Kailen A. Mooney
Biography
Kailen A. Mooney, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. Mooney received a Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of Colorado and completed a Biocomplexity Postdoctoral Fellowship at Cornell University. Mooney has served as Faculty Director of UCI Nature since 2016, overseeing four reserves and two field stations. Mooney has also held leadership positions at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, serving as President of the Board of Trustees from 2016 to 2019 and Secretary from 2019 to 2024. Since 2023, Mooney has chaired the UC Natural Reserve System Presidential Advisory Committee.
Mooney's research examines how species evolve within complex food webs and how species traits shape those webs, focusing on interactions among plants, arthropods, and insectivorous birds. Mooney investigates how species traits and food webs vary along ecological gradients to understand basic ecological and evolutionary processes and to infer how climate change will alter species traits and food webs. Mooney has published over 100 refereed research articles in journals including Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ecology Letters, and American Naturalist. Mooney's work has examined topics including the effects of climate change on plant-herbivore interactions, the role of plant genetic diversity in shaping arthropod communities, and the cascading effects of vertebrate predators on plants.
Mooney has mentored over 120 undergraduate researchers, 12 graduate students as committee chair, and five postdoctoral researchers. Mooney has secured millions in research funding from agencies including the National Science Foundation and has served on editorial boards for journals including Functional Ecology and Oikos. Mooney received the UC-Irvine School of Biological Sciences Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence in 2013 and the Ehrlich Fellowship from the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in 2010.
Return to topEducation
- B.S., Wesleyan University, 1991
- Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, 2004
Distinctions
- Faculty of 1000 Editorial Board, 2019
- Ehrlich Fellowship, Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, 2010
- Biocomplexity Postdoctoral Fellowship, Cornell University, 2005-2007
- UC-Irvine School of Biological Sciences Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence, 2013
- UC-Irvine School of Biological Sciences Honoree for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, 2012
Areas of Expertise
- Community and Evolutionary Ecology
- Tri-Trophic Interactions
- Plant-Herbivore-Predator Dynamics
- Ant-Aphid Mutualisms
- Climate Change Effects on Species
- Plant Volatile-Mediated Indirect Defense
- Soil Legacy Impacts on Resistance
Recent Publications
- Vazquez-Gonzalez C., Barbour K.M., Lago-Nunez B., Rodriguez-Garrido B., Dean L.S., Vicente-Diez I., Martiny J.B.H., Mooney K.A., “Leaf-chewing but not sap-feeding herbivores create soil legacies that shape plant resistance through trait-mediated, guild-specific effects in Baccharis salicifolia” (opens in new tab), Functional Ecology, vol. 40, pp. 486-500, 2026.
- Abdala-Roberts, L., Puentes, P., Finke, D.L., Marquis, R.J., Montserrat, M., Poelman, E.H., Rasmann, S., Sentis, A., Symons, C., van Dam, N.M., Wimp, G., Björkman, C., Mooney, K.A., “Connecting the dots: Managing species interaction networks to mitigate the impacts of global change”, eLife, vol. 14, pp. e98899, 2025.
- Hellwitz, S., Vázquez-González, C., Dean, L.S., Zarubin, T.P., Mooney, K.A., “Mutualism and predation have contrasting effects on the diversity of pine canopy arthropod communities” (opens in new tab), Ecology, vol. 106, pp. e70120, 2025.
- Jameel, M.I., Mooney, K.A., Anderson, J.T., “Water availability and herbivory interact to shape the adaptive landscape”, Evolution, vol. 79, pp. 557–573, 2025.
- Hennessy, A.B., Anderson, R.M., Mitchell, N., Mooney, K.A., Singer, M.S., “Parasitoid avoidance of intraguild predation drives enemy complementarity in a multi-trophic ecological network” (opens in new tab), Ecology, vol. 106, pp. e4483, 2025.
- Nelson A.S., Mooney K.A., “Different Aspects of Dominance Are Not Equivalent When Testing for Trade-Offs in Ant Communities” (opens in new tab), Ecology and Evolution, vol. 15, 2025.
- Dean, L.S., Vázquez-González, C., Hellwitz, S., Abdala-Roberts, L., Mooney, K.A., “Decomposing an elevational gradient in predation by insectivorous birds” (opens in new tab), Ecosphere, vol. 15, pp. e4790, 2024.
- Schlau, B., Huxman, T.E., Mooney, K.A., Pratt, J.D., “Three-way species interactions reverse the positive pairwise effects of two natives on an exotic invader” (opens in new tab), Plant Ecology, vol. 224, pp. 349-359, 2023.
- Carvajal Acosta, N., Agrawal, A.A., Mooney, K.A., “Plant water-use strategies as mediators of herbivore drought response: Ecophysiology, host plant quality and functional traits” (opens in new tab), Journal of Ecology, vol. 111, pp. 687–700, 2023.
- Nell, C.S., Pratt, R., Burger, J., Preston, K.L., Treseder, K.K., Kamada, D., Moore, K., Mooney, K.A., “Consequences of arthropod community structure for an at-risk insectivorous bird” (opens in new tab), PLoS One, vol. 18, pp. e0281081, 2023.
- Croy, J.R., Pratt, J.D., Mooney, K.A., “Latitudinal resource gradient shapes multivariate defense strategies in a long-lived shrub” (opens in new tab), Ecology, vol. 103, pp. e3830, 2022.
- Nelson, A.S., Mooney, K.A., “The Evolution and Ecology of Interactions Between Ants and Honeydew-Producing Hemipteran Insects” (opens in new tab), Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, vol. 53, pp. 379-402, 2022.
- Huxman, T.E., Winkler, D.E., Mooney, K.A., “A common garden super-experiment: An impossible dream to inspire possible synthesis” (opens in new tab), Journal of Ecology, vol. 110, pp. 997–1004, 2022.
- Carvajal Acosta, N., Mooney, K.A., “Effects of geographic variation in host plant resources for a specialist herbivore's contemporary and future distribution” (opens in new tab), Ecosphere, vol. 12, pp. e03822, 2021.
- Schlau, B., Huxman, T.E., Mooney, K.A., Pratt, J.D., “Facilitation at early growth stages results in spatial associations and stable coexistence in late growth stages of two long-lived, dominant shrubs” (opens in new tab), Oikos, vol. 130, pp. 2182–2190, 2021.
- Croy, J.R., Carvajal Acosta, N., Mooney, K.A., “Regulating plant herbivore defense pathways in the face of attacker diversity”, New Phytologist, vol. 231, pp. 2110–2112, 2021.
- Nelson, A.S., Mooney, K.A., “Comparing the Individual and Combined Effects of Ant Attendance and Wing Formation on Aphid Body Size and Reproduction” (opens in new tab), Annals of the Entomological Society of America, vol. 114, pp. 70–78, 2021.
- Jerome, D.K., Petry, W.K., Mooney, K.A., Iiler, A.M., “Snow melt timing acts independently and in conjunction with temperature accumulation to drive subalpine plant phenology” (opens in new tab), Global Change Biology, vol. 27, pp. 5054–5069, 2021.
- Croy, J.R., Pratt, J.D., Sheng, D., Mooney, K.A., “Climatic displacement exacerbates the negative impact of drought on plant performance and associated arthropod abundance” (opens in new tab), Ecology, vol. 102, pp. e03462, 2021.
- Nell, C.S., Abdala-Roberts, L., Parra-Tabla, V., Mooney, K.A., “Tropical tree diversity mediates foraging and predatory effects of insectivorous birds” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, vol. 285, 2021.
Most Cited Publications
- Moreira, X., Mooney, K.A., Rasmann, S., Petry, W.K., Carrillo-Gavilan, A., Zas, R., Sampedro, L., “Trade-offs between constitutive and induced defences drive geographical and climatic clines in pine chemical defences” (opens in new tab), Ecology Letters, vol. 17, pp. 537–546, 2014.
- Mooney, K.A., Gruner, D.S., Barber, N.A., Van Bael, S.A., Philpott, S.M., Greenbrerg, R., “Interactions among predators and the cascading effects of vertebrate insectivores on arthropod communities and plants” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 107, pp. 7335-7340, 2010.
- Mooney, K.A., Halitschke, R., Kessler, A., Agrawal, AA., “Evolutionary trade-offs in plants mediate the strength of trophic cascades” (opens in new tab), Science, vol. 237, pp. 1642-1644, 2010.
- Moreira, X., Petry, W.P., Mooney, K.A., Rasmann, S., Abdala-Roberts, L., “Elevational gradients in plant defences and insect herbivory: recent advances in the field and prospects for future research” (opens in new tab), Ecography, vol. 41, pp. 1485-1496, 2018.
- Pratt, J.D., Mooney, K.A., “Clinal adaptation and adaptive plasticity in Artemisia californica: implications for the response of a foundation species to predicted climate change” (opens in new tab), Global Change Biology, vol. 19, pp. 2454-2466, 2013.
- Mooney, K.A., Agrawal, A.A., “Plant genotype shapes ant-aphid interactions: implications for community structure and indirect plant defense” (opens in new tab), American Naturalist, vol. 171, pp. E195-E205, 2008.
- Petry, W.K., Soule, J.D., Iler, A.M., Chicas-Mosier, A., Inouye, D.W., Miller, T.E.X., Mooney, K.A., “Sex-specific responses to climate change in plants alter population sex ratio and performance” (opens in new tab), Science, vol. 353, pp. 69-71, 2016.
- Mooney, K.A., “Tritrophic effects of birds and ants on a canopy food web, tree growth and phytochemistry” (opens in new tab), Ecology, vol. 88, pp. 2005-2014, 2007.
- Moreira, X., Abdala-Roberts, L., Parra-Tabla, V., Mooney, K.A., “Latitudinal variation in herbivory: Influences of climatic drivers, herbivore identity, and natural enemies” (opens in new tab), Oikos, vol. 124, pp. 1444-1452, 2015.
- Mooney, K.A., Pratt, R., Singer, M.S., “The tri-trophic interactions hypothesis: Interactive effects of host plant quality, diet breadth and natural enemies on herbivores” (opens in new tab), PLoS ONE, vol. 7, pp. e34403, 2012.
Contact Information
Email: mooneyk@uci.edu
Phone: (949) 824-7852
Address: 3112 Biological Sciences III
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Last updated on 5/18/2026.