Climate Change

One great place to put a native plant bed is the base of a tree. It creates what is called a 'soft landing' for caterpillars that need to transition from the tree to pupating on the ground.

Scientists in Kansas, Missouri and other states were poised to start research to cut U.S. reliance on fertilizer imports, keep biofuel farming cost-competitive and tackle a potent greenhouse gas.

Many of these programs offered incentive payments to farmers who adopt an environmentally sustainable or “climate-smart” practice. Some partnerships will be renewed and folded into a new program.

Scientists say amid climate change and biodiversity loss, the world’s herbaria could hold the keys to overcoming the crises in their folders of dried plant specimens. But their future is in question amid cuts to research and education funding.

Wildfires have become more frequent, burning bigger areas during longer seasons thanks to conditions exacerbated by climate change. More people in the Great Plains and Midwest are turning to “prescribed” burns, which can help reduce wildfire risk.

Peat bogs sequester a massive amount of the Earth's carbon dioxide. But even as scientists work to better understand bogs' sequestration, the wetlands are under threat.

The University of Missouri Extension and the Department of Conservation are enlisting landowners to plant and care for white oak seedlings. The tree species is essential for wildlife and industry, but it's struggling under climate change.

Wild rice grows in shallow waterways in the Great Lakes region and parts of Canada. It’s a plant that holds important ecological and cultural significance, but it’s been on the decline since the early 1900s.

There’s no shortage of products designed to grow beneficial fungi that will help your crops or garden. Whether they actually do that, though, is a different matter.

A wood building material can be used in high-rise structures, giving it the potential to replace materials that are bad for the climate, while also locking carbon into buildings for decades.

Trees cool cities, soak up greenhouse gases and make people healthier, and Kansas City is planting thousands of them. It's more than halfway to its goal of adding 10,000 trees by 2026, and won a grant from the U.S. Forest Service.

Thousands of insect species use vibrations to communicate. Now, in part because of the foundational research of a Midwestern biology professor, more researchers are exploring insect vibrational communication to ward against pests and understand climate change.