ECOLOGIQUE

ECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES AND GARDENS

Beautiful, sustainable, and fire-wise landscapes and gardens

"After witnessing both the devastating impact of California wildfires and the disappearance of nature from the landscape and from peoples’ lives, I felt compelled to make a meaningful contribution. Ecological landscape design is that answer.

Bringing sustainability and nature-based elements into people's properties is not only crucial for the well-being of our environment but also for the well-being of individuals. Creating sustainable, fire-resilient landscapes not only protects our homes but also helps the land recover faster.

By designing landscapes adapted to our local conditions and the realities of our changing climate, we can help safeguard this little piece of heaven that we Californians call home.

Furthermore—and perhaps most important—by incorporating nature into our landscapes, we can allow children to experience the wonder of nature, allowing them to develop a lifelong connection with nature, fostering a legacy of environmental awareness and stewardship."

Joan K. Brennan, M.S | Landscape Ecologist

Wildfire Safety Certificate, US Green Building Council - LA

Services

Pollinator- and wildlife-friendly gardens

Food forests and sustainable edible landscapes

Wildfire-resilient gardening

Wildfire safety audits

Implementing CalFire, Code requirements

Removal of invasive and noxious plant species

Education

MS, Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology | San Francisco State University | San Francisco, CA |

• Thesis: Bee foraging choice in an incompletely restored coastal dune habitat

• Awarded National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellowship for Teaching and Research in Ecology and Evolution

• 4.0 GPA

BS, Biology | Notre Dame de Namur University | Belmont, CA

• Received the Biology annual Outstanding Achievement Award

• Graduated summa cum laude

CERTIFICATIONS

Wildfire Defense Professional Landscaper Certificate, US Green Building Council, Los Angeles     

Eco Landscape Mastery Certification (In Progress), Permaculture Skills Center, Sebastopol CA

Joan did her graduate work in the exceptional LeBuhn Lab at San Francisco State University with Professor Gretchen LeBuhn. The lab focused on ecology, biodiversity, conservation, and pollinator science. While there, she received a National Science Foundation (NSF) fellowship in Teaching and Research in Ecology and Evolution.

She had the opportunity to study pollinators—which are not only an essential part of terrestrial ecosystems, but are an important metric of the health of the overall ecosystem.

Joan’s research focused on habitat restoration and wildlife recovery. She conducted original research that found that in areas where invasive plant species had been removed and replaced by native plants, there were larger numbers of, and more different species of, native California bees.

This study focused on the impact of habitat improvement and restoration of native plants in a coastal sand dunes habitat, and can be found on the LeBuhn Lab Research page in the section “How Does Restoration Benefit Pollinators?”: Research | LeBuhn Lab

”Point Lobos Abuzz,” is an article of Joan’s on the native bees of the Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, in Point Lobos, the magazine of the Point Lobos Foundation: https://www.pointlobos.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2020-FallWinter.pdf

Joan was fortunate to have as her advisor Gretchen LeBuhn, an international expert on the conservation and monitoring of pollinators. Dr. LeBuhn developed pollinator-monitoring systems for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and was a lead author on the Intragovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Dr. LeBuhn is also a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and directs the Great Sunflower Project, the largest citizen science project focused on pollinators.

Joan also had the privilege of working in the labs of other world-class professors at UC Berkeley and Stanford University. Learning from such exceptionally high caliber professors during her academic career was formative and extremely valuable.

Observing the quality of their research; how they ran their labs; and experiencing the quality of their thought processes, communication, and insight was very influential. Working with such world-class scientists continues to shape Joan’s approach to, and high standards in, her own work.

With the international conservationist and MacArthur Fellow Claire Kremen at UC Berkeley, she worked on projects studying pollinator conservation and also projects researching the beneficial effect of pollinators—especially native bees—on commercial agriculture. This latter involved agricultural settings ranging from tomato crops to vineyards. This included field sampling, detailed site analyses of plant species and soil characteristics, grading insect damage on commercial crops, and extensive identification of California native bees in the field and in the lab.

Also at Berkeley, in the lab of Professor Reginald Barrett, esteemed wildlife biologist and the University of California’s representative to the Inter-agency Wildlife Task Group, Joan got to work on an extensive wildlife study focused on re-wilding a former cattle ranch. This project involved working in the field and the lab, assisting on a long-term project incorporating the extended use of camera traps, bait stations, and data analysis to study the wildlife initially extant on the ranch and which species were returning as a result of restoration efforts.

And at Stanford, she was able to work in the lab of Professor Rodolfo Dirzo, Pew Scholar for Conservation and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. She worked on studies of California oaks and cottonwoods, analyzing soil samples in the lab and tracking seedling growth in the field.