About

Sustaining both biodiversity and the benefits nature provides to people (i.e., ecosystem services) is a major challenge for scientists and managers. Achieving both goals is complicated by accelerating global environmental change. In response, my lab’s research combines global change ecology, focusing on the impacts of climate change and other environmental stressors on ecosystems and their services.

Research topics

• Biology
• Ecology
• Sociology
• Environmental resource management
• Environmental science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Mathematics
• Economics
• Geography
• Statistics
• Econometrics
• Social Science
• Environmental planning
• Business
• Social psychology
• Engineering ethics
• Cartography
• Psychology
• Data science
• Epistemology
• Engineering
• Management science

Selected publications

• Scale dependence in remotely sensed biodiversity: Leveraging continental‐scale imaging spectroscopy from the National Ecological Observatory Network

  Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation · 2026-03-16

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Biodiversity is under threat globally, with significant implications for the ecosystem processes that underpin human well‐being. Effective conservation efforts require scalable, replicable metrics to detect and monitor changes in biodiversity. However, a persistent challenge is deciding on the spatial scale over which to quantify biodiversity—including when using metrics derived from remote sensing—which is inherently scale‐dependent. Understanding the scaling properties of remote sensing metrics is thus important for biodiversity change detection and assessment. We address this challenge by investigating the scale dependence of two remotely sensed vegetation diversity metrics, spectral richness and divergence, across 15 diverse ecosystems that are part of the United States National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). Our continental‐scale analysis builds on the success of similar studies that have shown scale dependence of spectral richness in select forest ecosystems. Our results corroborate prior findings that show that spectral richness follows well‐established ecological scaling laws by adhering to the sub‐linear scaling expected for species–area and functional diversity area relationships. We compare these scaling relationships to the null expectation of randomly distributed pixel values, demonstrating that empirical scaling relationships are non‐random. Comparing diverse ecosystems using the same data and methods, we show how scaling parameters encode important information on the relative roles of climate, geomorphology, and ecosystem structure on vegetation‐based biodiversity metrics. By advancing our understanding of the scale dependence of remotely sensed biodiversity metrics, this study lays a foundation for leveraging remote sensing data in global biodiversity monitoring and conservation.

  PublisherDOI

• Understanding multi-hazard disturbance regimes as macro-ecological drivers of biodiversity

  2026-03-13

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Natural disturbances shape ecosystems by redistributing biomass, resources, and mortality across space and time. While the ecological effects of individual disturbance types (e.g. fire, floods, storms) are well studied, a globally consistent assessment of how multiple disturbance types combine into long-term disturbance regimes, and how these regimes relate to biodiversity patterns, is still lacking at the macroecological scale.Previous work (Kropf et al. in prep) presented 'hazomes,' a novel classification system of the earth based on hazard profiles, which is distinct from existing frameworks such as climate zones that categorize earth according to average conditions. Building up on this, we utilize a disturbance score based on eight different natural hazards (including heavy precipitation, earth quakes, tropical cyclones, cold spells, heat stress, coastal and river floods, water deficit, and wildfires), and their frequency of occurrence at different intensities. Unlike other commonly used climate descriptors such as mean temperature and precipitation, this approach captures the historical disturbance regimes ecosystems have been exposed to, providing a complementary perspective on the environmental drivers of biodiversity.By correlating the disturbance index with biodiversity indicators, such as species richness across taxa, we find biome-specific disturbance-biodiversity relationships. While climate is understood to be a key driver of global biodiversity patterns, our research implies disturbance regimes may be key to understanding biodiversity patterns within areas of similar climatic conditions. These findings highlight disturbance regimes as an underexplored dimension of biogeography and suggest that biodiversity patterns reflect long-term exposure to disturbance, not only to climate. As climate change increasingly alters the frequency and intensity of natural hazards, understanding how ecosystems have been shaped by historical disturbance regimes is critical for anticipating future biodiversity responses. Kropf, C. M., Hülsen, S., Stalhandske, Z., Hantson, S., Ward, P. J., Wens, M., Peleg, N., Bresch, D. N., & Steinmann, C. B. (in prep). Hazomes: Earth’s natural multi-hazard terrestrial disturbance regimes. EarthArXiv. https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/10580/

  PublisherDOI

• Mangroves and their services are at risk from tropical cyclones and sea level rise under climate change

  Communications Earth & Environment · 2025-04-05 · 23 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Climate change is expected to alter the frequency and intensity of extreme events, modifying the natural disturbance regimes to which ecosystems are adapted. Here, we present a spatially explicit risk index for mangroves and associated biodiversity and ecosystem services based on projected frequency changes of tropical cyclone wind speeds and rates of relative sea level rise under SSPs 245, 370 and 585 by 2100. Globally, approximately half of the total mangrove area (40–56% depending on the SSP) will be at high to severe levels of risk due to climate-modified tropical cyclone disturbance regimes. Further, we find mangrove areas with high levels of biodiversity and ecosystem services provision, including coastal protection for people and assets, carbon sequestration, and fishery benefits, are at proportionally higher levels of risk. Our findings emphasize the need to anticipate changes in natural disturbance regimes and adapt ecosystem management to sustain mangroves and their services in the future.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Forests, forest management and climate change – understanding the existing forest offset market and its connection to practical forest management in the United States

  2025-03-14

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Land management interventions such as forest management have gained significant traction in the last few years as instruments in increasing carbon sequestration in working lands of the United States. Indeed, storing carbon in forests has been identified as a key nature-based solution pathway. While the importance of forest management in maintaining and potentially enhancing the terrestrial carbon sinks has been well established, carbon as a management objective in the practical context of silviculture and forest management is a relatively new concept. Yet a new emissions trading market, the Voluntary Carbon Offset Market in California, has been dominated by offsets originating from managed forests. Furthermore, almost two hundred million forest carbon offsets have been issued through the California Cap-and-Trade Program and Voluntary Offset Market, yet little information is available on the practical forest management applied in these projects. Finally, in 2021, California passed Senate Bill (SB-155) allocating $2.5 billion in state funding for forest resilience and wildfire prevention, but as of now, lacks a universal framework for transparently assessing the carbon benefits (i.e., additionality) claimed by forest carbon offset projects.Within the offset markets context, improved forest management (IFM) has been identified as one of the forestry-related land management pathways with significant climate change mitigation potential. Currently, IFM is loosely defined and how it translates into practical forestry and connects to sustainable forest management (i.e., best management practices) as a whole has not been identified in detail. Our novel analysis of the offset market in California reveals that while improved forest management is the most credited project type in the California market, existing projects vary to a great degree in their disclosure about the planned or completed forest management activities for the project area. Our research has found several gaps and research and policy needs—particularly related to forest practices considered improved forest management, forest carbon offset additionality and permanence—and finally, highlights a pressing need for policy instruments to support and oversee these efforts.

  PublisherDOI

• Mangroves and their services are at risk from climate-modified tropical cyclones and sea level rise 

  2025-03-14

  preprintOpen access

  Climate change is expected to alter the frequency and intensity of extreme events, modifying the natural disturbance regimes to which ecosystems are currently adapted. Here, we present a spatially explicit risk index for mangroves and their associated biodiversity and ecosystem services based on projected frequency changes of tropical cyclone wind speeds and rates of relative sea level rise under SSPs 245, 370 and 585 by 2100.To compute the risk index, we calculate the relative change of tropical cyclone frequency across different wind speed intensity categories based on probabilistic tropical cyclone tracks downscaled from 3 different CMIP6 models of varying climate sensitivity. This data is then combined with thresholds of sea level rise which are estimated to exceed mangrove adaptive capacity and mapped onto global mangrove extents.Globally, approximately half of the total mangrove area (40-56% depending on the SSP) will be at high to severe levels of risk due to climate-modified tropical cyclone disturbance regimes. Further, we find mangrove areas with high levels of biodiversity and ecosystem services provision, including coastal protection for people and assets, carbon sequestration, and fishery benefits, are at proportionally higher levels of risk than mangrove forests generally. We also identify mangrove areas which are projected to experience non-analog tropical cyclone disturbances in the future. Our findings emphasize the need to anticipate changes in natural disturbance regimes to adapt ecosystem management, sustain ecosystem services in the future, and fully realize mangroves’ potential as nature-based solutions (NBS).

  PublisherDOI

• A Causal Inference Framework for Climate Change Attribution in Ecology

  Ecology Letters · 2025-08-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  As climate change increasingly affects biodiversity and ecosystem services, a key challenge in ecology is accurate attribution of these impacts. Though experimental studies have greatly advanced our understanding of climate change effects, experimental results are difficult to generalise to real-world scenarios. To better capture realised impacts, ecologists can use observational data. Disentangling cause and effect using observational data, however, requires careful research design. Here we describe advances in causal inference that can improve climate change attribution in observational settings. Our framework includes five steps: (1) describe the theoretical foundation, (2) choose appropriate observational datasets, (3) estimate the causal relationships of interest, (4) simulate a counterfactual scenario and (5) evaluate results and assumptions using robustness checks. We demonstrate this framework using a pinyon pine case study in North America, and we conclude with a discussion of frontiers in climate change attribution. Our aim is to provide an accessible foundation for applying observational causal inference to estimate climate change effects on ecological systems.

  PublisherDOI

• RAD (Resist-Accept-Direct) switch points and triggers for adaptation planning

  Journal of Environmental Management · 2025-08-06 · 4 citations

  review
  PublisherDOI

• Best practices for moving from correlation to causation in ecological research

  2025-06-06

  preprintOpen access

  In ecology, causal questions are ubiquitous, yet the literature describing systematic approaches to answering these questions is vast and fragmented across different traditions (e.g., randomization, structural equation modeling, convergent cross mapping). In our Perspective, we connect the causal assumptions, tasks, frameworks, and methods across these traditions, thereby providing a synthesis of the concepts and methodological advances for detecting and quantifying causal relationships in ecological systems. Through a newly developed workflow, we emphasize how ecologists’ choices among empirical approaches are guided by the pre-existing knowledge that ecologists have and the causal assumptions that ecologists are willing to make.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Indirect effects dominate ecosystem service losses in response to agricultural intensification

  2025-03-05

  preprintOpen access

  Feeding a growing human population while preventing biodiversity loss is a major challenge. Land conversion impacts multiple ecosystem services (ESs), including food production and biodiversity-dependent services; yet, the role of indirect effects on ESs within this context, such as parasitoids boosting crop yield by controlling herbivores, remains poorly understood. Using species-network data from an organic agroecosystem with multiple habitats, we simulated the effects of converting extensive to intensive crop production on multiple ESs. Projected land conversion increased crop yield by up to 191% but severely reduced other ESs (e.g., pollination by 95%). However, indirect effects on ES-providing species declined by 97%, revealing undescribed effects of habitat conversion. Comparison to a null model showed that the identity of species lost either mitigates or amplifies these effects, depending on the ES type. Uncovering how land-use changes shape direct and indirect interplay among multiple services is crucial for sustainable agroecosystem management.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Synthetic control methods enable stronger causal inference using participatory science data in cities

  Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2025-03-21

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: Quantifying how and when global change alters the role of biodiversity in ecosystem functioning

  NSF · $793k · 2024–2029

• Collaborative Research: The consequences of species loss for food web persistence and functioning in the Gulf of Maine rocky intertidal

  NSF · $559k · 2021–2025

Frequent coauthors

• Peter B. Reich

  University of Minnesota

  36 shared

• Michel Loreau

  Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

  27 shared

• Forest Isbell

  22 shared

• François Massol

  Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

  18 shared

• Sabrina H. Szeto

  16 shared

• T. Maxwell Wright

  Twin Cities Orthopedics

  16 shared

• Aislyn A. Keyes

  University of Colorado Boulder

  16 shared

• Brian E. Robinson

  McGill University

  16 shared