When Is a Restoration Successful? Results from a 45-Year-Old Tallgrass Prairie Restoration

Restoration ecology had its genesis in the 1930s as Midwestern ecologists came to the realization that nearly all the tallgrass prairie in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin had been converted to agricultural or urban land uses (Curtis and Greene 1949, Critical Trends Assessment Project 1994, Smith 1998). While calls for preservation of remaining prairie in Iowa began by 1919 (Smith 1998), the pioneer restoration ecologists of the early 20th century recognized that if extensive areas of tallgrass prairie were going to be part of our future, they would have to begin to restore these historic grasslands. The first efforts were undertaken at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, initially as experimental plots under the direction of biology professor Dr. Norman Passett, and later under the direction of Dr. Theodore Sperry and Dr. Henry Greene, Dr. Sperry led the restoration activity at Curtis Prairie—a planting effort that involved men from the Civilian Conservation Corps and lasted from 1936 through 1940—while Dr. Greene almost single-handedly planted Greene Prairie between 1943 and 1952 (Blewett and Cottam 1984). Their efforts served as the inspiration for the third tallgrass prairie restoration in the Midwest (Howell and Jordan, 1991) which took place at the Knox College Green Oaks Field Study Center in west-central Illinois.