The University of Illinois Springfield is awarded a grant to planning activities at the Therkildsen Field Station at Emiquon (TFSE) to develop a strategic plan with scientists, resource managers, and educators. TFSE has an active partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Dickson Mounds Museum (DMM), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). In 2000, TNC purchased over 7000 acres near Havana, IL, establishing the Emiquon Preserve. Nearby, the USFWS has 2,114 acres of lands in conservation. Together, the partnership is restoring land that was largely used for agriculture, back into a mosaic of wetlands, bottomland forest and tall grass prairie. DMM focuses on the archeology of the area, and interprets the restoration to the public.
The scientific merit of this grant is linked to TFSE's research that helps plan and document the Emiquon floodplain restoration. TFSE provides insights into water quality, river floodplain ecology and microbial communities. As part of this grant, TFSE will help establish ways to manage and disseminate data. The broader impacts of TFSE are linked to its mission to facilitate research, education, and outreach. The science done at Emiquon has a significant societal impact because the high profile of the Emiquon restoration increases public interest in the science. The field station is also a regional, community resource for science education in central Illinois. Planning will help the station increase the impact of existing educational partnerships, encourage volunteerism, and to forge new educational alliances. Through annual events and public lectures, TFSE, DMM, TNC and USFSW are reaching out to the public regionally, nationally, and internationally.
The University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) opened its first field station in 2008, the Therkildsen Field Station at Emiquon (TFSE). TFSE is located at Emiquon, in the Illinois River floodplain, where The Nature Conservancy is restoring two large shallow lakes, one of the largest restoration projects in North America. TFSE (see Figure 1) includes two laboratories, a conference room, a classroom, and modest dormitory facilities that can comfortably house 12 residents. TFSE has established strong partnerships with the Nature Conservancy (TNC), a non-profit; the Illinois State Museum at Dickson Mounds (DMM), a state agency; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a federal agency; and two field stations across the river from TFSE, the Forbes Biological Station and the Illinois River Biological Station. (Those two stations are part of the Illinois Natural History Survey, a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois.) The strength of these collaborations has become an outstanding feature of TFSE. This NSF planning grant helped TFSE evaluate its strengths and weaknesses after four years of operation, and to establish goals and plans for its next five years. These plans are for five areas of interest: scientific research, formal education, outreach to the community, data management, and a business plan. During the grant period, the investigators organized and led two multi-institution, multi-agency workshops; held several special meetings of UIS’s Emiquon Advisory Board, including a one day retreat; engaged two sets of outside experts who developed a data management plan and a business plan for TFSE; and visited and consulted with three field stations, and two museums about TFSE’s future. These activities generated scores of suggestions for TFSE. Some of these suggestions have already led to successful progress at TFSE; for example: There were many suggestions for collaborative research efforts at Emiquon. In the summer of 2013, TFSE’s Director became the PI for a significant research project for several of the Emiquon partners, "NSF RAPID: Short term effects of initial flood disturbance on restoration projects." The planning activities led to a fundamental rethinking of TFSE’s institutional role in UIS. This resulted in a change from the pre-existing organizational structure (Figure 2) to TFSE’s current structure (Figure 3). Recognizing the importance of TFSE to UIS, UIS administrators have proposed a further integration of TFSE into UIS’s organizational structure (Figure 3). Participants urged UIS to expand the staff at TFSE. UIS has recently funded a new position at TFSE, the Assistant Facilities and Business Manager. Candidates were interviewed, and TFSE’s inaugural resident Manager has already been improving TFSE’s facility and services. Participants encouraged intensified research publication efforts. In addition to the NSF RAPID grant project, TFSE presentations have been given at regional, national and international meetings; and several journal publications are in progress. Participants recognized the quality and quantity of TFSE’s outreach activities, and urged TFSE to work on reducing the amount of work necessary to repeat outreach activities for multiple groups. Recently TFSE expanded its microscope suite, adding two research microscopes: a compound scope with florescence and a dissecting scope, both with a high resolution camera feeding a large screen monitor. The improved microscope suite is helpful both for outreach to station visitors, and for research by students, faculty and other scientists. Some suggestions during the sponsored planning activities focused on long term efforts. Highlights include: Efforts to collect, organize, and disseminate scientific data from the Emiquon restoration, and from other regional scientific work. Plans for data management at TFSE have been established, and are being implemented. Plans to integrate data management with the other partners are being negotiated. Participants suggested increasing the number of courses UIS offers at Emiquon and about Emiquon. TFSE leaders are reaching out to UIS faculty in the sciences, arts, and public affairs to develop and deliver several new courses in the next five years. Planning participants noted TFSE’s continuing success at attracting and housing researchers and students who have interests in Emiquon and surrounding areas. They suggested that the partners establish a larger, shared living space, and Emiquon dormitory facility, to be used broadly by the partners and others. TFSE is taking a leadership role in exploring this possibility. As the planning activities were finishing, the participants were challenged to describe TFSE and its future in a single, memorable phrase. The participants decided on: The Therkildsen Field Station at Emiquon – Restoration Ecology of River Floodplain Systems, from Microbes to Humans. Figure 5 illustrates how that phrase is played out as TFSE and its partners explore the food web of one of the restored lakes at Emiquon. This kind of interdisciplinary, interagency research, and TFSE’s future in encouraging this kind of science and education have been significantly aided by NSF’s support of this planning activity.
