Urban forest ecology

School microclimates

California's 10,000 K-12 school have a median tree canopy cover of only ~6%. Trees can greatly shade and reduce heat across play and leaning environments, beside increasing nature access for kids. Yet, tree planting efforts in schools are the more difficult to pull off due to countless factors related to ownership, maintenance and perceived risk. Working with a large team @USDA-FS, UCLA, UC Berkeley and Green Schoolyards America we are quantifying the "heat exposome" for kids at schools, thanks to the deployment of dozens of sensors, weather station, heat stress trackers, thermal cameras and more.

Urban Forests, Plants and People

People and their preferences for plants shape most of the diversity, structure and functioning of urban forests and plants. Here we explore the linkages between humans and plants with references to people's values, behaviors, norms and preferences that affect urban plant selection, use and performance. To what extent we can change people's attitudes toward plants and greening to design greener and more sustainable cities?

Complexity of Biological Interactions

The world's cities host a diverse range of organisms that interact with, predate, pollinate, parasitize and facilitate plant life. While some of these interactions are reasonably well understood, the challenge of unravelling complex interactions, feedback mechanisms, ecological loops and legacies is far from being resolved. How can we manage biotic interactions between urban plants and other organisms to increase performance, boost health and resilience to climate and environmental change?

Ecological Processes and Functions

Complex interaction between urban plants, biosphere, pedosphere and hydrosphere dictate much of the ecological processes and ecosystemic functions. These interactions are further complicated by human intervention through the management of urban ecosystems. Here we study how key ecological processes such as organic matter decomposition, water infiltration and interactions with other organisms shape urban forest functioning, resilience to stress and overall health.

Urban Forestry for the Anthropocene

In the last decades a new era opened before our eyes. Humans have grown and tended plants in the cities and towns for millennia, but the Anthropocene opens new opportunities and challenges for urban and peri-urban forestry. New, actionable, scalable and robust information on the interplay between trees, the built environment and technology is needed to inform better models, strategies and tactics so plants and trees can have their place in the cities of the future.