Grassland is the earth’s biome dominated by herbaceous plants, which is ~40% of earth’s land surface and includes most of our agroecosystems. We explore how to restore and manage grasslands so that they support healthy people today, while building capacity for future generations to do the same. This audacious version of sustainability requires us to restore the ecosystem function of most of the biome, so our research, engagement, and teaching focuses on restoring perennial grasslands as the basis of most agroecosystems in the upper Midwest USA.

Themes driving our research are: 1) Understanding how human disturbance (crop choice, planting, tillage, inputs, harvest, grazing, burning) shapes grassland plant communities (biodiversity) and ecosystem functions (carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas fluxes, and hydrologic flows). 2) Engaging in place-making as a process for transformative socioecological change–including weaving technological, ecological, and social innovation into something we call agroecological innovation–to improve our understanding for how to make agroecosystems more sustainable.