I am a plant ecologist broadly interested in questions at the interface of plant community and ecosystem ecology. I have used field and greenhouse experiments to investigate how drivers of global change and interacting species shape community structure.

In previous research, I studied the impacts of invasive species in tropical grasslands, and the impacts of climate change in temperate grasslands. I am now interested in understanding the relationship between biodiversity and productivity at different scales, and how local community dynamics ultimately shape larger spatial scales, such as landscapes.

• Castillioni, K.; Wilcox, K; Jiang, L; Yiqi, L; Jung, C G; Souza, L. (2020). Drought mildly reduces plant dominance in a temperate prairie ecosystem across years. Ecology and Evolution, 10, p. 6702-6713. DOI:10.1002/ece3.6400.
• Prather, R.*, Castillioni, K.*, Prather, C., Kaspari, M.; Souza, L.; Prather, C.; Reihart, R.; Welti, E. (2020). Micronutrients enhance macronutrient effects in a meta-analysis of grassland arthropod abundance. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 29(12), p. 1-16. *co-first authorship DOI:10.1111/geb.13196  
• Prather, R.; Castillioni, K.; Welti, E.; Kaspari, M., Souza, L. (2020) Abiotic factors and plant biomass, not plant diversity, strongly shape grasslands arthropods under drought conditions. Ecology, 101(6), p. 1-7, DOI:10.1002/ecy.3033.

 Ph.D., Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Oklahoma, 2021