Emily Francis

Emily Francis is a forest ecologist interested in the impacts of climate change on tree diversity and carbon storage. Forest ecosystems are comprised of multiple tree species with varying ecological strategies, which mediate their responses to climate variation. Emily’s research seeks to understand how spatial and temporal variation in climate affect the ecological interactions among tree species within forests, and how these processes ultimately scale to landscape and regional-level patterns of forest species composition and carbon storage.  To answer these questions, Emily integrates insights from airborne remote sensing, tree-ring analysis, forest plot data, and theoretical models. Her current research is focused on the roles of fog and groundwater in the distribution of redwoods and their responses to regional drought.