Isabella Provera

Always fascinated by the marine and costal environment and its biodiversity, after graduating in Biological Science, I completed an international MSc in Marine Sciences at the University of Milano-Bicocca in march 2019. During my studies and subsequent professional research experiences both in Italy and abroad, I have focused on the impact of global change on natural ecosystems in costal plants and macroalgae. My research interests address the response of these organisms to climate and environmental stressors in order to determine their vulnerability and/or adaptive capacity. To do so, I use a multidisciplinary approach that integrates genetic and transcriptomic tools with eco-physiological and morphological measurements.
My PhD project at the Stazione Zoologia in Naples, focuses on seagrasses as model species. Given their fundamental role in the functioning of coastal communities, it is extremely important to identify mechanisms that would increase their resilience in order to predict their survival and limit their current loss. The aim of the project is to explore two promising assisted evolution methodologies that could enhance stress-tolerance and overall resilience of seagrasses to environmental challenges, namely, priming and selection of resistant genotypes. Priming is a technique based on the plant’s ability to store information after exposure to a stress event (i.e. stress memory); this improves the plant's performance during a second stress exposure. The second strategy aims to test and select the best fitted genotypes under current and future environmental conditions. Although these strategies have been widely applied in agriculture, they are yet poorly explored in marine plants. 
The results of these studies will have practical implications as establishing conservation plans and improving the restoration of these foundation species.

For more about Isabella, please visit:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Isabella-Provera 
https://scholar.google.it/citations?hl=it&user=sHiyDpQAAAAJ 
https://www.szn.it/index.php/it/formazione/doctorate-phd-iii-level/our-students