Current Research

ISM Current Research

October, 2012: Midwest Archaeological Conference

The Museum was well represented at the 58th Midwest Archaeological Conference in East Lansing, Michigan, sponsored by Michigan State University. Dr. Bonnie Styles participated in the meeting and arranged for the manufacture of the Distinguished Career Award, which was presented to Dr. Charles Cleland, Professor Emeritus from Michigan State University.  Dr. Terrance Martin, Dr. Michael Conner, Amanda Burtt, and visiting scholar Malorie Hatch (Arizona State University) presented papers and posters summarizing their research. Christa Christensen presented a paper on educational programs at Dickson Mounds Museum.  These contributions are itemized in the Professional Presentations section of this report.

October, 2012: Hine's Emerald Dragonfly Meeting

Dr. Tim Cashatt attended a meeting in Alton on October 17 to discuss the Museum's past season of research on the federally endangered Hine's Emerald Dragonfly and to develop a strategy and plan for the next season's research. The meeting was attended by Federal and State biologists working on research and recovery for this species.

October, 2012: Neotoma Database Presented to International Forum

On October 11, Dr. Eric Grimm presented a paper on the Neotoma Paleoecology Database at a meeting on Holocene Land-Cover Change in Eastern Asia for Climate Modeling. The meeting was sponsored by PAGES (Past Global Changes), a core project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Dr. Grimm's presentation was attended by 70 representatives from Museum and University curators, faculty, and students.

October, 2012: Conference on Illinois History

Claire Martin presented a paper, "'No Marble Pile Rises': New Philadelphia and Civil War," on October 11 at the Conference on Illinois History in Springfield. On October 11, Dawn Cobb (Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and Museum Research Associate) and Dr. Harold Hassen (DNR) presented a Teacher Workshop─"Guide to Understanding Illinois' Historic Cemeteries" at the conference. The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation sponsor the conference.

October, 2012: Zooarchaeological Research

Dr. Terrance Martin identified vertebrate remains from the Middle Archaic Palace site (13PK966) for Bill Whittaker (Project Archaeologist, Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist). Dr. Robert Warren identified freshwater mussels, and Dr. Chris Widga analyzed canid remains from this site. Dr. Martin continued verifying identifications and database entry for the Hoxie Farm site (11CK4), which was mitigated by ITARP/ISAS between 2001 and 2003. Dr. Martin resumed identifying animal remains from the Upper Mississippian Fisher/Huber occupation of the Collier Lodge site (12PR36), a seasonal encampment along the edge of the Kankakee Marsh in northwestern Indiana that was excavated under the supervision of Dr. Mark Schurr (University of Notre Dame). Dr. Martin began identifications of animal remains from 20OT283, a late prehistoric habitation site along the lower Grand River near Grand Haven, Michigan. The excavations were conducted by CCRG for the Michigan DOT. Amanda Burtt continued identifying animal remains from archaeological sites in the Ouachita National Forest in western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. Objectives include insuring that no human remains have been overlooked among collections of animal remains from any of the surveyed and tested sites and completing faunal analysis of selected sites. Jessica Haglund continued identifying animal remains from the Myer-Dickson site in Fulton County, Illinois, as her master’s thesis project for Illinois State University.

September, 2012: Conference on French Colonial Studies

Dr. Terrance Martin and Adjunct Research Associate Dr. Kathleen Erhardt presented summaries of their research at the 2012 Conference of the Center for French Colonial Studies at Indiana University.  Dr. Martin addressed use of animals at French heritage archaeological sites in the Midwestern United States (70 attended). Dr. Erhardt Native American use of European copper and brass in the Midcontinent (70 attended).

September, 2012: Illinois Archaeological Survey Meeting

Drs. Michael Wiant, Terrance Martin, and Michael Conner attended the annual meeting of the Illinois Archaeological Survey, Inc. in Urbana-Champaign on September 8.  Dr. Wiant presented a paper co-authored with Kelvin Sampson on Sac and Fox villages along Henderson Creek.  A paper by Drs. Michael Conner and Jodie O'Gorman presented a paper on the 2012 excavations at the Morton site.

September, 2012: Morton Site Analyses

Drs. Terrance Martin, Bonnie Styles, Michael Conner, and Jodie O’Gorman (Michigan State University) and Marjorie Schroeder met to discuss future funding options for analyses of materials from the Morton Village site excavations (September 14).

September, 2012: Pollen Coalition Workshop

In September, Dr. Eric Grimm participated in a Pollen Coalition Workshop, sponsored by the MITRE Corporation, in Washington D.C.

September, 2012: Tyson Spring Cave Fauna Reported

In September, Dr. Chris Widga and colleagues from Penn State University, University of California Santa Cruz, and University of Kansas reported their research of scimitar-toothed cat (Homotherium serum) and stagmoose (Cervalces) remains from the Tyson Spring Cave in Fillmore County, Minnesota.  These records are the first for both species in Minnesota and the first for the scimitar-toothed cat in the Upper Great Lakes Region. Genetic analysis confirmed the identification of the scimitar-tooth cat, and it dates to approximately 26,900 years ago, a time when the Wisconsin glacial ice margin was less than 60 km away.

September, 2012: Zooarchaeological Research

Dr. Terrance Martin compiled species composition tables for the animal remains from various eighteenth-century features excavated during November 2011 at the Laurens North site near Fort de Chartres State Historic Site by Dr. Margaret Brown and Robert Mazrim. Dr. Martin continued verifying identifications and database entry for the Hoxie Farm site (11CK4), which was mitigated by Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program/Illinois State Archaeological Survey between 2001 and 2003. By the end of September, data entry was finished through Feature 904.  Dr. Martin resumed identifying animal remains from the Upper Mississippian Fisher/Huber occupation of the Collier Lodge site (12PR36), a seasonal encampment along the edge of the Kankakee Marsh in northwestern Indiana that was excavated under the supervision of Dr. Mark Schurr (University of Notre Dame).  Amanda Burtt continued identifying animal remains from archaeological sites in the Ouachita National Forest in western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. Objectives include insuring that no human remains have been overlooked among collections of animal remains from any of the surveyed and tested sites and completing faunal analysis of selected sites.  Jessica Haglund continued identifying animal remains from the Myer-Dickson site in Fulton County, Illinois, as her Master’s thesis project for Illinois State University. Dr. Martin was invited to collaborate with the Duluth Archaeology Center, L.L.C. on a proposed research project focused on an assessment of the Woodland Tradition in West-Central Minnesota, including artifactual characteristics (especially ceramics), basic lifeways (subsistence-settlement pattern), and probable interaction with other known Precontact groups. The research is being coordinated by the Minnesota Historical Society and the Oversight Board of the Statewide Survey of Historical and Archaeological Sites.

August, 2012: Art Department

Robert Sill is researching and developing an exhibition called “Art and the Word” that will be presented at ISM sites and locally will anchor a multi-venue partnership with UIS, Robert Morris Gallery, Springfield Art Association, and Prairie Art Alliance.

August, 2012: Hine's Emerald Dragonfly Research

In August, Dr. Tim Cashatt met with other surveyors and representatives from conservation organizations and photographed new Hine's Emerald sites in Cook County that are suspected to have breeding habitat.

August, 2012: Neotoma Paleocology Database

Dr. Eric Grimm made a presentation on the "Current Status of the Neotoma Paleocology Database" to an audience of about 100 academics, curators, and graduate students at the 13th International Palynological Conference at Chuo University in Tokyo, Japan.

August, 2012: Zooarchaeological Research

R. Bruce McMillan Museum Intern Amanda Burtt and Dr. Terrance Martin finished a technical report on animal remains from the Rider/Watters/Oberbroeckling Farmstead site in Dubuque County, Iowa, a site that was mitigated by Tallgrass Historians L.C. (Iowa City) as part of the Southwest Arterial highway construction project southwest of Dubuque. Contexts consist of two late nineteenth to early twentieth century privies and two animal burials. Dr. Martin identified a small collection of animal remains from five archaeological sites in north central Nebraska investigated by American Resources Group, Ltd. for the Keystone Pipeline Project (August 19).

Amanda Burtt began identifying animal remains from archaeological sites from the Ouachita National Forest in western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. Objectives include insuring that no human remains have been overlooked among collections of animal remains from any of the surveyed and tested sites and completing faunal analyses for selected sites. Dr. Martin continued verifying identifications and database entry for the Hoxie Farm site (11CK4), which was mitigated by ITARP/ISAS between 2001 and 2003. By the end of August, data entry was finished through Feature 861. Dr. Martin continued identification of animal remains from site 20OT283, a late prehistoric Native American habitation site along the lower Grand River in Ottawa County, Michigan. The site was mitigated in 2011 for the US-31/M-231 Holland to Grand Haven Highway Bypass by Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group, Inc. Dr. Martin continued identifying animal remains from the Upper Mississippian Fisher/Huber occupation of the Collier Lodge site (12PR36), a seasonal encampment along the edge of the Kankakee Marsh in northwestern Indiana that was excavated under the supervision of Dr. Mark Schurr (University of Notre Dame). Dr. Martin verified student identifications from previous zooarchaeology workshops for several lots of animal remains from the Fort St. Joseph site (Berrien County, Michigan) and entered them onto the comprehensive database for the site’s faunal assemblage.

Jessica Haglund continued identifying animal remains from the Myer-Dickson site in Fulton County, Illinois for her master’s thesis project at Illinois State University.

July, 2012: Archaeologist Presents at Annual Mississippian Conference

Dawn Cobb gave a paper at the annual Mississippian Conference at the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site (July 28). She presented on the recovery of filed teeth at the Cahokia site and other prehistoric Native American sites.  Over 100 individuals attended her presentation.  Alan Harn and Dee Ann Watt also participated in the conference.

July, 2012: Proposal for Paleobiological Research

In July, Drs. Chris Widga and Eric Grimm submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation for collaborative research with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences and University of Iowa for "Testing the effects of Holocene climate and vegetation change on bison behavior, population structure, and body size on the northern Great Plains, USA."

July, 2012: Zooarchaeological Analyses

Dr. Terrance Martin continued verifying identifications and database entry for the Hoxie Farm site (11CK4), which was mitigated by ITARP/ISAS between 2001 and 2003. By the end of July, data entry was finished through Feature 841. Dr. Martin and McMillan Museum Intern Amanda Burtt examined the large collection of animal remains at the Dickson Mounds Museum laboratory from 2012 excavations at the Morton Village site in Fulton County by the Michigan State University archaeological field school under the direction of Drs. Jodie O’Gorman and Michael Conner (July 3). Dr. Martin continued identification of animal remains from site 20OT283, a late prehistoric Native American habitation site along the lower Grand River in Ottawa County, Michigan. The site was mitigated in 2011 for the US-31/M-231 Holland to Grand Haven Highway Bypass by Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group, Inc. Dr. Martin began identification of animal remains from the Upper Mississippian Fisher/Huber occupation of the Collier Lodge site (12PR36), a seasonal encampment along the edge of the Kankakee Marsh in northwestern Indiana that was excavated under the supervision of Dr. Mark Schurr (University of Notre Dame).

July, 2012: Paleobiological Fieldwork in the Black Hills

Dr. Eric Grimm continued his long-term participation in fieldwork with Penn State to document changes in climate and biota in the Black Hills.  The team continued their excavations at and around Rainbow Cave in the southern Black Hills, and Dr. Grimm also collected pollen samples.

July, 2012: Proboscidean Extinctions

Drs. Chris Widga and Jeffrey Saunders inventoried mammoth and mastodont fossils in the collections of the Chicago Academy of Sciences at the Peggy Notebaert Museum.  This research is funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation.

July, 2012: Proposal for Archaeofaunal Research Project

Throughout the month, Dr. Bonnie Styles worked with Dr. Sarah Neusius of Indiana University of Pennsylvania to prepare a proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities to expand representation of Midwestern archaeofaunal data in the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) and demonstrate the research utility of this database. Dr. Terrance Martin wrote a letter agreeing to collaborate with other zooarchaeologists participating in the Eastern Faunal Working Group established for this project by contributing data to the tDAR database (July 11).

July, 2012: Study of Geographic and Climatic Effects on Species Turnover Published

In July, Dr. Hong Qian and a colleague from the University of Tsukuba in Japan published a study of the effects of geographic distance and climate dissimilarity on species turnover in alpine meadow communities across the Tibetan Plateau in the peer-reviewed scientific journal of Plant Ecology.

July, 2012: McMillan Museum Intern Analyzes Archeofaunal Remains

McMillan Museum Intern Amanda Burtt is identifying animal remains from Rider/Watters/ Oberbroeckling Farmstead site in Dubuque County, Iowa, a site that was mitigated by Tallgrass Historians L.C. (Iowa City) as part of the Southwest Arterial highway construction project southwest of Dubuque. Contexts consist of two late nineteenth to early twentieth century privies and two animal burials. Dr. Martin and Amanda Burtt checked box inventories and began examining zooarchaeological collections from the Ouachita National Forest in western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. Objectives include insuring that no human remains have been overlooked among collections of animal remains from any of the surveyed and tested sites, and complete faunal analysis of selected sites.

July, 2012: Masters Student Analyzes Archaeofaunal Remains

Jessica Haglund continued identifying animal remains from the Myer-Dickson site in Fulton County, Illinois, as her master’s thesis project for Illinois State University.  Dr. Terrance Martin is assisting her with this work.

June, 2012: Collaboration for Human Skeletal Remains Protection Act

On June 28, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency signed an agreement for Research Associate Dawn Cobb to continue to serve as the Physical Anthropologist for the identification and analyses of human remains recovered under the auspices of the State Human Skeletal Remains Protection and Archaeological and Paleontological Remains Protection Acts.

June, 2012: Documentary Research of Jameson Jenkins

In June, the National Park Service approved a research project on Jameson Jenkins.  Claire Martin will assemble additional documentary evidence on Jenkins, who was a neighbor to Abraham Lincoln in Springfield. She will prepare a report on the life and times of Jenkins, which will help the National Park Service interpret the property in the Lincoln Home area.

June, 2012: Hine's Emerald Research

From June 15-19, Dr. Tim Cashatt participated in fieldwork in Cherry Hill Woods in Cook County, Illinois. The purpose of this fieldwork was to locate breeding habitat and collect genetic samples of the Hine's Emerald Dragonfly.

June, 2012: American Quaternary Association Meetings

In June, Drs. Eric Grimm and Bonnie Styles participated in the biennial meeting of the American Quaternary Association in Duluth, Minnesota.  Drs. Styles and Grimm are long-time leaders in this interdisciplinary professional organization.  The theme of this year's meeting was "From Floods to Droughts: Water, Climate Variability, and their Impacts in the Holocene." Drs. Styles and Grimm attended a field trip on the University of Minnesota's Large Lakes Observatory research vessel to collect core and sediment samples to document the visibility of the recent severe floods in Duluth in the Lake Superior sediment record.  Dr. Grimm presented a paper on the high resolution record from Kettle Lake related to hydrological variability, vegetation, and fire in the plenary session. Dr. Chris Widga also attended the meeting and presented a poster with Drs. Stacey Lengyel and Jeffrey Saunders on the ecology and timing of mammoth and mastodont extinctions in the Upper Great Lakes.

June, 2012: Botany Intern Completes Palynological Project

In June, Buzz Nanavanti completed an internship project with Dr. Eric Grimm to analyze pollen samples from Sweeton Pond in Missouri. He will be attending graduate school at Washington State University in the fall and hopes to continue his analysis of the Sweeton Pont data.

June, 2012: Geological Research

On June 6, Dr. Chris Widga collected archaeomagnetic samples from the Morton Village Site in Fulton County and also collected vegetation samples for strontium isotope analyses.

June, 2012: Zooarchaeological Analyses

Dr. Terrance Martin continued verifying identifications and database entry for the Hoxie Farm site (11CK4), which was mitigated by ITARP/ISAS between 2001 and 2003. By the end of June, data entry was finished through Feature 831. Dr. Martin began identifications on animal remains from site 20OT283, a late prehistoric Native American habitation site along the lower Grand River in Ottawa County, Michigan. The site was mitigated in 2011 for the US-31/M-231 Holland to Grand Haven Highway Bypass by Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group, Inc.  Under the supervision of Dr. Martin, Jessica Haglund continued identifying animal remains from the Myer-Dickson site, located at the site of the Dickson Mounds Museum and parking lot in Fulton County, Illinois, which was excavated during the 1960s. This work is Haglund’s master’s thesis project for Illinois State University. Dr. Martin finished identifying animal remains from Feature 3 in Unit 4 at the Laurens Site North (11R125), which was excavated by Dr. Margaret Brown and Robert Mazrim in late 2011 near the Fort de Chartres State Historic Site in Randolph County, Illinois.  Dr. Brown and Mazrim are reinterpreting this site to be the remnant of a third wood fort that occupied from 1732 to 1751, instead of the first Fort de Chartres that was constructed in 1721 (as previously interpreted by Drs. Edward Jelks and Carl Ekberg).

May, 2012: Human Skeletal Remains Protection Act Coordinator

The Museum and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency renewed an agreement to continue the provision of the skeletal analyst (Dawn Cobb) to serve as the coordinator for the State Human Graves Protection Act for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency in FY13.  The position is funded through the Museum Society.

May, 2012: Paleoecology of Late Quaternary Extinctions

Drs. Chris Widga, Jeffrey Saunders, and Stacey Lengyel completed the annual report for their first year of their NSF-sponsored research of the paleoecology of Late Quaternary Extinctions. By May 11, they had surveyed proboscidean (mammoth and mastodont) collections in 19 regional repositories and will visit four more before the end of the first year of the project.   They collected morphological data to clarify proboscidean taxonomy and explore trends in molar morphology. They have noted great variability in mammoth tooth morphology that they interpret to be a result of interbreeding between different mammoth populations. They collected and have submitted 29 samples for radiometric dating to help determine the timing of occurrence and extinction of mammoths and mastodonts. Lengyel developed educational Web resources for the project to create a portal to "The last Ice Age in the North American Midwest" for the Museum's Web site. They also participated in two outreach projects in collaboration with other institutions: the joint Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM)-Illinois State Museum "2012 Mammoth Expedition" (a MPM distance learning program for grades 5-7), and the joint Illinois State Museum-Waubonsee Community College "Aurora Mastodont Matrix Analysis Project" (engages students in grades 5-12 in sorting matrix from a mastodont locality).

May, 2012: River Otter Research

Gregory R. Fretueg defended his Master’s Thesis in Environmental Science at the University of Illinois Springfield: Latrine Site Selection and Diet Composition of River Otters (Lontra canadensis) in a Restored Illinois Floodplain. Drs. Chris Widga and Terrance Martin assisted Fretueg with various parts of his research at the Research and Collections Center. Dr. Martin assisted by helping with and verifying identification of fragmentary animal remains that were found in samples of river otter scat.

May, 2012: Archeozoological Research

Dr. Terrance Martin continued verifying identifications and database entry for the Hoxie Farm site (11CK4) mitigation by Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program/Illinois State Archaeological Survey between 2001 and 2003. Dr. Martin finished identifying animal remains from excavations by Dr. Margaret Brown and Robert Mazrim that occurred late in 2011 at the Laurens Site North (11R125), located near the reconstructed stone fort at Fort de Chartres State Historic Site in Randolph County, Illinois. Dr. Brown and Mazrim are reinterpreting this site to be the remnant of a third wood fort that was occupied from 1732 to 1751, instead of the first Fort de Chartres that was constructed in 1721 (as initially interpreted by Drs. Edward Jelks and Carl Ekberg). Dr. Martin is periodically verifying Jess Haglund’s (Illinois State University) identifications of animal remains from the Meyer-Dickson site, which she is working on for her master’s thesis project.

April, 2012: Conference on Michigan Archaeology

Dr. Terrance Martin attended annual meetings of the Conference on Michigan Archaeology in East Lansing (April 28) and the Michigan Archaeological Society in Durand (April 29).

April, 2012: 2012 Illinois History Symposium

The Museum was well represented at the Illinois History Symposium with presentations by Dr. Michael Wiant, Dr. Robert Warren, and Dawn Cobb.  Dr. Wiant, Kelvin Sampson, and Alan Harn also identified artifacts for the Symposium.

April, 2012: Society for American Archaeology Meeting

Drs. Bonnie Styles, Terrance Martin, Chris Widga, Adjunct Research Associate Dr. Lynn Fisher, and Palynology Intern Buzz Nanavanti attended the Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Memphis, Tennessee (April 18-21).  Dr. Widga gave a paper, co-authored with Drs. Stacey Lengyel and Dr. Michael Wiant, on the domestication of dogs in a session organized by former McMillan Museum Intern Angela Perri. Angela Perri also gave a paper in this session on domestication of dogs in temperate forests during the middle Holocene that included research that she conducted as a part of internship. Dr. Michael Conner and Alan D. Harn prepared a paper on Dickson Mounds for the meeting, but Dr Conner was unable to attend because of illness. Dr. Martin participated in a meeting of the Committee on Museums, Collections, and Curation. Dr. Styles participated in a meeting with colleagues from Arizona State University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania on the development of a grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities to incorporate eastern archeofaunal remains in the Digital Archaeological Record.  Buzz Nanavanti presented a poster on his graduate field research in Peru.  Former McMillan Intern Andie Boon gave a paper, co-authored with Dr. Sarah Neusius (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) on faunal remains from horizon 11 at the Koster site, which was the subject of her internship at the Museum. Dr. Michael Wiant was the senior author of a paper with Dr. Jane Buikstra for this same symposium, which introduced new research at the Koster site. Dr. Buikstra presented the paper, which introduced the symposium because Dr. Wiant was unable to attend.

April, 2012: Survey for Vertebrate Fossils

On April 16, Drs. Jeffrey Saunders and Chris Widga conducted a field survey along Buckheart Creek to search for vertebrate fossils.  The Museum’s collections include vertebrate fossils from the area.

April, 2012: Research Associate Assists with Jameson Jenkins Research

Research Associate Claire Martin will be assisting the staff at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site with research on Jameson Jenkins.

April, 2012: Zooarchaeological Research

Dr. Terrance Martin continued verifying identifications and database entry for the Hoxie Farm site (11CK4) mitigation by Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program/Illinois State Archaeological Survey between 2001 and 2003. Dr. Martin continued identifying animal remains from excavations by Dr. Margaret Brown and Robert Mazrim that occurred late in 2011 at the Laurens Site North (11R125), located near the reconstructed stone fort at Fort de Chartres State Historic Site in Randolph County, Illinois. Dr. Brown and Mazrim are reinterpreting this site to be the remnant of a third wood fort that was occupied from 1732 to 1751, instead of the first Fort de Chartres that was constructed in 1721 (as previously argued by Dr. Edward Jelks and Carl Ekberg).

April, 2012: Organization of American Historians Conference

Angela Goebel-Bain participated in the Organization of American Historians and the National Council for Public History Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in April.  While she was there, she had the opportunity to meet the Director of the Chipstone Foundation and discuss potential support from them for the planning of the Museum’s new history exhibits.

April, 2012: Botanists Disentangle Factors Affecting Species Richness

Dr. Hong Qian and colleagues from the Institute of Applied Ecology and the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Alberta completed a study of the factors that generate geographic variation in species richness.  They found that energy-water balance has played the most important role in regulating pteridophyte (fern and fern allies) species richness patterns in China. The study was published in the journal Plant Ecology.

March, 2012: Zooarchaeological Research

Dr. Terrance Martin continued verifying identifications and database entry for the Hoxie Farm site (11CK4) mitigation by Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program/Illinois State Archaeological Survey between 2001 and 2003.  Dr. Martin continued identifying animal remains from excavations by Dr. Margaret Brown and Robert Mazrim in November, 2011, at the Laurens North site (11R125), located near the reconstructed stone fort at Fort de Chartres State Historic Site in Randolph County, Illinois. Dr. Brown and Mazrim are reinterpreting this site to be the remnant of a third wood fort occupied from 1732 to 1751, instead of the first Fort de Chartres that was constructed in 1721 (as previously argued by Drs. Edward Jelks and Carl Ekberg).

March, 2012: Botanist and Colleagues Critique Study of Beta Diversity

Dr. Hong Qian and colleagues from the Institute of Applied Ecology and the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences critiqued a study of beta diversity along latitudinal and elevational gradients that was published by other scholars in Science in 2011.  They concluded that the earlier study used inappropriate data and inadequate methods of analysis. Their comment was published in Science in March.

March, 2012: Latitudinal Shifts in Introduced Species

Dr. Hong Qian and colleagues from the United States Department of Agriculture, Brown University, and the University of Evora in Portugal documented that for introduced species of birds, mammals, and plants, relatively more non-native species occur at latitudes higher than those in their native ranges, and fewer occur at latitudes lower than their native ranges.  Possible drivers of latitudinal shifts in exotic ranges may include climate change, greater biotic resistance at lower latitudes, historical limitations on ranges in native regions, and the impacts of humans on species distributions.

March, 2012: Emiquon Science Symposium