Dr. Karen Holl

Karen Holl (kholl at ucsc.edu) is a Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  Her research focuses on understanding how local and landscape scale processes affect ecosystem recovery from human disturbance and using this information to restore damaged ecosystems. Her current research is focused in rain forests in Latin America and chaparral, grassland and riparian systems in California.  She advises numerous public and private agencies on land management and restoration. In 2008 she was selected as an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow and is committed to communicating with policy makers and the public.  She teaches courses in restoration ecology, conservation biology, and environmental problem solving, and served as chair of the Environmental Studies Department at UCSC.  She is the faculty director for the Ken Norris Center for Natural History. She is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and was the 2017 winner of the Theodore Sperry Award of the Society for Ecological Restoration. Her new Primer of Ecological Restoration ​will be published by Island Press in January 2020.

Current Graduate Students

Brook Constantz

​I seek to better understand the succession and ecosystem services of restored floodplain habitats in the California Central Valley, and how these are driven by natural processes of the river system. I am interested in what landscape and regional factors predictably influence a successful and persisting restoration project and how this could be applied to future projects. My research will examine the changes in understory and overstory plant composition at older restoration sites along the Sacramento River. I plan to use geospatial data and vegetation modeling to reconstruct the historical environment and to forecast and visualize the impacts of a changing climate and water use on ecosystem function.

Josephine Lesage

Andy Kulikowski

Francis Joyce

I am interested in coastal prairie ecosystems and the factors that control their diversity, and how we can best overcome potential diversity loss and barriers to restoration. I am specifically interested in: native annual forbs (wildflowers) and their seed banks; the potential impacts of climate change on these communities through changes in precipitation patterns and variability; and the importance of disturbances, such as grazing and fire, in maintaining these habitats.







I study how ecological restoration can assuage the loss of biodiversity in degraded tropical landscapes. Because arthropods represent a large portion of this diversity, they provide an ideal system to examine the efficacy of restoration efforts. My research experience through University of Wyoming includes work on parasitoid wasp behavior and soil arthropod community dynamics during succession, both of which are applicable within a tropical restoration framework. In particular, I will am investigating how different restoration strategies (passive, tree plantations, and applied nucleation of tree islands) within abandoned pasture and agricultural land affect arthropod meta-population dynamics, tri-trophic interactions, and herbivory. The Proyecto Islas, a long term restoration study in Coto Brus County, Costa Rica, provides a unique opportunity for investigating such questions.



I am broadly interested in restoration processes in tropical forests. As young secondary forests become increasingly pervasive across the Latin America, I am curious what the future will be for these ecosystems. I am particularly interested in the ways that plant-animal interactions, especially seed dispersal, may drive continuing succession in secondary forests. My research in southern Costa Rica will investigate the influence of avian seed dispersers on establishment of later successional large-seeded tree species. I plan to analyze existing long-term data sets, examine functional traits of trees in the regional species pool, and experimentally test the extent to which certain larger-seeded tree species are dispersal-limited in mid-successional sites initially subject to varied restoration methods and landscape contexts.

Past Lab Members

Alicia Calle (Ph.D. 2019): Postdoctoral Fellow, Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative, Yale University
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J. Leighton Reid (Ph.D. 2013): Assistant Professor, Virginia Polytechnic Institute

Tara Cornelisse (Ph.D. 2013): Senior Scientist, Center for Biological Diversity

Daniella Schweizer (Ph.D. 2012): Prince Bernard Chair Post-doctoral Scholar, ETH Zurich

Michael Vasey (Ph.D. 2012): Director, San Francisco Estuarine National Research Reserve

Rebecca Cole (Ph.D. 2009): Science Director, Osa Conservation, Costa Rica

Prairie Moore (M.S. CSU Chico 2009): Botanist, NRM Corporation Environmental Services

Charles McClain (M.S. CSU Chico 2009): Ecologist, HT Harvey & Associates

Martha Bonilla-Moheno (Ph.D. 2008): Associate Professor, Insituto de Ecología, Xalapa, Mexico

Aaron Gabbe (Ph.D. 2007): Conservation Planner - Senior Project Manager, ICF International

Alexandre Bonesso Sampaio (Visiting Student 2005): Environmental Analyst/Researcher, CECAT/IMBIO Brazil

Liba Pejchar (Ph.D. 2004): Associate Professor, Colorado State University

Daniel Vieira (Visiting Student 2004): Researcher, EMBRAPA Brazil

Grey Hayes (Ph.D. 2002): Education Coordinator, Swanton Ranch, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Felicia Rein (Ph.D. 2000): Research Scientist, Ministry of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Department, Israel