Loralee Larios

Loralee Larios is a plant ecologist whose research areas include plant population and community ecology, restoration ecology, and plant invasion ecology. She is a 2021-2025 early career fellow at the Ecological Society of America.

Education

Larios received her bachelors of science degree in biology from California State University Fullerton in 2005. She graduated magna cum laude. In 2013, Larios earned her doctorate of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. Her dissertation was titled, “Mechanism for Species Coexistence under Environmental Change: Insights from a California Grassland.”

Career and research

From 2013 to 2017 Larios worked as a NSF funded post doctoral research fellow at the University of Montana in the Division of Biological Sciences. During this time as a postdoctoral research fellow Larios completed research on the structure of plant communities, specifically she completed the project titled, “Assessing trade-offs between granivory/herbivory and competitive interactions on plant community structure: a functional approach.” In 2016 Larios became an assistant professional research scientist at the University of California Riverside in the Botany and Plant Sciences department. She then became a cooperating faculty member in the Evolution, Ecology & Organismal Biology department and an assistant professor in the Botany and Plant Sciences department at the University of California Riverside in 2017 and has held those positions since.

Her research interests include plant community ecology, plant invasion ecology, and restoration ecology specifically focusing on California's grasslands. She is most well known for her research on the impacts of prescribed burning on the presence and spread of the invasive species stinknet also known as globe chamomile.

Awards and honors

Ecological Society of America – Early Career Fellow 2021

National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Biology – 2013-2016

National Science Foundation Graduate Student Research Fellow – 2008-2013

Outreach and community engagement

Larios is recognized for her contributions to the field of restoration ecology and plant community ecology as well as being recognized for her work in community engagement, outreach, and working to make the field more accessible to people of different and diverse backgrounds.

Larios has spoken at conferences and engaged with student groups at various events. Specifically she has been involved with the Latinx and the Environment group at UC Riverside. She gave a keynote address at the conference titled, “Latinxs & the Environment: Conectando a la comunidad Latina en la investigación ambiental y el cambio social." In 2017 Larios was a part of the first generation faculty campaign that took place across University of California campuses. This campaign spotlighted faculty and professors that are first generation college students and sought to build connections and mentorships between students and professors with these shared identities.

Recent Peer-Reviewed Publications

Rose, M.B., Mills, M.W., Franklin, J. and Larios, L. 2023. Mapping fractional vegetation cover using UAV imagery to guide conservation of a rare riparian shrub ecosystem in southern California. Remote Sensing 15:5113

Mills, M.W., Larios, L. and Franklin, J. 2023. Enhancing Long-Term Ecological Management and Monitoring of Landscapes: the L-TEAM framework. Land 12(10): 1942

Rodriguez, C.S.ǂ, Rose, M.B., Elías Velazco, S.J., Franklin, J., and Larios, L. 2023. High potential for Brassica tournefortii spread in North American introduced range, despite highly conserved niche. Biological Invasions

Schwab, S.T., Quides K.W., Wendlandt, C.E., Trinh, J., Sung, M., Cardenas, P., Torres,M., Santiago, L.S., Larios, L., & Sachs, J.L. 2023. Rhizobia enhance legume growth under drought despite water costs associated with nitrogen fixation. Plant and Soil. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06164-7

Hallett, L.M., Aoyama, L., Barabas, G., Gilbert, B., Larios, L., et al. 2023. Restoration ecology through the lens of coexistence theory. Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

Schwab, S.T., Jenerette, G.D. and Larios, L. 2023. Prescribed burning may produce refugia for invasive forb, Oncosiphon pilulifer. Restoration Ecology. e13922. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.13922

Farrell, H.L., Munson, S.M., Butterfield, B.J., Duniway, M.C., Faist, A.M., Gornish, E.S., Havrilla, C.A., Larios, L., Reed, S.C., Rowe, H.I., Laushman, K.M. and McCormick, M.L. 2023. Soil surface treatments and precipitation timing determine seedling development across southwestern US restoration sites. Ecological Applications 33(4): e2834.

Glassman, S.I., Randolph, J., Saroa, S.S., Capocchi, J.K., Walters, K.E. Pulido-Chavez, M. F., and Larios, L. 2023. Prescribed versus wildfire impacts on exotic plants and soil microbes in California grasslands. Applied Soil Ecology 185: 104795

Pulido-Chavez, M. F., Randolph, J., Zalman, C., Larios, L., Homyak, P., and Glassman, S.I. 2023. Rapid bacterial and fungal successional dynamics in first year after Chaparral wildfire. Molecular Ecology 32:1685-1707

Zalman, C., Hanna, E., Rush, J., Boise, K., and Larios, L. 2023. Vegetation type and fire severity mediate short-term post fire soil microbial responses. Plant and Soil 484:155-170

Larios, L. and Hallett, L.M. 2022 Incorporating temporal dynamics to enhance grazing management outcomes for a long-lived species. Journal of Applied Ecology 59:2936-2946

Jenerette, G. D., Anderson, K., Cadenasso, M., Fenn, M., Franklin, J., Goulden, M., Larios, L., Pincetl, S., Regan, H., Rey, S., Santiago, L., and Syphard, A. 2022. An Expanded Framework for Wildland-Urban Interfaces and their Management. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 20:516-523

Aoyama, L., Shoemaker, L.G., Gilbert, B., Collinge, S.K., Faist, A.M., Shackelford, N., Temperton, V.M., Barabás, G., Larios, L., Ladouceur, E., Godoy, O., Bowler, C., and Hallett, L.M. 2022. Application of modern coexistence theory to rare plant restoration provides early indication of restoration trajectories. Ecological Applications 32: e2649.

Charles, L. S., Maron, J. L., and Larios, L. 2022. Species provenance and traits mediate establishment and performance in an invaded grassland. Functional Ecology 00, 1– 14.

Weiss-Lehman, C.P., Werner, C.M., Bowler, C.H., Hallett, L.M., Mayfield, M.M., Godoy, O., et al. 2022 Disentangling key species interactions in diverse and heterogeneous communities: A Bayesian sparse modelling approach. Ecology Letters 00, 1– 14.

Underwood, E., Hollander, A., Molinari, N., Larios, L., and Safford, H. 2022. Identifying Priorities for Post-fire Restoration in California Chaparral Shrublands. Restoration Ecology 30: e13513

Sandel, B., Pavelka, C., Hayashi, T., Charles, L.ǂ, Funk, J., Halliday, F.W., Kandlikar, G.S., Kleinhesselink, A.R., Kraft, N.J.B., Larios, L., Madsen-McQueen, T., and Spasojevic, M.J. 2021. Predicting intraspecific trait variation among California's grasses. Journal of Ecology 109: 2662-2677

Luo, X., Larios, L. D’Antonio, C., Xu, X. & Guo, H. 2021. An invading annual plant benefits less from soil biota and has reduced competitive power with a resident grass. Journal of Plant Ecology 14: 945–958, https://doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtab050

Larios, L. and Maron, J.L. 2021. Voles mediate trait composition along a resource gradient. Functional Ecology 35: 205-215

Grinath, J. B., L. Larios, L. R. Prugh, J. S. Brashares, & K. N. Suding. 2019. Environmental gradients determine the potential for ecosystem engineering effects. Oikos 128:994-1004 doi.org/10.1111/oik.05768

Larios, L., D.E. Pearson and J.L. Maron. 2017. Incorporating the effects of generalist seed predators into plant community theory. Functional Ecology doi:10.1111/1365-2435.12905

Larios, L., L.M. Hallett and K.N. Suding. 2017. Where and how to restore in a changing world: a demographic-based assessment of resilience. Journal of Applied Ecology 54: 1040–1050 (Special Issue: Toward prediction in the restoration of biodiversity).

External links

• Larios CV