Ecoroofs and Urban Biodiversity The ability of novel urban ecosystems like green roofs to provision habitat needs to be better understood to bolster conservation efforts and also to evaluate anthropogenic influences on the landscape. In response this concern, in 2014, collaborators including the Home Ecology ResEarch Lab, the Portland State Environmental Science department, the City of Portland, and researchers from the University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland, began survey of Portland's ecoroof beetles. A review paper for the Israeli Journal of Ecology and Evolution, which described different green roof beetles found in Portland by functional group, was published in 2016 as part of a series on green roof ecology. This project was also the focus of one Master’s thesis in 2016 (Sydney Gonsalves) that demonstrated how green roofs can be augmented with habitat elements to increase biodiversity.