Plant ecologists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign say prairie ecosystems are much more diverse than many people realize.

Assistant professor in natural resources and environmental sciences Jeffrey Matthews and Jack Zinnen of the Illinois Natural History Survey recently published a database of thousands of plant species found in historic prairies — and that’s just one part of their comprehensive investigation of Midwest plant biodiversity.

To build the database, called RELIX, the team gathered and centralized existing data from studies of prairie remnants. In addition to uncovering the biodiversity of a bygone era, the project is helping ecologists understand whether restored ecosystems fill the same roles as remnants, especially whether they provide sufficient habitat and f

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