Controlled Burns at the Palisades Nature Preserve a Key Part of Ongoing Habitat Management Activities

National Great Rivers Research and Education Center personnel assisted the Great Rivers Land Trust and The Nature Institute with a controlled burn at the Palisades Nature Preserve earlier this month. Approximately 60 acres of upland oak-hickory habitat were burned.

“These types of prescribed burns are addressed in the site’s overall management plan and are connected to ongoing forest and prairie habitat management and restoration activities at the preserve,”
NGRREC Terrestrial Ecologist Lyle Guyon said.

Alley Ringhausen of the Great Rivers Land Trust organized and planned the event, and Tim Schofield of The Nature Institute was in charge of the burn itself.

The Palisades Nature Preserve sits on the river bluffs overlooking the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, and contains a unique assemblage of hill prairie and upland oak-hickory forest habitats.

The site is owned by the Lewis and Clark Community College Foundation, and managed cooperatively by the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center and Great Rivers Land Trust.

NGRREC aspires to be a leader in scholarly research, education and outreach related to the interconnectedness of big rivers, their
floodplains and watersheds, and their associated communities.

Sustaining both the ecological and economic health of the Mississippi and other great rivers requires research that addresses critical areas such as invasive species effects on native biota, habitat restoration, nutrient fluxes and strategies to reduce inputs to marine systems.

The National Great Rivers Research and Education Center is a partnership of Lewis and Clark Community College, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Prairie Research Institute’s Illinois Natural History Survey.

For more information about NGRREC visit www.ngrrec.org.

Alley Ringhausen of the Great Rivers Land Trust and Tim Schofield of the Nature Institute look at a map of the Palisades in preparation for a controlled burn earlier this month. Photo by Megan Cosgriff		Tim Schofield of the Nature Institute begins a controlled burn at the Palisades. NGRREC employees helped the Great Rivers Land Trust during a controlled burn of the Palisades earlier this month. Photo by Megan Cosgriff

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