About Us

The mission of the Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) at UC Riverside is to assist in the conservation and restoration of species and ecosystems by facilitating the collection, evaluation, and dissemination of scientific information. The CCB proactively identifies new research priorities in conservation biology and inaugurates new collaborative research programs. It also develops research programs in response to existing needs in conservation biology. The CCB does not create policy but does generate objective scientific information useable by others in developing policy. Many activities of the CCB are regional, centered on the diverse species and habitats that form the natural heritage of Southern California, but other activities extend far beyond this regional focus. The research and other activities of CCB ultimately provide cultural, economic, and aesthetic benefits locally and globally. CCB focuses research efforts in the areas of urbanization, habitat degradation, inventory and monitoring, invasion by exotics, restoration, habitat fragmentation, and public usage.

About the CCB

Two themes contribute to UCR's current strength in conservation biology. The first is its traditional land grant mission of addressing the problems of California agriculture and natural resources with sound biological research. That tradition of the application of biology to practical problems is a model for outreach and extension of biological information.

The second theme is UCR's outstanding interdepartmental group in the basic sciences from which conservation biology springs: ecology, evolution, systematics and behavior. Major research foci include plants, vertebrates, invertebrates, soil organisms and the impact of humans on natural communities. UCR has strategic strengths in the subdisciplines of evolutionary ecology, population genetics, quantitative genetics, population ecology, the ecology of species interactions, landscape ecology, ecosystem ecology and microbial ecology. Many UCR scientists currently address conservation issues with their research, emphasizing genetic and species biodiversity, management and restoration of biodiversity, endangered species and the impact and control of invasive exotics.

The CCB's interests lie in playing the role of the "honest broker" by providing scientific research, data, models and information for developing theory and experiments and translating that information to policy makers and citizens. We have been successful in bringing impartial science into major planning efforts regionally dealing with endangered species.