Achievement

Anna Johnson has been involved in a collaboration with the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, focused on urban biodiversity and sustainability. This program is coordinated by the Sustainability in Prisons Project (http://blogs.evergreen.edu/sustainableprisons/about/). Ms. Johnson began working with 13 volunteer female inmates at the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women in March 2013. One project is a field experiment exploring how varying the functional and phylogenetic diversity of native plant species added to a community via seed additions, affects local species diversity, productivity and resistance to weed invasion. The results of this pilot project will become a chapter of Ms. Johnson’s dissertation, and will also inform a larger experimental reclamation of vacant lots in Baltimore City, with the goal of increasing native plant biodiversity. The inmates worked with Ms. Johnson to set up and maintain the experiment, as well as collecting data.