron, Chicago Academy of Sciences, personal communication). The assets of these smaller set-asides should also be measured at the scale of human experience. By sheer virtue of their accessibility, these areas may do much to enhance the value of a prairie in the minds of those who live nearby. This in turn may translate into a more widespread recognition of the necessity of conserving more extensive grasslands elsewhere. Just as conservation scientists have an obvious role in maintaining or restoring biodiversity in large reserves that are distant from major population centers, they also have an important part to play in reversing biotic homogenization in places like Kane County. Their voices need to be heard by policy-makers. Their active participation in research and management is needed if the full potential of small urban re-serves and the promise of reconciliation ecology are to be realized. Achieving these goals will require new collabora-tions with social scientists, designers, and planners. It will also require a broader appreciation for the connections be-tween biodiversity conservation and quality of life in the places where most of us live. Acknowledgements Thanks to Adam Skibbe and Tracy Walker for their diligence on these research projects and for providing data. I am grate-ful to Susanne Hickey and Scott Moats (The Nature Conser-vancy) for all of their assistance in the Loess Hills, to Jon Duerr and Drew Ullberg (Kane County Forest Preserve Dis-trict), to Tim Mesden (Kane County GIS Department), to Stephanie Snyder and Bob Haight (U.S. Forest Service) for their collaboration on the Kane County project, and especially to John Dwyer, whose support ultimately made that project possible. Comments from George Hess and two anonymous reviewers were quite helpful in revising this manuscript. Fi-nally, thanks to Mike McKinney and Julie Lockwood for invit-ing me to participate in the symposium. This work was supported by the USDA Forest Service North Central Research Station and State Wildlife Grant T-1-R-4 from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
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