Ashley Larsen | UC Santa Barbara Bren - Bren School of Environment

Associate Professor

Address

Bren Hall 4408

larsen@bren.ucsb.edu

Research Areas

Agricultural Ecology, Land Use, Landscape Ecology

Bren Courses Taught

ESM 270 Conservation Planning and Priority Setting

ESM 595AL PhD Workshop in Food and Land Systems

Instructor Code

Education

PhD, Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology, UC Santa Barbara
MA, Economics, UC Santa Barbara
BS, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan

Bio

Ashley Larsen’s research interests center on the ecology of managed systems. Her research combines insights from ecology with causal inference and GIS tools to better understand how to produce the necessary food and fiber for a growing population while maintaining healthy ecological and human communities. Her current projects focus on the landscape determinants of ecosystem services and disservices, particularly related to agricultural pests and pesticides, the biodiversity impacts of agricultural intensification, and the ecological drivers and impacts of land use transitions. She held a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship in Environmental Science, Policy & Management at UC Berkeley before joining the Bren School in 2016.

News about Ashley Larsen

News

Aerial view of vibrant farmland, showcasing a patchwork of green and yellow fields.

Organic farms can have mixed effects on pesticide use depending on their neighbor

Researchers explored the relationship between organic and conventional farm fields, finding that grouping organic fields together and conventional fields together can eliminate spillover effects that increase pesticide use.