Robbin C. Moran

Profile

Robbin Moran studies ferns and lycophytes, mostly in the American tropics, and especially in Central America and the Andes. He is interested in what the species of ferns and lycophytes are and where they occur—something often poorly known for tropical species—and the evolutionary relationships among the species. Robbin collaborates with other pteridologists (students of ferns) to generate phylogenetic trees based on DNA sequences that show how the species are related. He uses the trees as a framework for answering questions about character evolution, biogeography, and the evolutionary process itself.

Besides research, Robbin teaches. He co-organizes a five-week-long graduate-level course, Tropical Plant Systematics, in Costa Rica for the Organization of Tropical Studies. The course is taught in even years in English, and odd years in Spanish. He teaches another course in Costa Rica, only three weeks long, called Tropical Ferns and Lycophytes.

Currently, Robbin has a three-year grant from the United States National Science Foundation (with Kimberly Watson) to digitize and image the approximately 250,000 specimens of ferns and lycophytes in the Garden’s herbarium.

He also interprets ferns to the public. Robbin is the President of the New York Chapter Fern Society, which meets the first Saturday of every month at the Garden. Finally, he serves as Associate Editor for Brittonia, the Garden’s journal of systematic botany, and for the American Fern Journal.