Short Bio
My name is Isabelle Pillow. I’m from Newport News, Virginia. I graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a B.S. in Environmental Studies and a biology minor. I am working in the Tropical Large-Scale Ecology lab, investigating climbing plant expansion in Puerto Rico using a functional trait approach. After RaMP-UP, I am interested in pursuing graduate studies focused on tropical plant ecology and gaining more professional experience in applied plant conservation.
A fun fact or hobby: I am passionate about sustainable food systems and someday I would like to start a community garden where people can grow and harvest their own food.
Research
Mentor:
Carla Restrepo, PhD
Co-mentor:
n/a
Project Title:
Assessing functional traits and functional diversity may provide insight into climbing plant proliferation in Puerto Rico
Project Description:
Functional traits and functional diversity are two important but little understood components of biodiversity that can potentially inform ecosystem and landscape-level effects mediated by multiple drivers. Among the latter, plant invasions stand out due to their potential to interact in complex ways with climate and land use change. Focusing on climbing plants and their traits, I will investigate how a functional trait approach may help understand the proliferation of these species in Puerto Rico. I will combine several approaches to gain insight into climbing plant invasions in heterogeneous environments, which can ultimately inform an increasingly global problem.