ASCEND

We use spectral and trait biology, experiments, observations and predictive models to understand how variation at one biological scale interacts with environmental change to give rise to emergent properties at the next biological scale, ultimately influencing biodiversity from organisms to the tree of life in ecological communities and across the biosphere.

Our goal is to train the next generation of integrative biologists who apply spectral biology to gain understanding on how life’s variation, at the smallest scales, influences biodiversity at all other scales, and how global change, in turn, impacts processes that drive diversity at all scales.