Forest Ecology Labs

Wildfire, land-use patterns, climate patterns, and climate change all affect forest sustainability around the world. Our research focuses on the interactions in space and time between forest characteristics and disturbance factors in the U.S., Latin America, and the Mediterranean, addressing questions such as:

• What are the long-term patterns of fire regimes and how are fire regimes regulated by climatic patterns?
• What are the relationships among vegetation structure, composition and diversity, and disturbance regime (e.g., fire, livestock grazing, timber harvest, etc.)?
• How can we apply field experiments and simulation models to develop and test practical management strategies for conserving forest ecosystems in the face of population pressures and climate change?