Stephen Thomforde

Restoration Ecology One Field At A Time

I have 25+ years’ experience in design and installation of ecological restorations, totaling more than 4000 acres across the Midwest, and including wetland, shallow water lakes, prairie, and savanna projects. My research employs a framework based on thermodynamics, ecosystem phenomenology, catastrophic regime shifts, alternative stable states, keystone species, holons, hierarchy, far from equilibrium dynamics, and resilience. This framework provides keen insight into the ecological process we seek to restore and allows me to design cutting-edge management and research projects. My ideas and plans are 10 years ahead of my peers. I also possess a strong background in natural history, a lost academic of our current educational systems, and I question our ability to understand natural resource management without a strong knowledge of natural history. I have a passion for teaching and desire to empower my students to develop their own frameworks, based on general principle, grounded in natural history for understanding the world that surrounds. ​

A Plan For a Better Future

From an ecosystem perspective, we are forced to place pollinators into their appropriate thermodynamic niche: they are first order consumers, or herbivores, aka grazers. Pollinators emerge at the same … learn more

Resilience in Seeds Systems

Resilience is the capacity of a system, whether that is system is a lawn, a city, or a forest, to absorb shock while maintaining basic function, structure, and service. This sounds like a relatively … learn more

From Our Blog

species diversity illustration

Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis (IDH) provides restoration ecology a framework for restoring processes that maintain / renew ecological function, biological diversity, and capacity for ecosystem … [Read More...]