The Cavender-Bares Lab's ongoing projects include: mapping forest composition and diversity and tree stress using remote sensing; determining the ecosystem consequences of tree species interactions (particularly in the FAB tree diversity experiments); next-generation spectral digitization of herbarium specimens and using spectral phenotypes to model plant biology in space and time; understanding the ecophysiological mechanisms that influence species distributions; and understanding the evolutionary history of physiological traits that influence long-term ecological processes and can help predict future shifts as the climate changes. Dr. Cavender-Bares is involved in the second UN global biodiversity assessment through IPBES and chairs Harvard University's Biodiversity initiative for Planetary Stewardship (HUBS) through the Salata Institute.