Emily Moran

Emily Moran is Associate Professor in Life and Environmental Sciences at UC Merced, researching ecological and evolutionary responses to climate change in forest systems. Her lab combines field experiments, genetic analysis, and modeling to study Sierra Nevada conifers, focusing on drought tolerance mechanisms, range shifts, and regeneration dynamics.

Key projects investigate local adaptation in ponderosa and sugar pines, quantifying genetic variation in drought tolerance traits and projecting evolutionary responses to climate change. Field studies examine seedling survival across elevation gradients under manipulated temperature/moisture conditions.

Current NSF-funded work explores xylem anatomy tradeoffs between reproduction and drought survival, seed dispersal limitations, and non-climatic constraints on range expansion.