Guest Post: Thinking like a prairie – strategies for perennial conservation
Editor’s Note: This post is a guest blog authored by Mia Keady, a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Soil & Environmental Sciences at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and is part of our ongoing series on USDA staffing. Her research focuses on soil health, land stewardship, and conservation incentives. She’s passionate about finding solutions to environmental degradation and understanding soil processes in response to land management. Mia grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, where she was first introduced to the prairie. Her work spans grassland ecology, microbial ecology, and conservation biology. She completed her bachelor’s in biology at Nebraska Wesleyan, master’s in biology at George Mason University, and Ph.D. in Environment and Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
‘Conservation requires management’ was a key takeaway from my undergraduate studies; dispelling naive ideas about letting …