Thursday, July 22, 2021, 7:30 p.m.: The nature of Los Angeles: Assessing the ecology of Los Angeles, with Ariel Levi Simons: This century humans became a predominantly urban species. While traditionally viewed as just degraded habitat, cities are coming to be seen as a unique class of ecosystems in their own right. How then to study these familiar, yet profoundly alien landscapes? Join us for a Zoom talk about current efforts to develop tools for assessing the ecosystems of Los Angeles, and how we can all contribute to the community science data sets to pull this off.
Levi Simons is a postdoc at the Institute of Environment and Sustainability (IoES) at UCLA. His research as a postdoc synthesizes machine learning with data derived from field observations, environmental DNA (eDNA), and remote sensing to better understand the response of ecosystems to a variety of anthropogenic stresses. As part of this work he is mentoring senior practicum students in the study of the ecology of human dominated environments, such as Los Angeles.
Before embarking on his current career of ecology and acquaculture research, Levi worked as a high school science teacher in the Los Angeles area, with his students becoming involved in a variety of community science projects. As a graduate studen he was involved in projects including probiotics for shellfish aquaculture, the influence of light pollution on coastal ecosystems, and the use of eDNA in monitoring terrestrial ecosystems.
Zoom instructions: This meeting will be a Zoom webinar. To join the webinar, click the following link:
https://cnps-org.zoom.us/j/93586388337?pwd=WWtHek5EQ3ArY2xscmFsemZGdytDQT09
Passcode: 680507
Or by telephone: +1 669 900 9128
Webinar ID: 935 8638 8337 Passcode 680507
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