Helen Rowe

Biography

My current research interests can be described as the study of conservation in human-dominated landscapes. Given the pressure of urbanization and agriculture, how do we maintain viable natural and critical habitats to preserve biodiversity? While my recent research uses tallgrass prairie as the system of interest, similar questions can be applied to other systems. Current projects include: 1) evaluating the effect of restoring parcels with high or low diversity plant communities on native prairie remnants as compared to adjacent crops or roads; 2) quantifying ecosystem services of native prairie as well as restorations of varying quality in an agroecosystem context; and 3) testing specific restoration techniques in support of improving ecological restoration management practices.