Illinois Natural History Survey Reports

              1
I LLINOIS
NATURAL
HI STORY
S U R V E Y R e p o r t s
March/
April 2000
No. 362
I N S I D E
Lake Calumet—The
Dream of Recovery
2
Research and Outreach
Try to Stem Tide of
Exotic
Invasions in Lake
Michigan
3
Plant Stress—Its Rela-tionship
to
Arthropod Pests in
Urban Landscapes
4
Environmentally
Friendly Gardening
5
Insect Invaders Infest
Chicago Trees
7
Cities and Ecological
Dependence
8
Urban Conservation of a
Wetland Bird Species
9
Cost and Controversy in
Managing Urban Deer
10
Illinois Wilds Institute
for Nature
11
Continued on page 11
Sandhill Crane (Grus
canadensis) in parking
lot at Champaign, IL.
Photo by Carie Nixon, INHS
Offi ce of the Chief
When one thinks of ecol-ogy
or ecosystems, the fi rst
thought to come to mind
may be dramatic, sweeping
habitats, such as vast stands of
tallgrass prairie plants, river-bottom
forests of cypress and
tupelo, or the rugged eco-systems
associated with can-yons
and bluffs—all places
that conjure up the sense of
“somewhere else.” All three
of these habitats can be found
within the boundaries of Il-linois—
the Midewin tallgrass
prairie near Joliet, to the
Cache River fl oodplain forests
of southern Illinois, to the can-yons
and bluffs of Apple Riv-er
Canyon and the Mississippi
Palisades. But ecology isn’t
restricted to pristine habitats
or “somewhere else.” Some-times
ecology happens in our
own backyard or in places that
might be unexpected—such as
large urban areas.
The greater Chicago area is
one such area in Illinois. En-compassing
much of the six
counties in the northeastern part
of the state, greater than 200,000
acres of habitats are protected.
Many of these habitats exist in
Illinois only within the greater
Chicago area, and others are
well represented within that ar-ray
of protected sites. The term
“Chicago Wilderness”—a partner-ship
of over 60 public and private
organizations—is not an oxymoron.
Instead, it refl ects the fact that
there are thriving areas within the
greater urban and suburban setting,
sheltering nearly 200 plants and
animals that are listed as threatened
or endangered in the state, and that
numerous organizations in the state
care about the ecology of urban
areas and the species they contain.
Although there are many benefi -
cial ecological in-teractions
in urban
and suburban set-tings,
those areas
also are often so
disturbed that
they are prone to
ecological prob-lems—
whether
the disappear-ance
of habitats
or degradation of them due to
human activities, or just the
proximity of urban areas to
other habitats. For example,
aquatic areas near cities are
home to mosquitoes that can
carry diseases, such as West
Nile encephalitis that oc-curred
in New York last year.
Disturbed urban forests and
aquatic habitats have been ripe
for invasions by exotic plants,
such as garlic mustard or pur-ple
loosestrife; exotic aquatic
organisms, such as round
gobies and zebra mussels; or
exotic insects, such as Asian
longhorned beetles or gypsy
moths. Invasions of urban
areas are not limited solely to
exotic species: our backyards,
forest preserves, and other
green areas have been invaded
by more familiar species, such
as Canada Geese and white-tailed
deer.
In this issue of Illinois Natu-ral
History Survey Reports, we
highlight ongoing INHS research
and outreach projects that can
be collected under the umbrella
of “urban ecology.” Survey
scientists from all disciplines
are studying the interactions of
plants and animals in urban and
suburban habitats. The stud-ies
reported here range from
particular species to habitats to
entire ecosystems. The report on
energy and resource use and the
“ecological footprint” of urban
areas illustrates a crucial concept
for long-term urban planning and
“smart growth” of our state. A
report on the wise and perhaps
paradoxical development and res-toration
of wild and natural areas
Urban Ecology in Illinois
View of Chicago looking north from
Calumet Sag Channel toward Loop. Photo
by Michael Jeffords, INHS Offi ce of the Chief