Applied Evolutionary Ecology and Plant Diseases
Welcome to the Gilbert Lab!
The Gilbert lab in the Department of Environmental Studies, University of California Santa Cruz, brings together environmental scholars interested in applying evolutionary ecology to solving environmental problems, within an interdisciplinary environment of natural and social scientists. We are particularly interested in making ecological research relevant, useful, and accessible across different communities of practice.
Fungi, Forests, and Learning Sciences
Everyone in the lab has something to do with plant pathology, trees, fungi, or inquiry-based education - and usually some combination of those. Beyond that we work in tropical and temperate ecosystems, and we study wildlands, highly managed agroecosystems, and urban forests. We use molecular tools, archival research, field experiments, narrative analysis, computer models, art, long-term monitoring, meta-analysis, and whatever other approaches help us answer interesting questions that contribute to solve important environmental problems. A strong theme in the lab is testing how
phylogenetic ecology can provide new ways to understand complex species interactions in the face of global change, and developing analytical tools based in evolutionary ecology to help support environmental decision making. We also run the 16-ha UCSC Forest Ecology Research Plot on the UCSC Campus, part of the global Forest-GEO network monitoring forest change.
The lab has special interests in experiential and inquiry-based science teaching 
and learning at the K-16 level. This includes involvement in the New Gen Learning collaborative and working with local school districts toward effective implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards.