Collaboration: How do chaparral shrubs respond to and recover from heat waves?
La Kretz Center Postdoc Dr. Alex Pivovaroff works on looking at native species response to environmental change throughout the year.
Projects
Community Outreach
Our community outreach includes visiting schools, hosting groups for tours, mentorship, and research experience for high school students and teachers and members of the public.
Congo Basin Institute
As UCLA's first foreign affiliate, the Congo Basin Institute in Cameroon provides a vital space for training and scientific research in Africa.
Coral Reef Conservation
Region: Seas of the Coral Triangle (a region comprised of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands) Paul Barber is an affiliated faculty member of…
Crustose coralline algae (CCA) as a facilitator species assemblage: investigating CCA’s role in structuring marine communities
Awardee: Emily Ryznar. Emily seeks to investigate the facilitative mechanisms and importance of CCA and its microbiome as contributors to increased invertebrate diversity and community stability in California’s rocky reefs.
Desert tortoise conservation
At the La Kretz Center, scientists are working toward a win-win between green energy and endangered species conservation in the Mojave Desert.
Developing Metrics to Evaluate the Skill and Credibility of Downscaling
Within the climate science community, a variety of techniques are used to "downscale" information from global climate models and produce fine-scale projections of future climate, but the relative strengths and weaknesses of these techniques are not well-understood. In this project, we are comparing downscaling techniques and establishing best practices.
Distribution Modeling Using Remote Sensing
In this research, species distribution modeling is used as a tool to understand the environmental determinants that control the distribution of species and to obtain spatial patterns on the species’…
Dja Reserve
For the past 20 years, we have been conducting research in the Dja Biosphere Reserve and adjacent areas. The Dja Biosphere Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage site located in…
Drought Influence on Chlorophyll Fluorescence in Evergreen and Deciduous Plant Species of Southern California
Awardee: Ariel Pezner. Ariel's research focuses on the effects of drought on the chlorophyll fluorescence of four drought deciduous and evergreen plant species native to Southern California.
Ebola
The Center for Tropical Research is investigating what may be the environmental drivers of infectious diseases, and what might trigger outbreaks during particular times or conditions. In collaboration with Dr. Rick Schoenberg, chair of the the Department of Statistics at UCLA, our team is using novel models to understand ebola outbreaks.
Eco-Evolutionary Consequences of Global Change on Invasive Plant Species
La Kretz postdoc Dr. Justin Valliere is currently exploring potential adaptation to nitrogen pollution and climate in common invasive plant species of California. This study will have important implications for invasive plant management under predicted global change.