The Applied Forest Ecology Lab in the Department of Natural Resources and The Environment and Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of Connecticut conducts research on a variety of topics related to forest ecology and management.

We perform primary and applied research focused on improving our understanding of forest ecosystems and developing strategies to promote resilience in forest landscapes

Primary Research Areas

Forest Complexity and Ecosystem Functioning

We strive to understand how forest structural complexity affects productivity and other ecosystem functions. We are also interested in how management affects these relationships and in developing management strategies to promote structural complexity in forests.

Managing Forests for Resilience

We focus on developing and testing management techniques designed to restore forest composition, structure, and functioning and promote resilience in forest stands and landscapes.

Disturbance Interactions in Forests

Disturbances and their interactions can have substantial influence on forest ecosystem structure and functioning. We aim to better understand how the changing frequency and severity of disturbances related to global change will affect the resilience of our forests.

Urban Forest Landscapes

We aim to better understand the dynamics of urban forest landscapes, including drivers of change in composition and structure in these human-dominated forests and consequences for the ecosystem benefits they provide to human society