Agricultural and Life Sciences (IFAS)
Spatial Ecology & Conservation (SPEC) Lab (SPECLab™)
Led by Eben Broadbent · Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences
What we study
The SPEC Lab studies tropical forests and ecosystems using remote sensing, drones, and geospatial tools. They track land use changes, biodiversity, and conservation in regions like Costa Rica and the Amazon.
What working here is like
- Fieldwork
- Computational
- Plants
- Coding helps
- Projects
- 3
- Papers
- 5
Current projects
PARAGUAYAN PERMANENT PLOT NETWORK (PPMB)
Monitoring forest dynamics in Paraguay using long-term plot data.
Global Aboveground biomass Potential (GAP)
Estimates how much plant biomass forests could hold worldwide, using satellite and drone data in a global mapping project.
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Osa, Costa Rica
Studies how ecosystems on Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula are changing, using remote sensing, drones and geospatial tools.
Summaries are written by AI in plain language from public symposium abstracts and may be imperfect.
Recent papers, explained
- DUST: A framework for quantifying dugong-seagrass interactions using low-cost UAVs
2026 · Marine Environmental Research
- Tracking forest carbon and growth in large-scale passive restoration using multi-temporal airborne lidar
2026 · ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
Uses airborne lidar to track forest height and carbon changes in passive restoration areas over six years.
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- Aboveground Biomass Accumulation Over Two Decades Across a Gradient of Tropical Forest Restoration Interventions
2026 · Global Change Biology
Compares aboveground biomass growth over 20 years in tropical forests with different restoration methods.
- A primer on forest structure measurement with lidar for ecologists
2026 · Ecosphere
Explains how different lidar platforms measure forest structure for ecological studies.
- Tropical leaf phenology as a thermoregulation trait: how changes in crown structure modulate thermal dynamics for two dominant Hawaiian trees
2026 · New Phytologist
Measures how tree crown structure affects leaf and canopy temperatures in Hawaiian forests.
Plain-language summaries are AI-written and reviewed by us; check the paper for details.
How to reach out
Eben Broadbent hasn't set up this page yet. Their UF Scholars profile lists their publications.