The Field Museum has joined forces with scientists, educators, land managers and dedicated citizens from other Chicago Wilderness member institutions - a total of 42 organizations active in conservation efforts in the Chicago region - to protect and restore Chicago's prairies, savannas, woodlands, and wetlands. Greg Mueller, Margaret Thayer and others are working to develop and refine methods for the rapid inventory of several groups of organisms, including birds, plants, fungi, land snails, amphibians and reptiles, beetles, and spiders - found in the Chicago region.

Greg Mueller was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, and studied at Southern Illinois University and the University of Tennessee. Margaret Thayer was born in Oakland, California, and studied at Brown University and Harvard University.