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Terrestrial Biology

Terrestrial ecologists and evolutionary biologists study the biology of land-based organisms and the population, community, and ecosystem ecology of natural terrestrial systems. UCSB faculty interests include microbial and soil ecology, ornithology, herpetology, vertebrate behavior, plant ecology and physiology, tropical rain forest, desert, island and chaparral ecology, environmental impact assessment and ecological modeling.

Faculty Research

Carla D'Antonio, Ph.D. UC Santa Barbara. Plant and ecosystem ecology, invasive species, species affects on ecosystem processes, restoration ecology.

Scott A. Hodges, Ph.D. UC Berkeley. Plant evolutionary biology; molecular approaches to population biology, ecological genetics, and systematics.

Jonathan Levine, Ph.D. UC Berkeley. Controls over the success and impacts of exotic plant invasions; species diversity and ecosystem function; mechanisms underlying rare plant persistence; determinants of commonness, rarity, and coexistence.

Bruce E. Mahall, Ph.D. UC Berkeley. Physiological plant ecology; phenology, water relations, productivity, root dynamics, controls of community structures and plant distributions.

Susan Mazer, Ph.D. UC Davis. Quantitative genetics of plant life-history characters and ecological significance of life-history variation; molecular applications in evolutionary ecology; evolutionary ecology of seeds and reproductive characters in plants; tropical rain forest ecology; comparative biology.

James Reichman, Ph.D. Northern Arizona University. Behavioral ecology; plant-animal interactions; ecology of fossorial mammals.

Steve I. Rothstein, Ph.D. Yale University. Behavioral ecology; evolution; vertebrate biology; ornithology.

Josh P. Schimel, Ph.D. UC Berkeley. Soil ecology; microbial controls of ecosystem processes; terrestrial biogeochemistry.

Raul K. Suarez, Ph.D. University of British Columbia. Comparative biochemistry and physiology; energetics of animal locomotion; evolutionary design of functional capacities; ecological physiology.

Samuel S. Sweet, Ph.D. UC Berkeley. Vertebrate systematics and evolutionary morphology; herpetology.

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