Uriarte Lab

About the Lab

The world’s tropical forests harbor the majority of Earth’s biodiversity, regulate global climate, and form the basis for the livelihoods of rural communities worldwide, but the extent, structure, and composition of these forests are changing dramatically under the influence of a changing climate and human activities. Through an integrated program of empirical and quantitative approaches, research in my lab examines forest ecological dynamics in response to natural disturbance (e.g., hurricanes) and human land use. From a purely ecological perspective, this means that we focus on disturbance ecology, forest succession, and community assembly questions. Our research examines forest dynamics from stand and landscape perspectives, and includes geographic regions where forests have been subject to different forms of natural or anthropogenic disturbance.