Elevating and Expanding Expertise CAS faculty advance knowledge across continents and cultures STORY SYDNEY TRAINOR | PHOTOS JASON WALLACE AND PROVIDED From the soil of Oklahoma’s prairie to the Arctic ice caps of the North Pole, Oklahoma State University researchers in the College of Arts and Sciences conduct transdisciplinary research covering everything from how people interact with each other to data collected from satellite imagery. PATTERNS IN THE PRAIRIE Dr. Hamed Gholizadeh, associate professor in the Department of Geography, received a three-year $731,344 NASA grant for his project, “HI-GRASS - Holistic Investigation of Grassland Systems Across Scales.” This project uses remote sensing technology— collecting imagery from satellites, airplanes and drones — along with movement ecology, landscape ecology, metagenomics and microbial ecology, to understand how and why aboveground and belowground biodiversity in grasslands is changing. Gholizadeh is the principal investigator on this project, joined by co-PIs Drs. Benedicte Bachelot, OSU assistant professor of biology; Nicholas McMillan, assistant professor of agronomy and horticulture at the University of Nebraska– Lincoln; Ran Wang, UNL assistant professor and environmental spatial scientist; and John Gamon, UNL professor and quantitative remote sensing scientist. “The unique aspect of this project is its transdisciplinary nature,” Gholizadeh said. “A significant outcome of this work is the novel integration of expertise in remote sensing, plant– soil interactions and herbivore–landscape interactions to develop a biodiversity monitoring system for grasslands. This project will serve as a showcase of how large-scale integration of expertise can help assess grassland health and inform better conservation strategies.” As part of the HI-GRASS project, Gholizadeh and the team conduct large-scale field campaigns at two research sites — Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma and the Barta Brothers Ranch in Nebraska — to document the variety of grassland plant species and validate remote sensing models. But that’s just one component. Bachelot collects soil samples to assess fungal and bacterial communities in the soil, while the team from Nebraska deploys GPS trackers on cattle to monitor their movements to understand their impact on grassland aboveground and belowground biodiversity. All these insights will eventually be scaled up to the entire landscape using remote sensing. Many grasslands in this part of the world are managed by prescribed fire and grazing. This project helps reveal how these management practices affect grassland biodiversity. Dr. Hamed Gholizadeh adjusts part of the drone his team uses to conduct grassland research. 6 CONNECT 2025
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