ABSTRACT
Biodiversity offsetting strategies are used increasingly worldwide to replace biodiversity and ecosystem services lost to development. These strategies often require developers to replace lost ecological values by preserving or restoring ecosystems elsewhere. In the United States, the federal government regulates impacts to wetlands through wetland offsetting policies. Based on data collected at wetland mitigation banks and naturally occurring wetlands throughout Illinois, this talk will address the question of whether wetland offsetting adequately replaces destroyed wetland plant communities, or if, instead, it contributes to biological homogenization of the Illinois landscape.
BIO
Dr. Jeffrey Matthews is an Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He conducts research on plant communities in natural and restored wetlands and other ecosystems to understand the drivers of change in ecological communities and apply that understanding to challenges in ecological restoration.
