CESAR O. ESTIEN
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Doctoral Research

Doctoral Research
How does inequity and injustice in cities influence wildlife?


​Cities are heterogeneous, living habitats that can have cascading effects on wildlife that inhabit the ecosystem. For my doctoral work at UC Berkeley, I'm interested in investigating the effects complex urban landscapes have on wildlife.​ Specifically, I'm working to understand how environmental injustice underpins landscape heterogeneity and how this heterogeneity influences wildlife, both on the organismal scale and community level.
​

Check back for projects as they develop!
Cities, Inequity, and Participatory Data

​Participatory data is human-driven and much of the data reporting takes place within and adjacent to cities. With cities being strongly underpinned by social factors and participatory data being human-drive, room for biases opens up which can manifest spatially. For this project, I am co-leading a perspective article and case-study paper with Dr. Elizabeth Carlen discussing spatial biases in this data with respect to urban spaces.

These works are currently in revision - check back soon!
Picture
Image taken from iNaturalist
Redlining, City Health, & Biodiversity 

​Urban areas are inherently both social and ecological and have been shaped by both historical policies and contemporary actions.  For the first chapter of my dissertation, I am investigating how legacies of racist policies have shaped ecosystem health and biodiversity in several cities in California.

This work is (almost) in review - stay tuned!
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Landscape Differences & Risk-Prone Behavior

​Cities provide a model ecosystem to understand the impacts of social-ecological dynamics, with urban systems acting as a dynamic mosaic of pressures that can select for and maintain particular (mal)adaptive traits. For this project, I'm interested in how landscape heterogeneity shape where risk-prone behaviors (e.g., boldness) in mesopredators emerge on landscapes.

This work is currently in progress - stay tuned!
Picture
Picture by Zoë Rossman
Header image by Kitundu
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  • About Me
  • CV
  • Research
  • Publications
  • Resources
  • Presentations
  • Outreach
  • News
  • Contact