Carbon sequestration during prairie restoration

Prairie restoration is influenced by climate change, and also provides feedback to climate change by changing carbon cycles. Understanding the effects of prairie restoration on carbon cycles is important for setting goals for ecological restoration and assessing its success from a new perspective. We studied belowground and aboveground carbon stocks in a series of restored prairies as well as three remnant prairies in northern Illinois. The prairie types include mesic, sand, gravel, fen, sand, and savanna, characterized by different moisture content and soil properties. We measured soil carbon and nitrogen content, soil temperature and moisture, grass net primary production (NPP), total standing biomass, and species composition in each prairie in 2006 and 2007, following historical data back to 1970’s. Our preliminary results indicate that the remnant prairies contain more species diversity and produce more biomass than restored prairies. The restored prairies from previously abandoned agricultural lands increase carbon storage in soils over the year, but we did not see this trend in the prairies planted from urban engineered soils. Our study suggests a potential for prairie restoration to sequestrate carbon in soils while provide biofuel from aboveground biomass.