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.
Projects
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.
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.
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…
Eco-Evolutionary Consequences of Global Change on Invasive Plant Species
Human activities are dramatically impacting ecosystems worldwide due to air pollution – and resulting changes to climate and nitrogen cycling – and the spread of nonnative plant species. These drivers of global change may have strong and interactive ecological effects, but the evolutionary impacts of these factors are poorly understood. La Kretz postdoc 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.
Ecological Impacts of Nitrogen Deposition on Coastal Sage Scrub of the Santa Monica Mountains
California’s native ecosystems are increasingly impacted by nitrogen deposition resulting from air pollution, particularly in the greater Los Angeles area. This project, led by La Kretz postdoc Justin Valliere, extends an ongoing collaboration between the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the UCLA, with the goal of understanding the ecological impacts of nitrogen pollution on the severely threatened coastal sage scrub plant community of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Environmental Bonds Should Equitably Benefit All Communities: Looking Forward Based on an Analysis of Prop 84
In 2006, California voters approved Proposition 84, a bond measure authorizing $5.4 billion in spending on projects to improve parks, natural resource protection, and water quality, safety, and supply. Most…
Holoscenes/Anthroposcene Suite 1 by Lars Jan
Holoscenes is a multi-platform artwork colliding the human body with water. The work includes performance installation, video, photographic, and print components. The Anthropocene Suite is a quartet of projections featuring…
Landscape Conservation Partnership
The Center for Tropical Research has recently developed new models in California to determine the amount of intraspecific genetic variation present in an area. Recently, we tested this new approach in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreational Area (SMNRA), part of the southern subunit (2) of the California Landscape Conservation Cooperative.
Live fuel moisture: understanding a critical fire behavior trait
La Kretz Postdoc Alex Pivovaroff studies the physiological mechanisms that control live fuel moisture in our Santa Monica Mountains.
Managing Sea Level Rise in Coastal Wetlands
Coastal wetlands are among the most vulnerable ecosystems on the planet. Pressured in many cases by human development from the land, they also now face pressures due to sea level…
Mapping Evolutionary Processes Under Climate Change
The Partnership for International Research and Education project seeks to develop an integrated framework for conserving central African biodiversity under climate change that is both evolutionary-informed and grounded in the socioeconomic constraints of the region.