Rate My Professor Sara Baer

Sara G. Baer is a Professor and Senior Scientist in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Kansas, where she also directs the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research and serves as state biologist. A Lawrence native, Baer assumed these roles in August 2019 upon joining the KU faculty as a full professor. Prior to KU, she was Professor and Chair of the Department of Plant Biology at Southern Illinois University. Her early professional experience includes serving as a research technician at the University of Georgia under Eugene Odum and as a conservation technician for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, fostering her focus on tallgrass prairie management, protection, and restoration. Baer holds a B.S. in Biology from the University of North Texas (1992), an M.S. in Entomology from the University of Georgia (1995), and a Ph.D. in Biology from Kansas State University (2001). She has administrative experience co-developing an interdisciplinary Center for Ecology at Southern Illinois University, obtaining funding for undergraduate research programs, and participating in committees including the Graduate Council Research Committee and the Ecological Society of America’s Soil Ecology Section.

Baer's research addresses soil, ecosystem, community, and restoration ecology, with emphasis on changes during restoration of former agricultural systems to grassland. Recognized as an expert in grassland, soil, and restoration ecology, the Baer Lab studies above- and belowground structural (plant and microbial composition) and functional (productivity, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration) responses to environmental heterogeneity, interannual climate variation, and intraspecific variation among dominant species sources. Key work centers on tallgrass prairie restoration, documenting decadal-scale soil carbon accumulation influenced by texture, rapid recovery of labile organic matter limiting nitrogen, and ecotype-driven differences in community traits and processes. Baer's long-term, multi-site research, including collaborations across the U.S. Midwest and South Africa, informs soil nutrient pools, microbial communities, roots, structure, and sequestration. Select publications include 'Changes in ecosystem structure and function along a chronosequence of grasslands restored through the Conservation Reserve Program' (Ecological Applications, 2002), 'Soil resources regulate productivity and diversity in newly established tallgrass prairie' (Ecology, 2003), 'Environmental heterogeneity has a weak effect on diversity during community assembly in tallgrass prairie' (Ecological Monographs, 2016), 'Heterogeneity promotes resilience in restored prairie: implications for the environmental heterogeneity hypothesis' (Ecological Applications, in press), and 'The biogeography of relative abundance of soil fungi versus bacteria in surface topsoil' (Earth System Science Data, 2022). Awards include the Young Alumni Award from Kansas State University (2014) and Women of Distinction Award from Southern Illinois University (2015).