RRI research affiliates help settle global debate on biodiversity

Working with a large network of scientists worldwide, who studied grasslands of every type in all climate zones, University of Alberta rangeland researchers Edward Bork and Cameron Carlyle helped reaffirm a theory of diversity that had been under attack. Known as the humped-back model, it says that plant diversity peaks in grasslands of intermediate (medium) productivity, while high- and low-productivity grasslands tend to have fewer plant species.

Read more about the grassland research study, which was led by Lauch Fraser at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C. and was published in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal, Science.