At Volo Bog State Natural Area, a hard-working team has recently begun the first ecological restoration of Illinois’ only open-water bog. Volunteers and staff have done important restoration in the surrounding marsh and in the degraded uplands, but not in the bog itself. Sphagnum mosses, pitcher plants, calla lilies, orchids, and conceivably, rare spiders, butterflies, birds, and other creatures adapted to this remarkable habitat may depend on this new work.
Reasonable people might feel inclined to ask: why bother? And why risk upsetting the delicate balance of an ecosystem where some say a single footstep can take over 18 months to return to the state it was in before?
Melissa Grycan, heritage biologist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, says the reason is simple: invasive species have been reducing the diversity of plant life in the bog. It’s painful to watch such a rich ecosystem being slowly lost.
Some plants—whether you call them “malignant,” “aggressive,” “invasive,” or some other label—gradually degrade and can entirely destroy rare biodiversity in our current relationship with the natural world. People like Melissa, who spend their lives steeped in ecosystems like these, develop an eye for areas where these plants—bully-like—may need to be controlled. Some, like glossy buckthorn, are relative newcomers to the bog. Others, like winterberry, have been there for eons, but fire and other disturbances likely helped control them in the past. Ethnobotanists discuss how Indigenous peoples are known to have burned bogs in the Northwest and beyond to promote the growth of fire-dependent bog cranberry and blueberry. (That said, we’re not ready to try landscape-scale prescribed fire at Volo Bog, since little is known for certain about its effects. Perhaps in time, region-wide restoration efforts may allow experimentation with controlled burns in other bogs!)
Recent plant surveys and studies demonstrate that our current management regime (almost no management at all) brings with it the loss of many of those species unique to bogs. And because bogs are so rare in Illinois, many of these species are found almost nowhere else in the state.
Of course, plants, animals, and ecosystems don’t believe in political boundaries. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and much of Canada are relatively rich with quaking bogs, blanket bogs, fens, and other peatlands. But drainage, agriculture, changes in hydrology, and habitat fragmentation have degraded large portions of what once graced these lands. And the individual genetic material of the plants in Volo Bog cannot be found anywhere else. These plants live at the far southern range of this habitat type. The climate is changing and warming in Illinois. Perhaps these hardy species already adapted to the warmest, driest bogs in the country may hold the keys to the future of this ecosystem.
Much has been written in recent years about bog restoration. But unlike the effort at Volo, which aims to preserve and restore biodiversity, this literature focuses on hydrological restoration, with an eye more towards controlling climate change. Bogs and other peatlands capture and store carbon from the atmosphere in impressive amounts. And when drained for timber or agriculture, dried by a warming Earth, or otherwise exposed to the elements that decompose their eons of preserved organic matter, they became terrible polluters. Action by conservationists in the ‘50s and ‘60s, (including the founder of the Illinois Nature Preserve System, George Fell) has protected Volo Bog from the threat of major hydrological disturbance and kept its carbon stores in the earth, for now. A dedicated group caring for its ecology may prove indispensable in protecting it from future threats.
We know that bogs are sensitive. But scholarship also shows that for the thousands of years before Europeans arrived in Illinois, humans lived atop, harvested from, lit aflame, and otherwise “disturbed” these landscapes. And certainly, we and other large animals also walked across them. Despite all this, we have inherited biodiverse, healthy, intact bogs. And so, stepping on them once again – but with an eye to protect, love, and restore health to the ecosystem, and preserve what rare things still call the bogs home, seems eminently reasonable.
In terms of species richness, bogs rank quite low. They host significantly fewer species than the magnificent tallgrass prairies, with their hundreds upon hundreds of plants. But because of the uncommon chemical characteristics of bogs, with low nutrient levels, acidic water, and peat soils, the plants and animals that live in bogs rarely live elsewhere. In some ways, bogs are uniquely resilient to the threat of habitat fragmentation: they have always been islands. Some scientists have described how “hunkering down” in these islands has led to the evolution of species unique to various bogs.
We often hear about the climate crisis. An interrelated and perhaps just as existentially threatening crisis looms: the biodiversity crisis. Researchers have proposed a framework of so-called planetary boundaries: global systems with thresholds that, when crossed, threaten the integrity of life as we know it. Biodiversity, or the abundance of various species of plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and other living things, is decreasing at unprecedented rates. Scientists say that we are approaching a time when these species, which rely on one another, will disappear so fast that we cross a “tipping point” where the genetic material and functional pieces of our world drop out, and life can no longer continue to evolve and adapt in anything like its current state.
The system as a whole is too complex to know precisely when we could reach this point. But efforts to save what species and gene pools we know remain – and which we run the risk of losing with inaction — can play a role in slowing, and one day, perhaps, reversing this trend. These efforts are ongoing at Illinois Beach, Old Plank Road Prairies, Nachusa Grasslands, Kishwaukee Fen, Somme Prairie Grove, and many other places. They’re now beginning a new chapter, with everyday citizens engaging in careful, crucial work at Volo Bog.
Each species saved holds value beyond its “ecosystem function” drawing down carbon, pollinating our food, or preventing floods. We risk living in a world where we will never know what plants played a role as medicine or food for thousands of years — and which might for years to come. One where there are simply fewer birds, butterflies, and flowers that our children may have the privilege of knowing. Some say that saving these species is an almost theological calling. That the life we share this planet with is an irreplaceable part of creation. To lose it through inaction seems beyond foolish. But if loss of planetary health fails to convince you, be forewarned: our own survival likely depends on these species too.
Does this sound like too much doom and gloom? I notice the opposite. The staff and volunteers doing this work share profound joy in learning the intimate details of what precious biodiversity we still have. And we are inspired by the honor of helping it to survive.
And yes — you might experience the now rare pleasure of stepping off a trail and onto a floating mat of Sphagnum moss. Some describe it as standing on the boundary to another world. Didder, a word now almost never used, describes the uncanny way the mat quivers underfoot. And to feel the diddering bog is a privilege reserved for those coming to learn to save those rare special creatures that so dearly need you there.
All are welcome to join in this crucial work! Currently, the Volo Bog Restoration Project meets every Saturday and every other Thursday in the nature center parking lot. Reach out to volobogrestorationproject@gmail.com to receive updates and be a part of this historic effort!
(Read about The Peregrines on the Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves website.)
Written by Jonathan Sabath, with contributions from Stephen Packard, Heidi Gibson, Bradley Olufs, and Betty Sollman. Many thanks to Janet McBride for her excellent photos—and for avoiding the dreaded “introvert photos” of people’s backs.
Ongoing work at Volo Bog owes much to the efforts of John Coffey, Matthew Engfer, Melissa Grycan, Grace Horner, Stacy Iwanicki, Nick Kloepfer, Ani Lagos, John Marlin, Janet McBride, Bradley Olufs, Sarah Riley, Betty Sollman, Whit Waterstraat, and many other partners and supporters.
References and further reading
For a fascinating profile of the ecology of Volo Bog as it existed in the 1920s, and for an early discussion of its geologic formation, see Waterman, W. G. “Ecological Problems from the Sphagnum Bogs of Illinois.” Ecology 7, no. 3 (July 1926): 255–72. https://doi.org/10.2307/1929310.
For an overview of the threats to bogs the world over, and for a brief summary of the argument of why it might be worth stepping on bogs if it helps us save them, see Moore, Peter D. “The Future of Cool Temperate Bogs.” Environmental Conservation 29, no. 1 (March 2002): 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892902000024.
Recent scholarship on what we should have known for centuries—that humans are part of these ecosystems, and “fortress conservation” is a new, potentially costly mistake—can be found in this excellent literature survey on Indigenous uses of bogs: Speller, Jeffrey, and Véronique Forbes. “On the Role of Peat Bogs as Components of Indigenous Cultural Landscapes in Northern North America.” Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 54, no. 1 (December 31, 2022): 96–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/15230430.2022.2049957.
For a recent history on peatland destruction, with numerous and delightful forays into the cultural history of the world’s peat wetlands—including a description of other bog words like “didder,” see Proulx, Annie. Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis. First Scribner hardcover edition. New York: Scribner, 2022.
For an excellent summary of the ecology of Midwestern bogs, see https://mnfi.anr.msu.edu/abstracts/ecology/Bog.pdf
For the most recent update to the planetary boundaries framework, see Katherine Richardson et al., Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries. Sci. Adv. 9,eadh2458(2023).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adh2458
More citations
Laroche, Vincent, Stéphanie Pellerin, and Luc Brouillet. “White Fringed Orchid as Indicator of Sphagnum Bog Integrity.” Ecological Indicators 14, no. 1 (March 2012): 50–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.08.014.
Lavoie, Claude, and Stéphanie Pellerin. “Fires in Temperate Peatlands (Southern Quebec): Past and Recent Trends.” Canadian Journal of Botany 85, no. 3 (March 2007): 263–72. https://doi.org/10.1139/B07-012.
Scott, Alan G., Geoff S. Oxford, and Paul A. Selden. “Epigeic Spiders as Ecological Indicators of Conservation Value for Peat Bogs.” Biological Conservation 127, no. 4 (February 2006): 420–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2005.09.001.
Swengel, Ann B., and Scott R. Swengel. “High and Dry or Sunk and Dunked: Lessons for Tallgrass Prairies from Quaking Bogs.” Journal of Insect Conservation 15, no. 1–2 (April 2011): 165–78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-010-9335-x.
Zolkowski, Stephanie B. “HABITAT RELATIONSHIPS OF BIRD COMMUNITIES IN WISCONSIN PEATLANDS,” n.d.
Thank you so very much for your hard work and dedication, and for this wonderful post! I certainly learned a lot!