The Chicago Region ULTRA-Ex will address a question fundamental to understanding the dynamic interactions between biodiversity conservation, ecosystem processes, and human well being in urban landscapes: In a complex urban/metropolitan system, what are the synergies and tradeoffs between conserving biodiversity and providing ecosystem services to people? The project focuses on the Green Infrastructure Vision of the Chicago Wilderness alliance, a conservation consortium of over 240 organizations. The Green Infrastructure Vision, designed to implement the Chicago Wilderness Biodiversity Recovery Plan, is already influencing long-range land planning throughout the Chicago metropolitan region. It identifies 1.5 million acres of recommended resource protection areas – lands that need careful planning and management in order to safeguard the 360,000 acres of already protected lands in the Chicago Wilderness network. Two postdoctoral researchers will work with the Chicago Region ULTRA-Ex research team (who represent a diversity of research institutions and governmental agencies) to accomplish two major objectives: (1) Conduct a critical examination of the connections between the biodiversity-recovery goals of the region-wide Green Infrastructure Vision and the delivery of critical ecosystem services to human communities throughout the Chicago region. The research examines links between social and ecological systems in the context of biodiversity management, green-infrastructure conceptualization and implementation, and the delivery of ecosystem services from cultural to biogeochemical. (2) Develop a multi-faceted, interactive, web-based Chicago ULTRA-Hub. Building on the Hub Technologies developed at Purdue University, the ULTRA-Hub will include an interactive platform for managing data, communicating research findings to planners and the public, and collaborating with scientists and practitioners, including the growing network of long-term urban research sites. It will also be an umbrella for regional urban ecosystem research and policy, and will partner with regional education and outreach programs.

The Chicago Region ULTRA-Ex will provide scientific information to strengthen planning and conservation practices in the City of Chicago and the entire Chicago metropolitan region. Needs faced in the Chicago region are faced in other urban areas; thus, the research results will meaningfully increase our understanding of the dynamics of complex socio-ecological systems in the US and the world. The research program will strengthen the infrastructure of science by integrating research groups consisting of ecologists, urban planners and social scientists in several universities, a federal agency, and the City of Chicago administration. The project will strengthen interdisciplinary education in the social and natural sciences through a Chicago-wide interdisciplinary graduate course taught by faculty, researchers, and planners from several institutions. The Chicago ULTRA-Ex also will coordinate with a recently awarded NSF-CNHS grant investigating the biodiversity and social outcomes of different models of restoration planning.