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Megan DeMarche

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Haines Family Assistant Professor

Was a postdoctoral researcher in the Environmental Studies program at the University of Colorado Boulder and received her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California Santa Cruz. Her research explores the ecology and evolution of wild plant populations, with an emphasis on responses to climate change. She published as Megan Peterson until 2021.

Research Interests:

Wild populations are experiencing rapid environmental change, creating both urgent conservation needs and also fascinating natural experiments. My research explores how plant populations cope with environmental change over space and time, and what this means for patterns of fitness, population persistence, and geographic distributions. 

I’m particularly interested in the mechanisms that generate stability vs. tipping points in species’ responses to environmental change, and how we can scale local population processes, such as local adaptation, to the kinds of landscape- and species-level predictions that are most relevant to conservation. To tackle these questions,  I use a wide range of field and greenhouse experiments, long-term datasets, and population models, and work in a variety of plant systems, from common alpine species to rare endemics.

Selected Publications:
Tuesday, December 5, 2023 - 10:55am

On Monday, December 4th, the University of Georgia Plant Biology Department hosted its annual Undergraduate Research Symposium. This symposium highlighted the achievements  of our undergraduate Plant Biology students who have either completed or…

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Friday, June 2, 2023 - 12:20pm

Megan DeMarche, Haines Family Assistant Professor in Plant Biology, was featured in Episode 417 of the acclaimed podcast "In Defense of Plants" by internationally-recognized blogger and podcaster Matt Candeias: 

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Undergraduate Research in Biology

Undergraduates majoring in biology have the opportunity to enhance their learning through direct participation in research and scholarship. At UGA, these opportunities enable undergraduates to participate in ground-breaking research, often as part of a team of graduate students and faculty. In fact, many students can earn academic credit while working under an experienced faculty mentor by taking BIOL 4960R or working directly with the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO). The Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Fellowship (BSURF) has been established to support undergraduate research opportunities in the Division of Biological Sciences within the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. The Fellowship provides financial assistance to students who have not had an opportunity to participate in a mentored research experience (paid, volunteer, or for credit) since matriculating to the University of Georgia.