Conservation & Ecological RestorationLaurel Sebastian
2023 The Garden Club of America Fellowship in Ecological Restoration
Tracking Ecosystem Function Tradeoffs and Synergies: Carbon Sequestration Across Three Grassland Restoration Designs
Sebastian’s research aims to identify restoration strategies that support soil carbon sequestration in California grasslands. Leveraging an experiment using plant traits to optimize either drought tolerance, invasion resistance, or functional diversity, Sebastian will test whether any of those restoration goals exhibit trade-offs with soil carbon. By measuring plant traits, species cover, and five unique soil carbon pools, Sebastian hopes to identify traits or species that can support carbon sequestration and other restoration goals simultaneously.
The Garden Club of America Fellowship in Ecological Restoration
The Garden Club of America (the GCA) offers an annual Fellowship in Ecological Restoration. Established in 2000 with funds from the John B. Young Charitable Trust as well as GCA members and clubs, the fellowship’s goal is to support research that will advance knowledge and increase the number of scientists in the important field of ecological restoration, the active healing of the land. The $8,000 grant is awarded annually to exceptional graduate students to support specialized study in ecological restoration at an accredited U.S. university. Preference will be given to projects that include field research conducted in the United States. A panel of experts associated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum reviews the applications and makes recommendations to the GCA Scholarship Committee.
For the purposes of this scholarship, The Garden Club of America agrees to the definition of ecological restoration as stated by the Society of Ecological Restoration (SER).