Laura Dee

Adjunct Assistant Professor
[email protected]
Laura Dee website
Education

Ph.D. Environmental Science & Management - University of California

External Affiliations

University of Colorado Boulder

Areas of Interest

Conservation ecology, ecosystem services, global change ecology and the intersection between ecology and economics.

Research

I am an ecologist interested in the 1) preservation of natural systems and biodiversity and the 2) continued provision of benefits from nature to human well-being (i.e., ecosystem services) under global change. A main objective of my research is to inform conservation and resource management strategies for the sustainable provision of ecosystem services that will be robust to climate change. In particular, I study drivers and management of ecosystem services in the face of climate change and uncertainty. For instance, I examine the contribution of biodiversity and species interactions to ecosystem services, the impacts of climate change, variability, and extremes on ecosystem services, and how to best conserve species and services given uncertainty and climate variability. To do so, I use statistical and mathematical modeling approaches and combine tools from ecology, decision science, and economics. My interests span multiple ecosystem types including forests, grasslands, and marine and coastal ecosystems, and different scales, from local to global. 

Select Publications

  • Xiao, H., Dee, L.E., Chades, I., Sabbadin, R., Peyrard, N., Stringer, M., McDonald-Madden, E. (2018) Win‐wins for biodiversity and ecosystem service conservation depend on the trophic levels of the species providing services. Journal of Applied Ecology 55: 2160-2170.
  • Dee, L.E., Karr, K., Landsberg, C.J., Thornhill, D. J. In Press. Assessing the vulnerability of fish in the U.S. marine aquarium trade. Frontiers in Marine Science. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00527
  • Miller, S., Rassweiler, A., Dee, L.E., Kleisner, K., Mangin, T., Oliveros-Ramos, R., Tam, J., Chavez, F., Ñiquen, M., Lester, S., M. Burden, Gaines, S., Costello, C. In Press. Optimal harvest responses to environmental forecasts depend on resource knowledge and how it can be used. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.
  • Isbell, F.I., Cowles, J.C., Dee, L.E., Loreau, M., Reich, P.B., Gonzalez, A. Hector, A., Schmid, B. (2018) Quantifying effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning across times and places. Ecology Letters 21: 763–778.
  • Dee, L.E., De Lara, M., Costello, C. & Gaines, S. D. (2017) To what extent can ecosystem services motivate biodiversity protection? Ecology Letters 20: 935-946. 
  • Dee, L.E., Thompson, R., Massol, F., Guerrero, A. Bohan, D.A. (2017) Do socio-ecological syndromes predict outcomes for ecosystem services? – a reply to Bodin et al. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 32(8): 549-552. 
  • Dee, L.E., Allesina, S., Bonn, A., Eklöf, A., Gaines, S., Hines, J., Jacob, U., McDonald-Madden, E., Possingham, H., Schröter, M., and Thompson, R. (2017) Operationalizing network theory for ecosystem service assessments. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 32(2): 118-130. 
  • Runting, R., Bryan, B., Dee, L.E., Maseyk, F., Mandle, L., Hamel, P., Wilson, K., Yetka, K., Possingham, H., Rhodes, J. (2017) Incorporating climate change into ecosystem service assessments and decisions: A review. Global Change Biology. 23, 28–41. 
  • O’Connor, M., Gonzalez, A., Byrnes, J., Cardinale, B., Duffy, J.E., Gamfeldt, L., Griffin, J., Hooper, D., Hungate, B., Paquette, A., Thompson, P., Dee, L., Dolan, K. (2017) A general biodiversity-function relationship is mediated by trophic level. Oikos 126, 18-31.
  • Dee, L.E, Miller, S.J., Peavey, L.E., Gentry, R., Bradley, D.E., Startz, D., Gaines, S.D., & Lester, S.E. (2016) Functional diversity of catch mitigates negative effects of temperature variability on fisheries yields. Proceedings of the Royal Society B  283, 20161435.
  • Pau, S. & Dee, L.E. (2016) Remote sensing of species dominance and the value for quantifying ecosystem services. Remote sensing in Ecology & Conservation 2(3), 141-151.
  • Boersma, K.S., Dee, L.E., Miller, S.J., Bogan, M.T., Lytle, D.A., & Gitelman, A.I. (2016) Linking multidimensional functional diversity to quantitative methods: A graphical hypothesis-evaluation framework. Ecology 97(3), 583–593. 
  • Dee, L.E., Horrii, S.S, D.J. Thornhill. (2014) Conservation and management of the trade in ornamental coral-reef wildlife: successes, shortcomings, and future directions. Biological Conservation 169, 225–237. 
  • Balvanera, P., Siddique, I., Dee, L.E., Paquette, A., Isbell, F., Gonzalez, A., Byrnes, J., O’Connor, M.I., Hungate, B., Griffin, J.N. (2014) Linking biodiversity and ecosystem services: current uncertainties and the necessary next step. BioScience 64 (1):49-57
  • Dee, L.E. & Gerber, L. (2012) Applications of Decision Theory to Conservation Planning and Management. Nature Education Knowledge 3(3):11.