Julie Coffey
UCI Campus Reserves Manager
Cell: 603-521-5576
Email: [email protected]
Julie has been working in the UCI natural reserves for over five years, but recently transitioned into the campus reserves manager role. In her previous roles at UCI, she focused on applied habitat restoration and land management projects such as the wildfire safety and healthy habitats project, DroughtNet, and building up water quality monitoring and bird monitoring projects.
She earned her M.Sc in ecology from California State University, Los Angeles, where she studied the effects of large-scale invasive plant removal on floodplain wildlife communities along the Rio Grande in Texas. Before graduate school, Julie managed water quality sampling and contributed to ecological monitoring projects in the watershed division of the Cambridge Water Department. Her diverse research experience includes field studies on salt marsh and grassland birds, as well as marine mammal behavior. Julie holds a B.S. in environmental science and conservation biology from the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School. In addition to research, she has served as an environmental educator for various non-profit organizations, nurturing her passion for teaching others about local ecology.
As campus reserves manager, she is eager to collaborate with faculty, staff, students, and the community to develop innovative strategies for restoring habitat and connections with the land in the face of climate change, urbanization, and biological invasions.
Megan Lulow
Executive Director (UCI Nature)
Office: 421 Steinhaus Hall
Cell: 949-500-8754
Email: [email protected]
University of California, Irvine
Mail: 321 Steinhaus Hall
Irvine CA 92697-1450
Megan has been with UCI Nature since its initiation in 2016. Prior to her work with UCI-NATURE, Megan held multiple positions with the Irvine Ranch Conservancy over a ten-year period, during which the organization tripled in size. She worked with staff and partners to develop programs and integrate science into their resource management strategy to inform best management practices. Upon completing her graduate research, she was Assistant Director for two years at the Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center, also within the UC Natural Reserve System. Megan has worked extensively on both project implementation and research in the field of restoration ecology in a variety of California ecosystems since 1997. Her research and methodologies look to leverage natural processes to advance the restoration of ecosystems at scales and in locations that optimize ecological impact and cost efficiency. She received her doctorate in ecology from the University of California, Davis, with an emphasis in restoration, plant ecology, and plant-soil relations, and her bachelor’s degree with a double major in biology and environmental studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is broadly interested in ecology and enjoys bringing people together from multiple sectors of society to better understand natural environments and identify solutions to conservation and restoration challenges.
Kailen Andrews Mooney
Faculty Director (UCI Nature)
Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
School of Biological Sciences
Scientist, Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory
Association of Delegates, Organization for Tropical Studies
Ph.D., University of Colorado, 2004, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Research Interests
community ecology, evolutionary ecology, plant-insect interactions
URL Lab website: tritrophic.org
Appointments: Postdoctoral Researcher, Cornell University, Dept. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Anurag A. Agrawal Lab (www.herbivory.com), 2005-2007
Research Abstract
I use manipulative field experiments and to study the interactions between plants, arthropods and insectivorous birds in both ecological and evolutionary contexts. Traits of plants (e.g. defensive chemistry, morphology) influence whole communities of arthropods from the ‘bottom-up’, while predators influence the same communities from the ‘top-down’. These two influences have traditionally been considered separately. Plant defense theory has been bi-trophic in nature, focusing on the pairwise plant-herbivore interaction without explicitly addressing the community context in which the interaction is embedded. At the same time, community ecology has addressed the top-down effects of predators without considering how plant traits affect food web structure.
The goal of my research is to conceptually unite community and evolutionary ecology. To do this, I ask how heritable plant traits influence interaction networks among herbivores, herbivore mutualists, and predators, and in turn how such networks drive the microevolution of plant defense. Methodologically, I model the results of long-term and large-scale field experiments using a combination of quantitative genetic and multivariate statistical techniques. By incorporating complex dynamics into my experiments, I rigorously test theory while simultaneously collecting detailed natural history observations as the basis for refining and pushing forward those same theories.
Publications: https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5484
Contact Information
Phone: (949) 824-7852
Email: [email protected]
University of California, Irvine
3112 Biological Sciences 3
Mail Code: 2525
Irvine, CA 92697
Moises got a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of California, Irvine and was the first field technician hired for UCI Nature in 2020. As an undergraduate he helped establish the UCI Ecological Preserve Defensible Space Demonstration Project (also known as Fuel Mod Project) and continued to manage it as a staff member. Since then he has worked on a wide variety of projects in and outside of the Ecological Preserve. His main interest is in restoration ecology and has done research in how abiotic factors such as nitrogen and precipitation can affect both coastal sage scrub and grassland plant communities. He enjoys spending time outdoors and providing educational experiences to anyone who is interested in the field of ecology.