U bedded Networked Sensing (CENS) created NSF-fundedCenterforEm- inanewly hasbecomea partner serve the James San Jacinto Mountains Re- scribes alandmarkevent fortheNRS: The openingarticleinthisissuede- ity ofplantstoadaptnewconditions. netic variabilityandgeneflow on theabil- experiments thatexaminetherole ofge- use intheNRS,asillustratedhere by techniques havealsocomeintowide satellites. State-of-the-art genomic sands ofmiles,communicatingwith signed totrackelephantsealsforthou- “eavesdrop andsomede- ontheearth,” called “motes,” otherssolargetheycan sors: somesosmalltheyhave been ies describedhere utilizediverse sen- University ofCalifornia
In This Issue A fewwordsfromthe Director oftheNRS 14 Super “ear” installed at Ever-more-sophisticated 10 Mother lodeofDNA 6 se ofhightechnologyisthe ries inthis leitmotif Boyd Deep Canyon elephant sealsandsharks livesofAñoNuevo secret reveals the technology data minedatMcLaughlin Continued onpage16 thatunitesthesto- Transect . The stud- . The virtually atourfingertips James Reserve placesnature M worked Sensing —andwillinvolve scientistsandengineers fromUC UCLA, Their NSF-fundedproject iscalledCENS —theCenterforEmbedded Net- field research overlap. colleagues willhave theopportunitytoexplore areas new where technologyand year, $40-milliongrant fromtheNational Science Foundation, heandahostof plant speciesortroubleshooting abalky computer. Andnow, thankstoa10- classified, thissonofanelectricalengineerisequallycomfortable studyingarare Transect S pring20•Volume0,No.1 brainy.html>. Courtesy ofKrisPister,CITRIS CITRIS: “The science paradigm is completely affected by technol- The NSF’s first class of 11 STCs completed its 11- ogy,” Hamilton says. “Nobody will deny that. There aren’t year run in 2000, while a second group of 12 STCs any Luddite scientists anymore. When I started using GIS will be finishing up this year. This year’s six new cen- in the early eighties, people said, GI what? But by the early ters, including CENS, will join five centers created in nineties, half of our field biology students were taking a 2000. Another competition is scheduled to begin next GIS course to learn how to use it. Today it’s used by any- year. — SGR body who deals with anything that relates to the landscape. University of California 2 Transect • 20:1 The same will be true with these new technologies. They’re because it’s continuous and it doesn’t involve a human, so going to change the way we work.” there isn’t the disturbance factor.” To see an early prototype of what Hamilton envisions, log To illustrate the potential impact of doing remote field- on to the James Reserve’s website: James Reserve Hamilton foresees a day when thousands of tiny, inexpen- Continued from page 3 sive sensors scattered throughout the forest are constantly monitoring the movement of animals and changes in the we collect, when we store it and when we don’t. There isn’t environment. Given current technology trends, he thinks any intelligent processing going on at the sensor itself. That it’s realistic that soon some of these devices will be the size will be the next step.” of beetles. “Each sensor should actually be designed so it is part of the niche we are trying to monitor,” he explains. Hamilton’s goal is to have 100 nodes at James within a few “And sometimes the niche will change over time, so the years. Some will have specialized uses; others will be gen- node really ought to be able to track that as well. I could see eral-purpose nodes collecting a wide range of parameters. the devices going up a tree and coming back down, or go- “One of our collaborators is John Rotenberry [director of ing underground, or going under water and coming out the UC Riverside-administered NRS reserves],” he notes. again like an amphibian. Ideally, our designs should almost “He’s an ornithologist interested in the acoustical data that mimic the life forms they’re designed to monitor.” could be processed for bird identification, location, and in- teraction. We might have special nodes programmed to iden- Just as the website’s Wildlife Observatory has opened up tify unique individual songs. By triangulating this reading the James Reserve to a global audience much larger than it with other nodes hearing the same sound, we can pinpoint can hold physically, Hamilton foresees a day in the near the location of that singing bird, all in real time. Over time future when embedded technology will do the same thing we can track the locations of those singing territories as a for the entire Natural Reserve System: “We serve a funda- ‘cloud’ of presence and absence activities. We can use this mental need in terms of preserving and protecting these data to create a cloud that indicates where the singing male areas and making them open to scientists, but these are not bird spends most of its time. The cloud could be darker undisturbed ecosystems. People are a constant element here, towards areas of higher frequency and lighter where fre- and the success of a reserve is largely judged upon how much quency is lower. Then we can have these adjacent clouds of it is used. We need to have the ability for science to go on other birds so we can see whether individuals are spending here, but there is a finite carrying capacity at any site before a lot of time at the boundaries interacting and defending the [use of the reserve] begins to change the ecosystem and im- edges, or whether they’re spending more time in the center pact the experiments of other scientists. We’re hitting our defending the higher quality habitat where the female is.” heads against that already at many of our sites. How can you allow new people to study in areas that are already at Embedded sensors will also change the scale at which re- capacity? I think the virtual reserve is one way to do that. searchers can conduct their studies. GIS resolution is fine Developing a passive remote-sensing network that allows for doing landscape-level analysis, but the new systems will researchers to have virtual access is going to be crucial.” let scientists visualize phenomena on a much smaller scale. “The frontier is the ever-shrinking scale of observation, both Personally, Hamilton sees this latest focus as one he will in time and space. We’re taking our scale of observation down maintain for the rest of his career. “This will be my last from communities of vegetation to what’s happening in a decade, my swan song. I’m planning to see the system used single tree or what’s happening within a square meter sur- at all of our field stations and to facilitate its implementa- rounding that vegetation. You need very different tools to do tion at other field stations around the world. After the first that. And on a time scale, we’re going from seasonality — four three years of the CENS Project, I see the rest of the times a year — to once every minute or once every second.” reserves becoming part of the experiment, and I certainly will see the NRS fully wired in less than ten years. We’re at Hamilton acknowledges that the visualization of such data the point where I think we all better fasten our seat belts, “is a real challenge because you’re dealing with orders of ‘cause this is going to happen fast.” — JB magnitude more data than you were in the past.” But he isn’t too concerned about being overwhelmed by so much data: For more information, contact: “We’re developing a small microcomputer that will have the Michael Hamilton ability to look at the data that comes from the sensors, pro- Reserve Director cess it, and then decide whether to store it, send it, or notify a UC James Reserve human. That’s called ‘intelligent processing.’ Once we figure Box 1775 out how to classify and determine what it is we’re looking for, Idyllwild, CA 92549-1775 a lot of these processes can be automated to where the soft- Phone: 909-659-3811 ware will tell us when something important is happening.” Email: Some say Mike Hamilton is playing with fire — and they’re right (and they’re glad he does) ecent devastating wildfires in Los Alamos, New RMexico, and Sydney, Australia, highlight how the increasing encroachment of cities into wildlands is dra- matically raising the stakes involved in out-of-control burns. Mike Hamilton and his colleagues at the James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve have been involved in fire-related studies for 15 years, working closely with firefighters from the nearby town of Idyllwild. “We’re interested in fire hazards,” Hamilton explains, “fire risks, the propensity of vegetation to burn, and, ecologically, why it needs to burn.” Big Creek fire of 1985. Photo by Larry Ford Fire-suppression campaigns have been very effective in the western United States over the last 50 years (remem- “In the near future, our website will allow users to deter- ber Smokey the Bear?). Perhaps too effective. The buildup mine the relative risk factors for each property and how of brush and deadwood in our forests — referred to as those risks fluctuate on a daily basis,” Hamilton explains. “fuel load” — has prompted scientists and forest man- “People who live on a steep, south-facing slope with 50- agers to look at what happens when fire is removed from year-old chaparral are always at risk, of course. If you’re a natural ecosystem. How does breaking the natural cycle on a stream with a conifer forest around you but you’re of regular small fires influence the risk and spread of only a mile away from that chaparral, then your risk catastrophic blazes? factor is lower — but it increases as the season progresses, so you have to be careful.” As part of “The Mountain Communities Firesafe Project,” Hamilton is using remote-sensing analysis to The new CENS grant from the NSF will have two ef- build typical vegetation models for the area and GIS to fects on Hamilton’s wildfire work. First, it will bring pow- produce data sets that model fire-spread behavior on a erful new technology to the reserve. “We’ll be able to computer. He and his co-workers have used this tech- accomplish far more computer simulation of fire behav- nique to simulate historic fires, and Hamilton also ior,” he notes enthusiastically, “because I’ll have a whole worked with the software during actual fires to see if he bank of very fast UNIX computers that can run the soft- could predict a fire’s spread. Unfortunately, so many fac- ware. And it’s all designed to run on parallel systems, so tors are involved that a 24-hour, fire-behavior simula- you can have the same model running on five comput- tion takes about three days to run. “You can’t make de- ers simultaneously, and it will run five times faster.” cisions during a fire based on what the computer tells you,” he explains, “because you don’t have the time. Second, the grant will allow Hamilton to model appro- Those capabilities are still a few years down the road.” priate construction for a fire-prone area. “Our newly pro- posed research lab will have a metal roof and cinderblock Hamilton’s work has been most effective as a preventa- walls filled with concrete,” he observes. “The bottom tive measure. He has completed a standard risk assess- floor will be built down into the ground — basically ment survey for the local mountain area by overlaying making it a fireproof vault — and that’s where we’ll put his GIS models on property ownership maps. Fire agen- our servers and other precious materials. That floor cies use the data to target properties they should inspect should survive even if the building above it burns. If for safety compliance. Homeowners will eventually have you choose to live in a wildland setting, you really should access to the system to assess their own properties and be able to live with fire.” — JB determine their own fire-prevention priorities. To view the Mountain Communities Firesafe Project, visit: Natural Reserve System 5 Transect • 20:1 McLaughlin Reserve gets mined for DNA data ajor changes are underway at just as it took advances in mining tech- the larger San Andreas fault, slices the McLaughlin Natural nology to release the microscopic through the reserve, separating ancient MReserve, located in Napa, specks of gold found in the coast range ocean crust from valley sedimentary Lake, and Yolo Counties, two hours’ deposits, researchers are relying on new formations. drive northwest of UC Davis. As the technologies to reveal the genetic on-site Homestake gold mine processes secrets underlying plant adaptation and The scientists are using McLaughlin as the last of its stockpiled ore, UC Davis evolution. a model ecosystem, much as geneticists scientists are picking up the pace of sci- use simple animals for their studies. entific discovery under complementary For scientists, this reserve is filled with Maureen Stanton, a professor in the grants from the Andrew W. Mellon and intriguing puzzles and research oppor- Section of Evolution and Ecology at David and Lucile Packard Foundations tunities. The steep flanks of the hill- UC Davis and one of the project’s prin- for a collaborative research program sides burst with colorful wildflowers cipal investigators, explains their strat- called “Ecological and Evolutionary and grasses, as exotic and native spe- egy: “Molecular genetics has made in- Responses of Plants to Habitat Mosa- cies vie for territory. The crests of the credible strides in the last twenty years ics at the University of California’s hills host stands of blue oak, pine, and by focusing on a few model systems McLaughlin Reserve.” serpentine chaparral scrub. Old min- that they get to know well enough to eral hot springs ooze down many of the ask the really tough questions. [The The same tumultuous geology that hills, hinting at the volcanic activity fruitfly] Drosophila is the model system once attracted gold miners to the rug- that stirred the area two million years for animal genetics. Mouse is the model ged coast range north of San Francisco ago. In addition to Homestake’s open- system for mammals. Arabidopsis* is the is now attracting a growing group of pit gold mine, 130-year-old mercury model system for simple plants. It’s not landscape ecologists, population biolo- mines tunnel beneath several of the that these species are representative of gists, and molecular geneticists. And, hills. The Stony Creek fault, part of all other species, but you have to start McLaughlin Reserve was special from the start he Donald and Sylvia McLaughlin Reserve is unique ecology, and archaeology — and the company continues Tamong NRS reserves: both for having a working gold its environmental monitoring. From the start, Homestake mine on site and for joining the reserve system in stages welcomed educational use of its long-term data sets. over a period of 20 years. The McLaughlin Reserve was named for the late Donald Back in the early 1980s, the Homestake Mining Com- McLaughlin — Homestake geologist, former dean of UC pany decided that, once it finished mining, the property Berkeley’s School of Mining, and a UC regent — and would become an environmental research station instead his widow, Sylvia McLaughlin, a founder of the Save the of vacant land. In 1985, Ray Krauss, then Homestake’s Bay Foundation. She continues to be an active environ- environmental manager, approached UC about the mentalist in the San Francisco area. It was often said that project. In 1992, the UC Regents approved the first stage: their marriage combined the interests of resource use and a reserve of approximately 300 acres owned by preservation. Homestake, but available for research and teaching through a use agreement. Since then, the McLaughlin Nowadays the McLaughlin Reserve (along with two other Reserve has grown to 7,050 acres. NRS reserves, Quail Ridge and Stebbins Cold Canyon) is also part of the 500,000-acre Blue Ridge Berryessa The McLaughlin gold mine has been recognized by the Natural Area (BRBNA), which incorporates portions of Sierra Club, the Soil Conservation Society of America, Solano, Napa, Yolo, Lake, and Colusa Counties. The and other organizations for its rigorous environmental BRBNA conservation partnership, with members from monitoring and innovative reclamation. While securing over 130 agencies, works for positive open space plan- mining permits, Homestake spent millions of dollars ning and to reduce piecemeal development (whether resi- collecting baseline data on the area’s geology and soils, dential, industrial, or recreational), directing new devel- hydrology, air and water quality, terrestrial and aquatic opment toward other areas already fragmented. — SGR University of California 6 Transect • 20:1 On serpentine, native California plants are relatively free from competition with the invasive species that now dominate most nonserpentine environ- ments. “Many times exotics can’t tol- erate the serpentine,” Harrison says, “but that’s not absolute. Serpentine grasslands are actually fairly invaded, they’re just not as invaded as nonserpentine grasslands.” Plants have an amazing ability to adapt to new conditions, sometimes within a few generations. New technologies are giving scientists a deeper under- In this characteristic McLaughlin Reserve landscape, gray (or standing of how this adaptation hap- foothill) pines (Pinus sabiniana) on the hillside suggest the pens at the limits of their range. “Us- underlying presence of serpentine. Photo by Ray Krauss ing molecular techniques to under- stand the balance between selection somewhere. … If you don’t have this kind UC Davis professor in the Department and gene flow is crucial,” Rice explains. of data on the environment, you can’t of Agronomy and Range Science, his “I’m trying to understand how rapidly hope to tackle the important questions.” primary research focus has been on pat- exotic species change evolutionarily. If terns of species distribution, especially they have enough genetic variation and (*Editor’s note: Arabidopsis is a mem- invasive plants. “In some ways, I was the selection is strong enough, they can ber of the mustard (Brassicaceae) family pulled kicking and screaming into change pretty quickly. But the one (which includes such cultivated species as looking at genetic issues in terms of thing that often reduces the capacity cabbage, broccoli, and radish). It is con- plant distribution,” he says with a for change is gene flow. Plants come sidered a “model” organism because it is laugh. “But it’s become pretty obvious up to a gradient and begin to adapt, easy to grow in the lab, has a short life that genetics can make a difference in but if there’s gene flow coming in from cycle, makes lots of seeds, has a small terms of the capacity of a plant to live someplace else where the selection pres- genome compared to other higher plants, where it does.” sure isn’t as strong, that really slows and can be “transformed” — that is, genes down the capacity of the plant to can be introduced into a plant.) McLaughlin’s extensive serpentine out- change. Measuring gene flow has al- crops are a key attraction for many of ways been difficult, but with the new The team includes professors, the researchers. For plants, serpentine molecular markers we have, it’s rela- postdoctoral researchers, and graduate is a tough neighborhood: high in tively a snap. You can go in and do students — with areas of expertise that minerals like nickel, zinc, chromium, paternity analysis and see who begat range from molecular genetics to land- and magnesium, and low in nutrients, whom.” scape ecology. Each team member such as calcium and nitrogen. Serpen- brings along a specific research spe- tine deposits have become botanical ghet- The effects of the technology aren’t just cialty, but all are eager to expand their tos inhabited primarily by native Cali- limited to looking at invasive species. perspectives. “I’m excited to work on a fornia plants that have adapted to them. “We’ve done work with blue oaks,” more holistic level,” says Susan Harrison explains why plant evolution- Rice says, “and just from doing tradi- Harrison, another principal investiga- ists tend to gravitate towards serpentine: tional fieldwork, you can see that oaks tor on the project, professor in the UC “[There] you can find the real rarities are becoming more and more frag- Davis Department of Environmental and interesting systems to study specia- mented in the landscape. They’ve be- Science and Policy, and campus direc- tion. In California, we have this young, come pollen-limited. You think, my tor for the NRS sites administered rapidly evolving flora, and serpentine has god, there’s got to be enough pollen to through UC Davis. been a hotbed for that kind of recent go around, but it’s not necessarily true. burst of speciation … there’s probably One really interesting question is the Kevin Rice is a perfect example of the a few dozen genera of plants that have oak’s breeding structure: Where is the group’s interdisciplinary approach. A gone wild with serpentine endemism.” Continued on page 8 Natural Reserve System 7 Transect • 20:1 McLaughlin dents funded for this project Reserve have a stipulation that they take accurate GPS readings of all Continued from page 7 their study sites so we have an pollen coming from? Is it accurate record of who has local? If one tree is the big been working where, and so all daddy to lots of the other trees, the data we collect over time if it’s fathering lots of acorns, will be spatially referenced in why is that? Is there something the literature.” about the time of pollination? That type of paternity analy- “Back in the lab, we can then sis, which was unheard of five sort all this information by to ten years ago, has become whatever factor we want. Say routine.” you want all exotic species that are perennials growing on a cer- Map it and they will come tain soil type. The computer will produce that for you, so when Other technologies that have you go back into the field, you greatly facilitated the work at know exactly where to look.” McLaughlin are GIS (Geo- graphic Information Systems) Harrison, long accustomed to mapping and GPS (Global Po- doing her work with pencils sitioning Systems). In fact, one Grad student Marina Alverez (L) and postdoc and topo maps, has been very of the group’s first steps in de- Jessica Wilcox Wright (R) conducting a plant impressed with the team’s new veloping their project was to survey at McLaughlin. Photo by Jerry Booth technology: “You go out, walk overlay a portion of the reserve around a patch of your plant, with a huge grid. Postdoc researcher fellow researchers would have a fairly and hit the button on your GPS to Brian Inouye, who led the effort to detailed map of the area’s soil chemistry. record data points. Then you go back design and map the grid, was also the and dump that file into your computer team’s original “cat herder” — a job that Once the soil had been characterized, (which already has a map of the study entailed organizing meetings and semi- Inouye began the laborious task of cata- site with all the other attributes we’ve nars among faculty, grad students, and loging the plants at the same sites. measured), throw your map on top of postdocs. (Kendi Davies is the team’s “Collecting the vegetation data re- those other features, and from there new cat herder.) quired two rounds of sampling,” you can very easily calculate how many Inouye recalls. “In the early spring, we patches you have, what their total area Inouye’s first challenge was to get ev- found all the small annual flowers — is, and how many of those patches are eryone to agree on where the grid most of the natives are annuals that on which kind of slope or which kind would be. The team selected a hilly site flower quite early. Then we went back of vegetation community. The technol- that incorporated three ridges of ser- again in June for a second round of ogy makes the process a lot slicker and pentine, separated by varying degrees sampling to identify all the grasses.” the data a lot more accurate. And it of nonserpentine soils, grasslands, and really facilitates people sharing and ex- chaparral environments, a major sec- The Mellon and Packard grants have changing data on the grid, so it’s helped tion of the fault, and two fossil min- been a boon to the researchers, both foster connections between the differ- eral springs. Over this mixed environ- graduates and undergraduates. A dozen ent projects.” ment, they laid a 550- by 600-meter projects are already underway at (27.5-hectare) grid. Most of the grid is McLaughlin and more are in the plan- For Rice, the accuracy of GIS technol- marked at 50-meter intervals, but some ning stage. GPS technology is critical ogy has led him to rethink the idea of areas of particular interest are divided for coordinating and accessing the huge a gradient as a transition from one into 10-meter or even 1-meter squares. amount of data being generated. “We environment to another: “We’re look- There are about 500 sampling sites over use GPS receivers to document the lo- ing at larger spatial scales in the envi- the grid, and at each one, Inouye col- cations of all our sampling points,” ronment, and rather than taking a sim- lected soil for analysis, so he and his Inouye explains. “All the graduate stu- plistic view of a serpentine gradient, I University of California 8 Transect • 20:1 want to think about how important the she says with a smile, “but the Mellon For more information, contact: patchiness of that gradient is.” and Packard grants have really jump- Susan Harrison started the process. Having money to Environmental Studies Susan Harrison, in her role as director get the word out to researchers, to of- University of California of those NRS reserves administered by fer mini-grants to grad students … it’s Davis, CA 95616 UC Davis, is delighted with the ongo- made things happen in a year or two Phone: 530-752-7110 ing research, the impact it is having on that might have taken five years. I think Email: What’s in a niche? Gridwork is helping to define it rincipal investigator Maureen current boundaries and spread? In evo- ing has more of an impact. If we don’t PStanton’s research at the lutionary terms, what keeps the niche weed and clear away competitors, McLaughlin Reserve provides a constant?” Gilia has very little success. So it’s good example of the kinds of not just seed dispersal limitation; in projects being carried out on “the Her study involves a series of lilliputian this zone, some combination of com- grid.” Her team’s goal is to address research plots filled with toothpicks petition and litter is impeding emer- a basic, long-overlooked question of and collars marking each of the hun- gence and probably changing sur- ecology: what factors determine a dreds of tiny germinating plants. vival as well. That kind of experiment niche? Stanton describes her method and her has been done elsewhere quite a lot, results thus far: “We’ve set up transects but not for serpentine populations.” Stanton explains: “Ecology has been going from the core area in the patch defined as the study of the abun- where there’s lots and lots of Gilia, to Stanton’s next step will be to look dance and distribution of species, the edge where it’s petering out, and at the genetic part of the story. She but since the seventies we really then perhaps 10 meters beyond the plans to take a few seedlings that haven’t been asking why a species edge, which we call the periphery. In survive in the peripheral sites and grows here and not there. And we each area, we’ve transplanted Gilia analyze them to see if their genes realized that this grid provides a seeds collected last year from the cen- have adapted to the new conditions. fabulous opportunity for trying to ter of the patch. They shouldn’t be And if so, why doesn’t the popula- understand the concept of ecologi- adapted to the edge in any way. Now tion produce successful seeds that cal niche, where a species lives and we’re monitoring the seedlings to an- will establish there again next year, why.” swer several questions. First, can they thus extending the boundary of succeed perfectly fine beyond the patch their niche? Her current hypothesis Stanton’s work focuses on a small edge? If so, then that suggests it’s just is that gene flow from the center of annual native, Gilia tricolor, that has dispersal limitations, just a historical the patch dilutes the potentially very clear distribution patterns and accident that the species grows where adapted genes, but that remains to boundaries. “There are two reasons it does.” be seen. Stanton pokes at the you get patches,” she says. “Either ground, extracting a Gilia seedling. the seeds don’t get dispersed too far, “That’s not what we’re finding. We’re “Niche is something ecologists or the seeds that are dispersing only finding that the seeds are not doing that spend a lot of time worrying and succeed in certain areas. So the first well outside of the native distribution, talking about,” she muses, “but we question is: what are the immedi- even if we help some of them by clear- haven’t done much to develop a pic- ate factors that keep the species ing away other seedlings and dead plant ture of the niche that’s really pre- from broadening its distribution material. … In the center of the plot, dictive. And with the grid in place, through the whole environment? you have just about equal numbers of we have the template to do that here The second question is much seedlings emerging in the weeded and at McLaughlin. That’s where we’re trickier: why doesn’t the population unweeded plots. As we move to the going next.” — JB adapt for the conditions beyond its edges and beyond, we find that weed- Natural Reserve System 9 Transect • 20:1 Año Nuevo Island scientists tag sharks and seals to determine how the great whites know dinner is ready t happens each year like clockwork. The great white of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. (Though time- sharks arrive in the waters south of San Francisco near depth recorders had been used on other animals, this was I the NRS’s Año Nuevo Island Reserve just in time to the first time they were deployed on elephant seals.) Back feast on young elephant seals as they return from foraging then, the devices used film to record the elephant seals’ div- in the open ocean. Researchers have long wondered about ing behavior over a limited time period. “They could only the sharks’ uncanny timing, but only recently — through record data for 14 days,” recalls Costa, “but they provided the use of modern technology — have they been able to the first glimpse of the animals’ diving behavior. Until then, expand their understanding of the movements of both these we didn’t realize the animals were routinely diving to 1,800 creatures. The story they’re uncovering is more amazing than feet and spending 90 percent of their time underwater.” they had imagined. Unfortunately, the early recorders could only provide data Like modern commuters whose new cars come equipped on the animals’ behavior. What scientists still didn’t know with GPS mapping systems, marine researchers are benefit- was where the elephant seals were performing their amaz- ing from the increasing sophistication and miniaturization ing feats. That capability — to determine where the seals of computers, as well as from the growing fleet of communi- did what they did — came in the early 1990s when Roger cations satellites in low earth orbit. More and more animals Hill, of Wildlife Computers, and Bob DeLong, of the Na- — such as sharks, elephant seals, bluefin tuna, even large sea- tional Marine Fisheries Service, developed electronic tags birds — are heading into the open ocean equipped with minia- that could measure light level and temperature. The light-level ture tags that record everything from their geographic posi- data allowed scientists to track sunrises and sunsets to deter- tions and traveling speeds to their heart rates and diving depths. mine an animal’s approximate longitude and latitude. The tem- perature data allowed them to refine their position estimates. Among the researchers whose work has benefited from the new technology are UC Santa Cruz professors Burney Le Boeuf and Dan Costa, two leading experts on the northern Tracking of white sharks at Año Nuevo improved markedly elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris). They and their col- in 1997 when Le Boeuf and UC Davis colleague Peter leagues have been studying the seals at Año Nuevo since Klimley, of Bodega Bay Marine Laboratory, installed three the late 1960s, when the population was just beginning to sonobuoys offshore, 550 yards apart. When a tagged shark re-establish itself. Today, at the height of mating season, approached the area, a computer on the island tracked its thousands of elephant seals crowd the 8-acre island and spill exact position in real time by triangulating the readings from across the narrow channel to the coastside state park. (Editor’s the three buoys. This system provided new insights on the note: The NRS’s Año Nuevo Island Reserve is a 25-acre por- behavior of the great whites in the coastal waters, revealing tion of the 4,000-acre Año Nuevo State Reserve, site of the that they hunt 24 hours a day and often use the camouflage world’s largest mainland breeding colony for the northern of the rocky bottom to surprise their prey. elephant seal, owned and operated by California State Parks.) Today researchers have expanded their studies far into the In many ways, elephant seals are ideal subjects for study. ocean, using tags that can record an animal’s behavior and Though they spend much of their lives in the open ocean, travel patterns for months at a time and then archive that they regularly return to Año Nuevo to molt, breed, and data for later retrieval. An elephant seal typically carries two give birth. Their onshore behaviors are well documented of these tracking devices. A head-mounted platform trans- and provide a perfect opportunity to attach and retrieve ducer provides Argos satellite telemetry data to track the tags. Sharks are more difficult to study, but their habit of animal’s daily movements, while a time-temperature-depth returning each year to the waters off Año Nuevo and the recorder (TTDR), attached to its back, records diving pat- Farallon Islands makes it at least feasible to tag them, even terns. TTDRs are typically archival devices that scientists if retrieving the tags is not quite so easy. recover and download when a seal returns to the reserve. Offshore studies of the elephant seals began in the early These tags have revealed that male and female elephant seals 1980s when researchers outfitted elephant seals with the behave very differently in the open ocean. Males spend four first time-depth recorders, developed by Gerry Kooyman months off the Aleutian Islands, feeding near the ocean bottom on benthic prey, and they tend to return to the University of California 10 Transect • 20:1 same areas on subsequent migrations. Females, on the other much deeper than other seals and spend up to 90 percent hand, feed on pelagic prey, much nearer the Oregon and of their time at sea underwater. When feeding, the males Washington coast, and they seem to vary their travel routinely undertake long dives of up to 1,500 meters that depending on the availability of food. subject their bodies to tremendous water pressure and cause them to surpass the limits of their aerobic capabilities. It took yet another major technology breakthrough to pro- vide new insights into the great white sharks’ movements. The challenge scientists faced was how to investigate how Instead of archival tags, Le the elephant seal’s internal Boeuf and UCSC graduate body functions change un- student Scott Davis de- derwater. “One obvious ad- ployed new satellite tags that vantage of the Año Nuevo automatically drop off the Reserve,” Costa explains shark at a predetermined matter-of-factly, “is that just time and transmit data from over the hill you have the ocean surface to a pass- Stanford and its research hos- ing satellite. These tags were pital. Our location is unique developed by Barbara Block because you have animals in (Hopkins Marine Station), a natural environment Roger Hill, and Paul Howie within close proximity to (Microwave Telemetry). one of the state-of-the-art Not only are the tags much MRI research units in the smaller than the earlier ones, This female elephant seal, fully outfitted with a country, if not the world. So but they also hold much head-mounted platform transducer and time- we teamed up with Profes- temperature-depth recorder (TTDR) attached to her more data — 4 megabytes back, is a participant in studies at Año Nuevo that aim sor Peter Hochacka and compared to 500 kilobytes to find out where she and her friends go, how they graduate student Sheila — and record the shark’s get there, and what they do. Photo by Dan Costa Thornton, of the University daily position and behavior of British Columbia, to take over a four-month period. yearling elephant seals to Stanford to see what their blood flow is like under diving and nondiving conditions.” In late 1999, researchers at Año Nuevo and the Farallones planted tags on four great whites. The results dramatically The scientists already had a good understanding of the seal’s changed assumptions about their behavior. Researchers had normal diving pattern, so their task was to simulate this long assumed that great whites stayed close to shore, pa- pattern in the MRI facility. “To simulate a forced dive,” trolling up and down the coast in search of food. The tags Costa notes, “we put a mask on the animal’s face and flooded revealed a very different story. All four sharks swam far out it with water for 5 to 10 minutes. Then we evacuated the into the central Pacific — one male covered over 2,200 miles water very quickly to simulate diving. It’s kind of like a to Hawaii, traveling fast (an average of about 44 miles a terrestrial dive. In the ocean they dive for 20 or 30 minutes, day) and diving deep (as deep as 700 meters). And even so giving them a 3- to 4-minute dive here is nothing. You when it reached Hawaii, it remained very deep in the wa- train them to get used to the idea that when the water level ter, at about 500 meters. The big question now is why. The goes up, they should dive. And they just sit there and do it.” scientists suspect breeding, but confirmation will require further research and more sophisticated technology. And Costa was confident the animals would do well in the stud- there’s still the mystery of how they can time their return to ies. “We trained them first, to get them used to the process Año Nuevo so precisely. ... and they’re so calm, if we had one sitting in this room it would probably sleep ten minutes, holding its breath the Unique physiology whole time.” He does admit to one problem, however. “We had to clear out their stomachs because they eat a lot of While advances in tagging technology have revealed a new sand on the beach, and the sand at Año Nuevo has a lot of world of oceanwide migrations, Costa and Le Boeuf have iron in it. It didn’t hurt the animals, but it produced some been using a very different technology to further their un- very bizarre [MRI] images.” derstanding of how the animals are designed to cope with this demanding lifestyle. Elephant seals, for example, dive Continued on page 12 Natural Reserve System 11 Transect • 20:1 Año Nuevo Island Continued from page 11 What the researchers discovered Cameras could provide a much provided tremendous insight clearer picture of what’s actually into how elephant seals have happening. “For the males, we’d adapted to their diving lifestyle. have to put a time delay on the In particular, the study focused camera,” Le Boeuf explains, “be- on the animals’ large spleens, cause it takes them a month to which are full of oxygenated red 45 days to reach their feeding blood cells. “As soon as the ani- grounds. We may want to cue to mal dives, the spleen squeezes depth as well, as they are benthic down very quickly and the he- feeders. For females, you’d have patic sinus enlarges,” Le Boeuf to program the instruments a explains. “The timing is such little differently because their that this activity appears to feeding patterns are so different.” modulate oxygenated blood cells to enter the vascular system For his part, Costa thinks the throughout the course of diving.” seals might be extremely valuable as data-gatherers for monitoring In open water, the seals only sur- the health of the ocean environ- face for short periods of time. ment itself. He’s now working This suggests the spleen remains with Barbara Block, George contracted and the hepatic sinus Boehlert (National Marine Fish- modulates the oxygenated eries Service), and Randy blood cells the whole time. So Kochevar (Monterey Bay why is the spleen so big nor- Aquarium) on the early phases of mally? “Sixty-five percent of a MRI images taken at Stanford Hospital to a program known as “Tagging of determine how elephant seal internal body diving seal’s blood is red blood functions change underwater, keeping these Pacific Pelagics” or TOPP. The cells,” Le Boeuf notes, “and creatures well oxygenated during deep dives. program’s goal is to try to under- when you have that many red Photos courtesy of dan Costa stand how large marine animals blood cells, the blood is very vis- utilize the vast habitat of the cous, not the optimum way of transporting oxygen rapidly.” north Pacific Ocean. At sea, the seals are not high-activity animals. They hold a In upcoming years, 4,000 animals — elephant seals, Pacific lot of oxygen, store it, and dive at a moderate-to-low rate. bluefin tuna, albatrosses, leatherback sea turtles, sharks, The fact that their blood is viscous isn’t important because whales, and others — will be tagged in a coordinated effort they’re not doing things very fast. But all that changes when that will follow all the species simultaneously. By overlay- they come ashore. On land, where they need to fight or ing these data with oceanographic profiles, researchers hope walk around, it’s more advantageous to have a lower viscosity to gain a better understanding of what factors drive their of blood, so they take the red cells and put them in their spleens. migratory patterns. This information will become crucial as researchers try to protect these animals and the oceans Coming soon — SealCam? from overfishing and increased human impact. — JB Never content with the status quo, Costa and Le Boeuf are For more information, contact: pondering how emerging technologies will shape future Daniel P. Costa research. Already sharks are being tagged with more power- Biology ful devices that will be able to record their entire migra- A404 Earth and Marine Science Bldg. tions. One idea is to put small “seal cams” on elephant seals University of California that would provide time-lapse stills or footage of their Santa Cruz, CA 95064 activities. Today researchers must interpret printouts of div- Phone: 831-459-2786; 831-459-3610 ing and speed patterns to determine an animal’s behavior. Email: The return of El Niño suggests hard times ahead for the elephant seals at Año Nuevo Island Reserve cientists at the Año Nuevo Island Reserve have a They, on the other hand, range throughout the north Pa- Sperspective earned by only a few other long-term cific and dive to depths of between 400 and 600 meters. researchers. After roughly 35 years (since the late sixties) of But the data are very compelling. Elephant seals do re- working with a single, rapidly growing animal population, spond very dramatically for an animal that one would they have come to notice small variations in the animals think would be well buffered. [El Niño] hits seabirds or that alert them to changes in the environment. The Na- sea lions immediately because they’re feeding when it comes. tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) The female sea lion goes out, feeds, and returns to her pup, is currently tracking one set of environmental changes: so her ability to feed is intimately connected with food evolving El Niño conditions in the tropical Pacific. availability. The elephant seal comes ashore in late De- cember or early January, gives birth to a pup, and then When an El Niño does develop, the team will already be stays with that pup, fasting for 26 to 28 days before she tracking its impact on the elephant seals. After all, they’ve weans it. Her investment in that pup is determined by been weighing 100 to 200 pups at Año Nuevo every what happened over the previous nine months while she year since 1978. “We’re in a good situation to detect a was feeding. So there could be an El Niño going on in the change caused by an aberration in the environment, like ocean, but what’s happening on the beach doesn’t reflect that an El Niño,” notes Burney Le Boeuf, UC Santa Cruz yet. When the pup is weaned, it fasts for two to three months, professor emeritus and long-time elephant seal researcher. so when it goes to sea, if the El Niño continues, it could “We’re weighing pups right now, so we’ll be poised to face a shortage of food. That’s when we’ll see the impact.” look for the effects on elephant seals, both direct and indirect. Bad weather at peak season is direct. Indirect During the last El Niño (1997-98), researchers saw a would be if they have difficulty foraging as soon as they major impact on the seals. Le Boeuf says, “Dan Costa go to sea in the spring — then we would expect a much and I are working on a paper with [UCSC colleague] lower survival rate. Or if the mothers are affected when Dan Crocker on the effect of a previous El Niño on the they’re foraging, we would expect an impact on wean- foraging behavior of females. We weighed the females ing weight. It depends on when the effect occurs and before we tagged them and when they returned. Dur- what kind of effect it is.” ing an average year, the weight gain is 1 kilogram per day of feeding, but that year they gained only .33 kilo- Le Boeuf goes on to explain that El Niño affects elephant grams per day. Some of the females didn’t gain mass at seals differently than most animals: all. And the seals weren’t at sea as long as normal — the feeding was so poor. If another El Niño is coming our You might think that elephant seals wouldn’t be affected by way, it might be good to have ten more animals out El Niño because it’s thought to be a surface phenomenon. there this year.” — JB El Niño aside, the scientists have seen a disturbing trend over the last couple of decades that needs to be monitored: the weaning weight of elephant seal pups has been going down every year since 1980. Another UCSC scientist, Jim Estes, has noticed the same trend in sea otters. “You can jump to conclusions,” Le Boeuf muses, “but it seems to suggest that there’s something bigger going on out there. Elephant seals are a closed system. The mom feeds, she comes back, she gives birth, and everything she gives her pup is from body storage. How much she can give, what the pup weighs at weaning, is a function, in part, of how successful the mom was when she was feeding.” Photo by Steve Davenport Natural Reserve System 13 Transect • 20:1 Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center aids scientists in their effort to eavesdrop on the earth meteor explodes as it enters earth’s atmosphere. ears, can travel great distances. The sound wave dips and But does it make a sound? rises through the atmosphere, striking each listening post A in a way that makes it possible to trace the path back to its Instruments installed last summer at the NRS’s Boyd Deep source. Canyon Desert Research Center at its Pinyon Flat site, south of the City of Palm Desert in Riverside County, will help In addition to exploding meteors and nuclear blasts, the scientists decipher this and other sounds we may never have listening posts will be able to detect infrasound generated heard. by volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, and earthquakes. These measurements, used in conjunction with, say, seismic data This new installation is part of an array of instruments or weather satellite information, will give a more detailed centered at UC’s Piñon Flat Observatory in the mountains description of activities that may be brewing above and above Boyd Deep Canyon. The array is one of 60 similar below the surface of the earth. listening posts that will be built around the world as a glo- bal “infrasound” listening network. Financed in part by the Of the 60 planned listening posts, 13 have been installed. U.S. Defense Department’s Threat Reduction Agency, the The Piñon Flat array is managed by UC San Diego’s Scripps network was designed to help uncover nuclear weapons test- Institution of Oceanography, which has a second array ing. But the scientific application of “infrasound” goes under construction near Newport, Washington, and hopes beyond detecting nuclear activity by rogue nations. to build two others. One of the first signals picked up by the Piñon Flat array Installation of the instruments at Boyd Deep Canyon fol- was the sound of a ten-foot meteor exploding in the atmo- lowed stricter-than-usual requirements to protect plants and sphere more than 1,100 soil. As it turned out, this approach to installation improved miles away. the array, making it cheaper and quicker to build, as well as more efficient to operate. According to Al Muth, director Such large explosions create of Boyd Deep Canyon, leaving vegetation in place around shock waves that displace the instruments reduced wind speeds, which in turn reduced massive amounts of air, background noise that would otherwise have interfered with generating sound waves infrasound reception. — MLH through the atmosphere. The high-frequency waves dissipate rapidly, but the low-frequency infrasound waves, inaudible to human (Left top) Design diagram for a single listening- post array (one of 60 planned) in the global “infrasound”network. (Left bottom) Array at L3, located on UC land at Boyd Deep Canyon’s Pinyon Flat site. (Right above) Infrasound detector (sensor) in a vault. Photos courtesy of Michael A. H. Hedlin, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD University of California 14 Transect • 20:1 Intrepid steward at Big Creek named Firefighter of the Year Big Creek Symposium strong sense of community is Feynner joined the volunteer fire de- crucial in remote areas of Cali- partment in July 1998 and has been Papers Available A fornia. With hospitals and fire one of its most committed members. stations hours away — or sometimes John Smiley, director of the Big Creek uring his lifetime, former not available at all — rural residents Reserve, observes that Feynner re- Dstate senator Fred Farr was must rely on each other in emergen- sponds to emergency calls at all hours known for bringing people to- cies. Staff members at the Landels-Hill and is often the first to arrive at an ac- gether to share perspectives and Big Creek Reserve on the Big Sur coast cident scene, sometimes clambering concerns. After his death in 1997, play a crucial role in that isolated com- down cliffs to rescue stranded motorists it was clear the best way to honor munity. Their dedication was high- and provide first aid. the memory of one of the lighted recently when reserve steward founders of the Landels-Hill Big Feynner Arias-Godenez was honored as Chief Pinney has been very impressed Creek Reserve would be to con- the 2001 Firefighter of the Year by the with Feynner’s day-to-day contribu- vene a symposium of researchers Big Sur Fire Brigade. tions and his unfailing attendance at and friends to discuss all that has training and drills. He commented, been learned there since the In presenting the award, Fire Chief “Feynner represents the spirit of reserve was established in 1977. Frank Pinney was lavish in his praise: volunteerism and serves as an ex- “Feynner demonstrates an exceptional ample for his peers and the entire The results of this unique day- willingness to help his peers, and is de- community.” long event are now available in an pendable and cheerful, supporting his attractive new book, Fred Farr Re- teammates in drills and incidents with Congratulations, Feynner! — JB search Symposium / Views of a a positive attitude and a can-do spirit. Coastal Wilderness: 20 Years of He has been seen many times to take a Research at Big Creek Reserve. The load of equipment 82-page book features presenta- straight up a hill while tions by experts on the reserve’s the rest of us are still archaeology (Terry L. Jones), ma- catching our breath.” rine environment (Caroline Pomeroy, Mary Yoklavich), veg- Engine Captain Mont- etation patterns (Paul Rich), en- gomery London echoes tomology (John Smiley, Jerry A. Pinney’s praise: “It’s Powell), and geology (Clarence A. not that Feynner did Hall, Jr.), as well as color photo- one heroic action,” she graphs and a presentation on one notes. “It’s that he’s artist’s research by UC Santa Cruz always there … will- art professor Norman Locks. ing, confident, and smiling. During one The cost of the book is $25 (plus fire, he and I were as- $4.00 shipping/copy). California signed to protect a residents should add 7 percent house on the ridge. As sales tax ($1.75/copy) to their or- we sat in the truck der. Checks should be made pay- waiting, I admitted to able to “UC Regents” and sent to: him how scared I was. He just smiled at me Director and said, ‘Don’t worry. UCSC Natural Reserves You’ll do everything c/o Environmental Studies right.’ And we did.” Feynner Arias-Godenez and his trusty “mule.” 1156 High Street Photo by Susan Gee Rumsey Santa Cruz, CA 95064 Natural Reserve System 15 Transect • 20:1 A few words puters running in real time, connected Continued from page 1 to the physical world through wireless Transect communication with new types of min- S p r i n g 2 0 0 2 • 2 0:1 and a test bed for a habitat-sensing array iature sensors that detect things around Transect is published triannually by the Natural of devices for biocomplexity mapping. them and with actuators that enable the Reserve System (NRS), part of the division of computers to manipulate the world. It Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR), in Current research on wireless sensor net- the University of California Office of the Presi- will be possible at the James Reserve to dent (UCOP). works promises many benefits. For ex- implement, over the project’s initial ample, UC Berkeley’s Center for Infor- Subscriptions are free, available upon request. ten-year life, advances being made in Contact: Transect Editor, UC Natural Reserve mation Technology Research in the In- production of self-assembling networks System, 1111 Franklin Street, 6th Floor, Oak- terest of Society (CITRIS) is exploring of nodes, in machine learning, and in cre- land, CA 94607-5200; phone: 510-987-0150; fax: 510-763-2971; e-mail: [email protected]. the development of a wireless network ating new types of information storage of tiny, inexpensive sensors to monitor technology. The new “sensory networks” Recent past Transect issues are also available for viewing on the World Wide Web at: and help control energy use in a build- will revolutionize our understanding of 0460 Nonprofit Org. Natural Reserve System U.S. Postage University of California PAID 1111 Franklin Street, 6th Floor University of Oakland, CA 94607-5200 California