The Wild Things Conference Returns Saturday, March 1, 2025 - SOLD OUT
We’re thrilled to welcome you again to learn and share your expertise with our community. We’ve put together an exciting lineup of workshops and sessions from regional and national experts, plus meet & greets, video content, exhibitors, and sponsors. With over 140 presentations and discussion panels to choose from, the in-person program engages a diverse range of topics, research, and skills, and plenty of opportunities to meet with friends, old and new.
Thank you as well to our sponsors, scholarship supporters, and exhibitors who are all helping to make this another tremendously successful Wild Things.
Tickets for Wild Things 2025 are sold out. For additional information on the 2025 conference, visit wildthingscommunity.org.
**PLEASE NOTE: Some details are subject to change.**
NOTICE: Please be advised that photos and videos will be taken during Wild Things 2025. By attending, you consent to be photographed, filmed, and/or otherwise recorded. Your attendance on this event constitutes your agreement to the use of any resulting media by Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves for promotional, marketing, or any other purpose in perpetuity, without further approval or any compensation.
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In temperate deciduous forests, overstory structure modulates light availability to the understory. Thus, the structure and diversity of the understory is dependent on overstory canopy structure. In the eastern US, understory species coevolved to withstand light scarcity due to overstory structure. However, the ability of exotic plants that do not share a natural history with eastern US understories to cope with canopy loss in their novel ranges is not well understood. Preliminary analyses demonstrate that canopy loss increases exotic richness and evenness in forest understories, suggesting that canopy loss is a possible driver of understory invasions in the eastern US.
