My research is focused on asking what native plant diversity can tell us about invasion resistance. My underlying motivation is to find if there are ways to manipulate native plant diversity to reduce invasion and reduce the need for herbicide and weeding. I’m focusing on two types of diversity: functional and phylogenetic diversity. Functional diversity gives us an idea of how plants in a community are interacting while phylogenetic diversity quantifies the evolutionary history of an assemblage. I have collected prairie plants from plots established with different diversity levels, sorted them to species and dried them. I will be working with a student to weigh these plants so that I can understand the abundance of both native and non-native species.