The NRS
TransectUniversity of California Natural Reserve System Office ofR esearch—Division of Academic Affairs
S p r i n g / S u m m e r 2 0 0 8 • V o l. 2 6, N o. 1
A few words from the Director of the NRS
n January 19, 1978, the UC Regents voted to approve “Acquisition of Granite OMountains, Natural Land and Water Reserves System,” thus creating a 2,200-acre new reserve now known as the Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center. The U.S. Congress specifically recognized and expanded this NRS reserve to 9,000 acres in the 1994 California Desert Protection Act (Public Law 103-433), which stated in
Section 613–Granite Mountains Natural Thirty years ago, the eastern Mojave Desert was described as a “black Reserve: hole,” a vast, empty area of largely unknown resources; the NRS’s Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center, acting as a “gateway (a) Establishment – There is hereby des- reserve,” has helped to change all that. Photo by Bruce Bannerman ignated the Granite Mountains Natural Reserve within the preserve comprising How a “gateway reserve” serves as approximately nine thousand acres as gen- a research hub & expands scientific erally depicted on a map entitled “Mojave horizons beyond NRS boundaries Continued on page 20
6 McLaughlin’s serpentine he UC Natural Reserve System encompasses roughly 135,000 acres at enables specialization 36 sites across California. That’s a minute fraction of the land controlled by major land-management agencies throughout the state. The U.S. 11 Quail Ridge wireless TBureau of Land Management (BLM), for example, manages 15.2 million acres network expands research in the state, the USDA Forest Service has 20.1 million acres, and California 14 New NRS reserve: State Parks oversees 1.4 million acres. Nevertheless, the impact of the NRS is far Blue Oak Ranch Reserve greater than its acreage suggests, for many NRS reserves serve as research hubs and portals that offer scientists access to much larger geographic areas, while also 18 Kids In Nature wins providing land-management agencies with the information they need to make CA environmental award science-based management decisions. In This Issue Continued on page 2 Transect • 26:1 Gateway reserve Continued from page 1 five to ten years, the pace of research there has ac- The Valentine Eastern celerated dramatically. Sierra Reserve (VESR), Currently, more than for example, consists of 135 active research proj- two sites totaling about ects are based at Swee- 200 acres, yet research- ney Granite Mountains, ers and students based about 20 of which are there conduct projects designed to run longer throughout hundreds of than 25 years. “The thousands of acres of fed- eastern Mojave Desert eral lands in the southern is unique compared to Sierra Nevada. Discover- much of California, in ies resulting from such that it’s still a frontier investigations can have for taxonomic discov- influence well beyond View of the Providence Mountains from three-quarters of a ery out here,” André mile northeast of the base camp at Sweeney Granite Mountains reserve boundaries. As Desert Research Center. Photo by Bruce Bannerman explains. “Every year, an example, the find- several new plant or ings of one Valentine-based researcher, The eastern Mojave was long considered invertebrate species are found, and Roland Knapp, led the USDA Forest a void for academic research. The1980 the results are published and reported Service to change its policy on stocking Global 2000 Report to the President1 to the agencies. The field station is the non-native fish in High Sierra lakes to described the region as one of North focus for a number of floristic inventory protect rapidly declining populations America’s “black holes” in terms of programs and taxonomic work that of mountain yellow-legged frogs. research and inventory of biodiversity. regularly results in the identification Little was known about the vast, largely of new species. Given that we are still The 9,000-acre Sweeney Granite Moun- unpopulated area, and little concerted at the stage of basic inventory, imagine tains Desert Research Center is another effort was being made to explore it. This how untapped is our understanding great example. Though the 9,000-acre situation began to change in 1978 when of the biology and ecology of these reserve encompasses just 0.06 percent the UC Regents established the Granites organisms.” of the 1.6 million-acre Mojave National Mountains Reserve, as the NRS site Preserve, 75 percent of the scientific was then called. Over the years, the The NRS as a gateway is an analogy research projects in the eastern Mojave number of research projects based at that works in both directions. State are directly affiliated with Sweeney Gran- the reserve grew steadily; over the last and federal agencies benefit from the ite Mountains. According to Granites basic research that emanates from NRS Director Jim André, the reserve has a 1 The 1980 Global 2000 Report to the sites, while university researchers often single focus: “Basic science is our primary President was commissioned by U.S. make important contacts with agency research role. The government agencies President Jimmy Carter on May 23, 1977, decision-makers. “A reserve is part of the tend to prioritize applied research that and released in 1981 by the Council on regional landscape,” says André. “The supports pre-defined management is- Environmental Quality. It sold over 1.5 agencies are aware of us and have learned sues, like the impact of exotic vegetation million copies in eight languages. Drawing to rely on us, so we can open doors on fire regimes. But it’s a mistake to leave from computer models to make projec- for scientists to participate in broader out the basic science component. I always tions for the future based on trends for programs of agency research.” remind people that SONAR came out of the 1960s and 1970s, the Global 2000 basic research into bat echolocation, but Report was the first and only report by The access and support provided by it played an important role in winning any national government on the economic, reserves often play a crucial role in fos- World War II. The same is true today.” demographic, resource, and environmental tering nascent careers. Eric McDonald future of the world (ISBN 0-08-024616- is a perfect example. Today McDonald 8, ISBN 0-08-024617-6). U niversity of C a l i f o r n i a 2 Transect • 26:1 is a research professor at the Desert pits in the empty desert, but he soon with the park’s management and mis- Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, learned that his entire research site was sion. McDonald gives a lot of credit and one of the world’s leading desert a proposed wilderness study area. “We for this turnaround to Jim André and geomorphologists. But when he first had to get permits from BLM’s Needles his colleague Rob Fulton, the reserve came to Sweeney Granite Mountains in office,” McDonald explains, “and the manager at CSU Northridge’s Desert 1990, McDonald was a new graduate fact that they knew Philippe and that Studies Center at nearby Zzyzx. As he student at the University of New Mexico the reserve was out there really helped explains it: “They’ve both had a strong looking for a research project. His advi- move things along. It still took a long input on the Park Service in terms of sor, Steve Wells, had been studying late time, but at least there was a known facilitating scientists working out there. Quaternary Period (1.8 million years person they were dealing with, instead The Park Service has people on site ago to present) climate events recorded of somebody out of the blue.” keeping an eye on what kind of research in the Sima Volcanic Field and Soda is going on, and people have formed Mountains near the Granites, and he Much has changed over the years. With strong working relationships. That’s asked his student to “take a look at the the formation of the Mojave National been a real positive step. I’ve been at next range over.” Preserve in 1994, the National Park multiple meetings with Jim, Rob, and Service (NPS) replaced the BLM as the Debra. They definitely have regular “I spent a lot of my research time in area’s administering authority. At first, communications, and that can only be Granite Cove,” McDonald recalls. many scientists had the impression that a good thing for scientists.” “That’s when Philippe Cohen was direc- the Park Service was less than supportive tor.2 It was pretty primitive, and there of research. Over the last couple of years, Exploring a Landscape weren’t many users, but it was good, however, their perception has changed. Shaped by Catastrophe because I had a place where I could keep The Preserve now has a science advisor, my gear locked up and there was fresh Debra Hughson, who links scientists When McDonald began investigating water. That definitely made it much the Granite Mountains and adjacent more convenient than camping out Providence Mountains, he was every night and going into town We are very fortunate to have [Sweeney] interested in how the properties of for ice every three days.” Granite Mountains Desert Research Center desert soils, and their formation, in the Preserve. It is a unique situation to vary as a function of age, source Cohen’s contributions ranged materials, and sand in-migration. have not one, but two university research from basic — making sure the The Providence Mountains turned young geologist, who was working centers in a park, the other one being the out to be a perfect laboratory for by himself without benefit of radio California State University facility at Zzyzx. his study, because there were four or cell phone, made it back from We not only benefit from the basic research different sequences of soils along the field every night — to the more done at these sites (involving bees, other the mountain front. In turn, complex task of helping McDon- insects, rare plants, etc.), but also directly each sequence was formed from ald negotiate the permit process at benefit from the expertise in botany of the quartz monsonite, mixed plutonic the Bureau of Land Management. (medium- to coarse-grain granite [NRS] director. The most recent collabora- McDonald had assumed that no rocks), mixed volcanic, and lime- one would care if he dug a few soil tion was the work Dr. André did for us after stone. Each of these sequences was the Hackberry Fire in 2005, but we are very different in terms of source 2 Philippe Cohen and his spouse, also planning new projects in invasive weed materials, soil chemistry, and Cindy Stead, managed the Sweeney management and museum collections. particle size. And each had been Granite Mountains Desert Research deposited in a large alluvial fan Center from August 22, 1986, — Debra L. Hughson, PhD that stretched out from the base through October 16, 1993. He Science Advisor of the range. now directs Stanford University’s Mojave National Preserve Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve: Barstow, CA
“Each sequence was deposited during a discrete time interval,” McDonald explains, “and was probably related to climate change. So this means that, as you walk along the mountain front, you can separate out discrete periods of sand deposition. You can separate them using soils, or you can separate them using surface topography or desert pavements. You can think about this as almost a staircase, where each level up represents an older surface. Geomor- phologists assume that the older surfaces at one time looked like the younger surfaces as far as the soils that formed Eastern Mojave, landscape of contrast and diversity: boulders with them. So this gives us a framework to desert flora at Sweeney Granite Mountains Reserve. Photo by Dave Lee see how soils change over time.” “We’ve spent a lot of money over the last the first multidisciplinary studies in the McDonald was also able to link each 15 years developing models for climate area, has produced excellent results. “We of these formations to late Quaternary change,” says McDonald. “We know soon realized that you can start predict- and late Pleistocene climatic trends, and that the climate has changed a lot in ing plant cover if you know something it soon became clear that the dramatic the past and that it will change in the about the soil composition,” says Mc- landscape could not be completely future, but our knowledge of how the Donald. “Part of the idea is that we can explained by current weather patterns. landscape is going to respond to that explain the plant community structure Much more calamitous events had to climate change is still very sketchy, as a function of the soil processes. Or, have taken place in order to account especially in the deserts.” more correctly, though the biologists for the myriad of dry lake beds, eolian don’t want to hear this, we can see how sand dunes, bajadas, and alluvial fans Working with the “Plant Guys” the soils control the plants.” that spread across the landscape. This is why he refers to the Mojave as “a Over time, McDonald realized that the One of the group’s findings was that landscape of catastrophe.” Granites had become more than a place there are basically two types of deserts: to store his gear. It was also a place to those with old, well-developed soils and Alluvial fans are of particular interest share ideas with other scientists. In fact, those with young, weakly developed to McDonald, especially the impact of one set of conversations he had there led soils. Young soils differ dramatically big storms on soil formation and sedi- him to a whole new line of research as from older soils in terms of hydrol- ment transport out of the mountains he teamed up with two plant ecologists, ogy, water infiltration, depth of water onto the piedmont. If climate change Joe McAuliffe and Erik Hamerlynck, movement in the soil, size of the plants, in the Mojave originally created these to investigate the relationship between and structure of the plant community. fans, what will happen if, as predicted, plant cover and soil types. “Basically,” McDonald says, “it has a lot climate change alters future storm fre- to do with how much water goes into the quencies and temperature trends? Will For these investigations, McDonald soil and how deeply it penetrates.” it have equally dramatic effects on soil, mapped the area’s soils and hydrology, vegetation, and sediment transport? while his colleagues recorded the plant This insight has proven valuable for land community structure and physiological managers throughout the Mojave. One response. Their collaboration, one of of those managers, the U.S. Army, was
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This process represents almost a com- plete reversal of the work McDonald was doing in the Providence Range. That research taught him how specific desert soils and formations evolved. Now he’s generalizing that knowledge to look at formations in the middle of an unknown desert and predict how they formed, what soils they contain, and what impact they could have on military operations. “We’re taking the same basic research that we did in the eastern Mojave and applying it to this new area,” says McDonald. “That’s the way science works. You get a toehold somewhere, and then you keep working Eastern Mojave, landscape of contrast and diversity: Kelso Dunes, near with it in new ways. Someone once told Sweeney Granite Mountains Reserve. Photo courtesy UC NRS me that you have to work in an area for about five years before you really get to struggling to restore its heavily damaged learned, sandstorms are by far one of know it and can ask good questions. desert training sites. Decades of tank the biggest hazards in terms of both the That’s really true. I look at my state of maneuvers and troop movements had health of military personnel and wear knowledge now and compare it to what destroyed the fragile desert soils in many and tear on equipment. The scientists I knew in 1990 when I first walked out places and led to major sandstorms. are helping the army predict what areas there, and it’s just amazing. When I go When the army became aware of the are prone to sandstorms so they can be out there today, I have this knowledge work McDonald and his colleagues were avoided whenever possible. base in terms of the history of the area, doing in the Providence Mountains, it what’s known, and what’s not known. asked them to consult on restoration Cross-country travel in a desert land- Over time, it gives you a real foundation work at Fort Irwin National Training scape can also be challenging. From a to keep advancing the science.” Center. By analyzing the soils, plants, distance, these landscapes usually look and hydrology in the damaged areas, very smooth; in reality, they are often McDonald is constantly on the go these these scientists have been able to help strewn with boulders, cobbles, washes, days, with multiple research projects the army develop new ways to quantify and other impediments. McDonald is scattered around the globe. But, when- soil degradation, choose appropriate working with the army to develop tech- ever time permits, he returns to the plant species for restorations, design niques to help soldiers better predict Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert more effective irrigation techniques what soil conditions they are likely to Research Center. He has a graduate where required, and develop methods encounter at different desert locations. student investigating the hydrology of of restoring damaged soils, a very dif- “One of the things we’re trying to do,” the limestone alluvial fans in the Provi- ficult process. he explains , “is to develop soil maps on dence Range, and it’s a good place to the fly, based on satellite imagery. We catch up with his research colleagues. These restoration projects have led understand how landscapes form, so we “Everybody is so busy, it’s getting harder to another set of projects designed to should be able to look at a landscape and and harder to spend time in the field help the army improve its desert op- quickly develop soil-terrain maps that working with each other. Erik, Joe, and erations and training by developing an could be used to predict a wide range I actually spent two or three days there understanding of how desert surfaces, of soil properties. Basically, they’d tell recently working on manuscripts and landforms, and soils affect troop mobil- us, ‘Go here, but don’t go there.’” ity. As soldiers in the Middle East have Continued on page 6
N a t u r a l R e s e r v e S y s t e m 5 Transect • 26:1 Gateway reserve Continued from page 5 proposal ideas. So we use it as a place to get away from the office and do some thinking.”
For an area once considered a scientific “black hole,” the eastern Mojave today is the focus of much research. It might still be the Wild West in terms of yet- to-be-discovered plant species, but as far as historical understanding of the landscape goes, it’s become quite well known. McDonald’s work is just part of this effort. “Mine is one of many [Above] The McLaughlin Reserve, projects that have been done out there,” formerly the location of the he notes. “If you include the work that Homestake Mining Company, is now was done at the Sima Volcanic Field, best known for being one of the few sites in California with protected Silver Playa, and Soda Playa ... taken serpentine habitats. together, that’s a fairly solid contribu- tion in terms of understanding late [Right] McLaughlin’s faculty manager, Susan Harrison, has Quaternary geologic events and today’s been called “the most published landforms. Between salt flows, playas, researcher in serpentine ecology alluvial fans, and sand dunes, it’s a real worldwide.” extensive record. Collectively, that Photos by Jerry Booth whole area is probably [now] one of the most intensively studied desert How one NRS site landscapes in the world in terms of soil protects a unique ecosystem and geomorphic processes.” —JB and supports the species and For more information on conducting re- science that depend upon it search at Sweeney Granite Mountains, contact: he NRS’s Donald and Sylvia McLaughlin Natural Reserve attracts Jim André, Reserve Director researchers for many reasons. Located on the site of a recently closed Sweeney Granite Mountains gold mine, the reserve straddles the boundaries of Napa, Yolo, and Desert Research Center TLake Counties and is surrounded by large tracts of property managed by HC1 Box 101 the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It is also situated within the Blue Kelso, CA 92351-0101 Ridge/Berryessa Natural Area (BRBNA), where a coalition of private own- Phone: 760-733-4222 ers, public agencies, and nonprofit organizations is working to conserve and Email: [email protected] enhance 800,000 acres of mountain land that stretch south from the Men- docino National Forest almost to the San Francisco Bay Area.3 The reserve For more information on the work of also includes the watersheds of both Putah Creek and Cache Creek, two Research Professor Eric McDonald at the tributaries of the Bay-Delta ecosystem. Desert Research Institute, Reno, go to: 3
But the single feature that attracts the most researchers to the Siskiyou and Klamath Mountains support a large number 7,050-acre McLaughlin Reserve is its extensive serpentine of endemics. At the southern end of California’s serpentine exposures. Though only about 20 percent of the reserve is exposures near Santa Barbara, there are no serpentine en- serpentine, the reserve’s most recent annual report lists a demic species.5 McLaughlin is at a fortuitous latitude where dozen separate serpentine-related investigations that range all of the habitats intermix and a large number of endemic from comparisons of serpentine-tolerant and -intolerant species persist. shrubs to the mechanisms by which plants adapt to serpentine soils, to the impact of fire on McNab cypress (a serpentine So what is serpentine? And why does it so fascinate plant endemic), to small mammal diversity and herbivory, to the ecologists? surprisingly intense use Native Americans made of serpen- tine exposures. Serpentine is unlike most of the earth’s continental crust. Its origins lie in the earth’s upper mantle, which is made Loosely overseeing this serpentine research gold rush is Susan up of a dense material known as peridotite. Peridotite is Harrison, the reserve’s faculty manager, who, according to rich in magnesium and iron, but poor in silica, calcium, one reviewer for Madroño (the journal of the California potassium, and phosphorus. As the tectonic plates that Botanical Society), “may be the most published researcher make up the earth’s crust crash together and later uplift in serpentine ecology worldwide.”4 Harrison has traveled to form mountains, rocks from the ocean crust and upper throughout the western United States to study serpentine mantle (known as “ophiolites,” when found on land) are exposures, but those she finds at McLaughlin are notable pushed upward and exposed. Under extreme pressure and for their diversity. “It’s an excellent site,” she says, “because in the presence of water, the peridotite metamorphoses into it has major different community types, everything from serpentinite.6 sergeant cypress forests (stunted 100-year-old trees that may stand only about 15 feet tall) to several kinds of serpentine Serpentine exposures range widely in appearance. In some chaparral. It has serpentine barrens, a number of serpentine areas, they are an otherworldly gray-green. In other areas, seeps and wetlands, and a lot of serpentine grasslands. So the oxidizing iron can turn the soil burnt-orange. In fact, almost all the major serpentine habitat types in California many of the California exposures that ecologists refer to as are represented at one site. It’s pretty rare to have that level serpentine are actually peridotite or partially serpentinized of diversity.” peridotite. One thing all serpentine areas have in common, however, is the stunted, sparse, and distinctive vegetation McLaughlin is also interesting because these varied habitats they support. In order to survive in a serpentine environ- support a rich variety of serpentine endemic plants. The di- ment, a plant must be able to adapt to high magnesium versity of serpentine endemics at a site is largely determined levels (which lower the amount of available calcium), severe by rainfall. In southern Oregon and northern California, the nutrient deficiencies, heavy metal toxicity, and, often, low water availability.
Researchers have identified a number of methods by which different plant species adapt to this challenging environment. One study conducted at McLaughlin revealed that leather oaks take magnesium into their roots, but then exclude it
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4 Madroño 54:2 (2007), pp. 199-201. 5 Nevertheless, the NRS’s Sedgwick Reserve near Santa Ynez, in Santa Barbara County, offers excellent serpentine exposures. 6 Harsh soils and rugged terrain characterize much of Not every U.S. state has a state rock, but California designated McLaughlin Reserve. Photo by Deborah Elliott-Fisk serpentinite as its state rock in 1965. N a t u r a l R e s e r v e S y s t e m 7 Transect • 26:1 Unique Ecosystem Continued from page 7 that already have some invasive species. It creeps into edges where the soils get shallower and rockier, where it’s more from being transferred to the shoots. So some species have like a barrens. In the past, that kind of environment really developed a sequestration mechanism for dealing with toxic had no invasives, and you’d get these wonderful displays of elements. Other studies have shown that serpentine endem- natives. But goat grass has a broader ecological range than ics become very efficient at using scarce nutrients, such as other exotics, so it’s moving into some previously unaltered phosphorus. Another key adaptation that plants employ is habitats.” becoming very drought-tolerant so they can survive in the often shallow, rocky serpentine soils. And then there are Getting Hooked on Serpentine those plants that just don’t seem to care. Reciprocal planting experiments show that chamise, for example, does equally As an undergraduate and graduate student, Harrison focused well in serpentine or nonserpentine environments. These her attention on butterfly/plant interactions. In fact, it was plants seem to have a robust genotype that can survive her interest in butterflies that originally brought her to the nasty soils. headwaters of Cache Creek. “I was working on my master’s7 at UC Davis,” she explains, “and there was a faculty scientist This is why serpentine outcrops have been so effective in there, Art Shapiro, who is an excellent field naturalist. Since resisting invasion by exotic plants. Over the last 250 years, he didn’t have a car, he was always trying to get students to as the California landscape has been overrun by invasive give him rides to interesting field locales. One day, he told plant species, most of these species have been unable to me about these strange soils and plants that supported some gain a foothold in the inhospitable serpentine exposures. interesting butterflies, so I drove him out there, and it turned For example, while nonserpentine grasslands in the state out to be part of what’s now the McLaughlin Reserve, long consist of only about 40 percent native species, serpentine before the reserve was established.” grasslands remain 80 percent native, and the grasslands are among the more invaded serpentine environments. Harrison’s involvement in the area continued when the Homestake Mining Company announced they were go- Scientists, however, worry about a new generation of invasive ing to open a gold mine at the site. The same powerful plants. “Goat grass has become a real plague,” notes Har- geologic forces that produced the serpentine exposures also rison, “and it doesn’t just invade the serpentine grasslands created extensive gold veins and mercury deposits. Home- stake proposed to operate the mine in an environmentally responsible way and promised that, once they were done, the site might be made available to the reserve system. The campus NRS advisory committee members at UC Davis were initially doubtful. They decided to form an ad hoc committee to investigate the area’s biological features. “We had a butterfly person [Harrison herself], an ant person, and a couple of plant people,” Harrison recalls. “We got a grant and investigated the environmental diversity of a number of places to see how the McLaughlin site compared with others. We concluded that it really was the nicest site of all the ones we looked at. It had a high diversity of serpentine endemic butterflies and a high diversity of different plant community types.”
McLaughlin faculty manager Susan Harrison examines 7 Harrison’s doctoral thesis at Stanford University was on the a McNab cypress, Cupressus macnabiana, one of the Bay Checkerspot Butterfly, Euphydryas editha, which inhabits reserve’s many serpentine-adapted endemic plants. serpentine outcrops. Photo by Jerry Booth
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After satisfying their curiosity, the Her findings were that, indeed, committee members wrote up their there was higher beta diversity in findings in a report, sent it to the the isolated patches, but that the NRS, and went about their business. gamma diversity was identical. So Several years later, when Harrison what was gained in beta diversity returned to UC Davis as a young was lost in alpha diversity. The professor and got involved in the small patches had fewer species, NRS, she discovered that the paper but there was more variety from had been used by the reserve system patch to patch, so taken together, to determine that McLaughlin was the overall species diversity was biologically worthy of becoming identical between the isolated and a reserve. “So my involvement in continuous exposures. serpentine and the NRS,” she notes, “were intertwined at a very forma- While Harrison was working on tive stage, when I was 22 or 23, and Susan Harrison [left] and grad students this study, one of her graduate just starting to get involved with this Barbara Going and Brian Anacker build exclosures at McLaughlin as part of a study students, Amy Wolf, was using the stuff. It was all quite fascinating.” to determine whether plants can grow same plots to study plant/pollinator on soils other than those on which they interactions and plant reproductive Only a few years after returning to normally specialize, if they are protected success. Wolf’s study was focused from herbivory and/or competition. UC Davis, in 1997, Harrison began Photo by Jerry Booth on a species of serpentine-endemic focusing her research on the ecology morning glory, and it revealed of serpentine ecosystems. “Conceptually, the thing I was that the species had more reproductive success in the large most interested in was patchiness, the fact that serpentine continuous patches. She concluded that, even though the as a habitat tends to occur in a number of little patches. morning glories in the small isolated outcrops were visited This circumstance seemed ideal for testing a lot of different by an equal number of pollinators, more of these pollinators ideas in spatial ecology. My first study was a comparison of were carrying “self-pollen” (pollen from flowers all within plant diversity and plant/pollinator interactions in two set- that same isolated outcrop), which resulted in fewer flowers tings — little sets of isolated outcrops versus equally spaced being pollinated. sampling areas within continuous big outcrops.” By then, Harrison was completely hooked on serpentine. Harrison set up 48 sampling sites: 24 on four groups of small While poking through the reserve’s archives in the late isolated patches of serpentine and 24 spread at similar distances 1990s, she found a series of maps that had been compiled across four large serpentine exposures. At each site, she sampled by environmental consultants in the early 1980s as part of plant diversity and documented the spatial components of that Homestake Mining’s permit application. The maps identi- diversity. She then compared the alpha diversity (the number fied the locations of about 30 rare species, including five of species within a single site), beta diversity (the differences associated with serpentine seeps, patchy microwetlands from one site to the next), and gamma diversity (the total scattered across the reserve. species diversity over each group of 24 sites). This discovery once again sparked Harrison’s interest in The question that intrigued her was: once you take into ac- patchy environments, so she decided to resample the con- count any environmental differences that could cause beta sultants’ sites to see how the plant populations had changed. diversity, does spatial separation alone lead to higher beta “I wandered all over McLaughlin,” she recalls, “and really diversity? She suspected that this would be true due to the got to know all the weird, far-out places on the reserve. I plants’ dispersal limitations. But if spatial patchiness leads found 140 sites where these five species had been found to higher beta diversity, does it also result in higher total and then resampled them to see if any of those species were diversity (gamma diversity)? still there.” Continued on page 10
N a t u r a l R e s e r v e S y s t e m 9 Transect • 26:1 Unique Ecosystem Continued from page 9
She found there had been a 40 percent turnover in the populations during the 16 or 17 years that had elapsed since the earlier survey, but despite this huge change, the number of populations remained identical. She also found a direct correlation between location and survival. The populations most likely to go extinct were those farthest from conspecific populations (populations of the same species) and the sites most likely to get newly colonized were the sites closest to conspecific populations. The pattern once again seemed to fit the meta-population scenario Harrison had discovered in her earlier study. Springtime at the McLaughlin Reserve. Photo by Catherine Koehler Further investigation of the mining company’s carefully recorded use of the site soon revealed another research op- nia,” she says, “so if you want to do any kind of experimental portunity. At one point, they had leased sections of the reserve research on serpentine, you really need an NRS site. If you to ranchers for grazing, providing a perfect opportunity to try to work on BLM or Forest Service land, there’s a chance evaluate the impact of grazing on native plant diversity. your research site will be disturbed at some point.” Harrison staked out and sampled 80 grassland sites across the reserve and found that grazing was beneficial for native The McLaughlin Reserve will always be a center for much plant diversity on serpentine, but that it was also beneficial of the ongoing field research concerning serpentine, but two for exotic diversity on nonserpentine soils. other NRS reserves are also important. Sedgwick Reserve in Santa Barbara County, though it doesn’t have any endemic ser- Just as Harrison was completing this study in 1999, a fire pentine species, still offers high-quality habitat large enough swept across parts of the reserve, giving her the chance to to support research. Surprisingly, there’s also a “little speck” conduct a similar survey on the impact of fire on diversity. of serpentine at the Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve in Big At the same time, a number of her graduate students began Sur. “It’s up on a ridge, about a thousand feet above sea level,” working at the sites. “The upshot,” explains Harrison, “is we says Harrison. “I have a student doing a comparison right kept sampling those sites for almost 10 years, and we were now among the three reserves. Together, the three reserves able to get an LTREB (Long Term Research in Environmental provide a perfect rainfall gradient. So the opportunities are Biology) grant from NSF to turn this into a long-term study. there for anybody who’s interested.” —JB The students have done some really fun projects. One, for example, looked at how the strength of competition varied For more information, contact: along environmental gradients and whether you can predict Cathy Koehler and Paul Aigner, Reserve Co-Managers a species’ success after it is transplanted into the gradient.” McLaughlin Natural Reserve Phone: 707-995-9005 Harrison and her colleagues have conducted extensive survey Email: [email protected] work throughout California. From 2000 through 2004, she Websites:
U niversity of C a l i f o r n i a 10 Transect • 26:1 Wireless mesh network in the clear spectrum of Quail Ridge is uniting ecologists and engineers
he quiet of the NRS’s Quail Wireless mesh networks, also known UC Davis’s NRS Director Virginia Ridge Reserve makes it an as “multi-hop wireless networks,” are (Shorty) Boucher and Reserve Steward ideal research locale for UC very useful for rural areas because each Shane Waddell have worked closely TDavis Professor Prasant Mohapatra. But node in the network serves as both with Mohapatra’s team to build the it’s not the absence of noisy neighbors or a user locale and a relay station that system. Waddell has done almost all blaring sound systems that attracts him. passes information on to other nodes, of the actual installation. He recently Instead, it’s the reserve’s empty wireless eventually reaching a site that has installed 10 new nodes in the system, spectrum. “When we experiment with wired Internet access. These networks expanding coverage to even the most wireless communications on campus,” hold great promise for underdeveloped remote parts of the roughly 2,000-acre this network researcher explains, “there countries because the required equip- reserve. “Right now, the network’s are access points every 10 to 20 feet, so ment is easily available and relatively main users are the computer science we get interference from everywhere. inexpensive. They can also be set up students,” he explains. “This is their Quail Ridge is far from anything, so in emergency situations to establish ‘environment’ and, by expanding the there’s very little interference.” post-disaster communications. The network to 20 nodes,8 we’ve enabled networks are highly flexible because them to test even more questions. One Mohapatra and his team of several each node is self-monitoring. When student has already completed a master’s graduate students and a postdoctoral any node in the system goes down, it thesis, and two others are using the researcher have taken advantage of automatically tries to reset itself, while system for their PhDs.” the reserve’s clear spectrum to estab- the other nodes automatically re-route lish a National Science Foundation- data around trouble spots. In addition to providing a test bed for funded test bed for improving wireless network research, QuRiNet holds great networks. While most promise for environ- other national test beds mental research. One are located in noisy ur- scientist, for example, ban areas — MIT has a used wireless micro- test bed in Cambridge, phones to remotely for example, and there monitor frog activity are similar networks in in the reserve’s ponds Chicago and Philadel- from his laboratory in phia — the Quail Ridge Michigan. A graduate Wireless Mesh Network Continued on page 12 (QuRiNet) offers re- searchers an ideal envi- 8 In addition to the 20 ronment for conducting nodes that comprised fine-grain studies that QuRiNet at the end of test how new software 2007, one more node protocols affect system — on a raft in the lake performance. — was scheduled to be added during spring 2008. And reserve stew- ard Waddell anticipates Quail Ridge Reserve steward Shane Waddell [right] monitors the performance of a wireless uplink station, while graduate that, by summer 2008, student Daniel Wu [left] installs a software update. the network will have Photo by Jerry Booth another 10 nodes. N a t u r a l R e s e r v e S y s t e m 11 Transect • 26:1 Wireless Network Continued from page 11
student documented predator activity with night-vision cameras. Waddell has set up a camera trap to track the movements of salamanders near one of the reserve’s ponds.
“The network enables us to plug in all sorts of potential applications,” Boucher explains. “Shane has done a great job demonstrating some of the possibilities with the ‘herp cam’ and the other web cameras. Currently, we have five weather stations — two supplied by the NSF-funded Center [Above and left] Two for Embedded Network Sensing, a approaches to recording UCLA-based Science and Technol- the locations of Quail ogy Center — accessible through the Ridge Reserve’s 20 wireless mesh network network. And he’s working on getting nodes. Graphics courtesy a nature radio station online that will of Shane Waddell, UC feature hammering woodpeckers and Davis chirping frogs. A new environmental [Below] On a high and technology class is using the network to windy ridge, one of run short-term experiments, test equip- Quail Ridge Reserve’s ment, and interface with campus labs. communication nodes is just barely visible The potential for adding an automated from afar. The area’s animal-tracking system onto the Quail r u g g e d t e r r a i n Ridge network has attracted worldwide presents especially research interest. We’ve submitted an tough challenges for wireless engineers. NSF grant request and are looking for Photo by Jerry Booth additional funding sources.”
While the reserve’s radio-wave isolation makes this area ideal for experiments, many of its other characteristics pre- sent major challenges for engineers who are more accustomed to working in a controlled laboratory environment. The peninsula’s extremely rugged terrain and dense oak woodlands can make com- munications between nodes difficult. The lack of an electrical grid means that the entire system must be powered by solar panels. Curious animals often chew on wires. And the area’s winter storms and extreme summer heat test
U niversity of C a l i f o r n i a 12 Transect • 26:1 the durability of network components. on QuRiNet. His specialty is sched- launch this spring, will allow lake and With assistance and advice from col- uling transmissions among multiple watershed monitoring. Part of these leagues throughout the NRS, Waddell links to reduce packet collisions and expansions are positioned to blanket has found ways to solve each of these thus improve network speed. “A lot Decker Canyon, one of the reserve’s problems. He’s installed sufficient solar of the work in our field is theoretical,” most heavily used research areas, so panels and batteries so that each node he notes. “But here we have a real-life that it will be easy to implement an can function for several days without situation where we can see how accurate automated animal-tracking system. sun. Weatherproof housing protects all our theories really are. Theory tells me of the hardware; wires are enclosed in that improved scheduling will increase Waddell spends a lot of time working rodent-resistant conduit. network robustness. Now we’ll see how on the network because he believes it that works in real life.” holds great promise for the reserve’s Computer science graduate student other users. He’s currently developing Daniel Wu has been working on the All of the computer science students a system that can transmit real-time, system since its inception. His research are developing ways to fine-tune the automated, animal-tracking and physi- focuses on developing ways to ensure system, and all of their ideas are inter- ological data. “Imagine being able to that nodes communicate at the highest related. As each team member finishes gather precise data on the movements possible rate. To do this, he looks for a program, he or she will put it on the and health of various animals. You’d be ways to improve link quality, reduce the system and measure its impact. Wu able to watch the animals’ heart rates loss of information packets (all infor- likens the arrangement to time-sharing: race as a mountain lion takes down a mation is transmitted over networks in “Everybody needs the same resource, so deer, and to see this spatially as well. Or packets), and increase signal strength. you just have to make sure that what you could measure how much effort a All of these factors can be tracked on you’ve done doesn’t bring the whole bird puts into building a nest and tie QuRiNet (sampling in millionths of a system down. Or, if it does, you need this to other behaviors and traits. The second). “I’m better at writing Linux to have a way to bring it back up.” possibilities are endless.” —JB code than building transmitter towers,” Wu admits with a smile, “so it works Although the computer science students For more information on QuRiNet, out great. Shane does the installation, are rather unorthodox users from an go to: including towers 30± feet tall,9 and we NRS perspective, Waddell enjoys work-
N a t u r a l R e s e r v e S y s t e m 13 Transect • 26:1
The Blue Oak Ranch Reserve encompasses more than 3,000 acres that include extensive oak woodlands — welcome habitat in a state where oaks too often fail to regenerate and have been devastated by disease. Photo by Jerry Booth New NRS reserve will link northern CA wildlands to urban environs and to two UC campuses
dentifying the ideal site for a new NRS reserve can Berkeley campus plans to apply for funds from California be extremely difficult. The landscape should be large State Proposition 84 to be used to build a research and enough, and diverse enough, to support a variety of teaching center at the reserve, as well as living quarters for Iresearch interests. At best, it should be close enough to a reserve users and staff. campus so professors can bring classes for day visits. It should be protected and relatively undisturbed, yet it should also The reserve’s blue oak woodlands inspired its name, but be accessible to a range of visitors, especially students from the land also offers extensive upland valley oak woodlands, underserved K-12 schools.10 mixed (blue, black, valley, coast live) oak woodlands, steep densely vegetated canyons, and well-preserved perennial With its recently acquired 36th reserve, the NRS seems streams with intact riparian vegetation and populations of to have hit the reserve trifecta. Blue Oak Ranch Reserve native trout, river otters, and yellow-legged frogs. In total, is a spectacular 3,280-acre property in the Mt. Hamilton Blue Oak Ranch Reserve supports more than 430 species of Range, yet just seven miles (as the crow flies) from down- plants, 130 species of birds, 41 species of mammals, seven town San Jose. The site is embedded within 180,000 acres species of amphibians, 14 species of reptiles, seven species of of permanently protected wildlands and open space, yet fish, and hundreds of species of invertebrates. Because this it lies within an hour’s drive of both UC’s Berkeley and area serves as an important connection in a long corridor Santa Cruz campuses. In addition, the land’s proximity to for migratory wildlife between Alameda and Santa Clara the major urban centers of the south San Francisco Bay Counties, the location provides opportunities for major Area makes it an ideal candidate for developing outreach research projects that address large-scale conservation and programs that connect city folks to the natural world. The land management issues of regional, state, and national concern. The entire reserve is protected by a conservation 10 See: “Improved strategies and technology for designing natural easement held by The Nature Conservancy. reserves promise greater system biodiversity,” NRS Transect 24:2 (Winter 2006), pg. 1;
N a t u r a l R e s e r v e S y s t e m 14 Transect • 26:1
University of California Natural Reserve System Spring 2008
Including the NRS’s new Blue Oak Ranch Reserve
*Santa Cruz Island Reserve is protected, owned, and managed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC). Angelo Coast Range, Jenny Pygmy Forest, Jepson Prairie, and Emerson Oaks Reserves are protected by TNC, as is Oasis de los Osos, a satellite site of James San Jacinto Mountain Reserve. TNC is involved in the protection of Blue Oak Ranch Reserve and Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve. Año Nuevo Island Reserve is a 25-acre portion of the 4,000-acre Año Nuevo State Reserve, which is owned and operated by Cali- fornia State Parks.
Angelo Coast Range Reserve*...... 1 Emerson Oaks Reserve*...... 32 Sagehen Creek Field Station...... 5 Año Nuevo Island Reserve*...... 14 Fort Ord Natural Reserve...... 16 San Joaquin Freshwater Marsh Reserve...... 30 Blue Oak Ranch Reserve*...... 13 Hastings Natural History Reservation...... 17 Santa Cruz Island Reserve*...... 23 Bodega Marine Reserve...... 9 James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve*...... 28 Scripps Coastal Reserve...... 34 Box Springs Reserve...... 27 Jenny Pygmy Forest Reserve*...... 3 Sedgwick Reserve...... 20 Boyd Deep Canyon Jepson Prairie Reserve*...... 10 Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory: Desert Research Center...... 29 Kendall-Frost Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserve...... 12 Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve...... 26 Mission Bay Marsh Reserve...... 36 Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve...... 8 Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve...... 22 Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve*...... 18 Stunt Ranch Santa Monica Mountains Reserve....24 Chickering American River Reserve...... 6 McLaughlin Natural Reserve...... 4 Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Coal Oil Point Natural Reserve...... 21 Motte Rimrock Reserve...... 31 Research Center...... 25 Dawson Los Monos Canyon Reserve...... 33 Kenneth S. Norris Valentine Camp: Eagle Lake Field Station...... 2 Rancho Marino Reserve...... 19 Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserve...... 11 Elliott Chaparral Reserve...... 35 Quail Ridge Reserve...... 7 Younger Lagoon Reserve...... 15
U niversity of C a l i f o r n i a 15 Transect • 26:1 New NRS reserve Continued from page 14 retrofit a large barn (at present, the only significant structure on site) into UC Berkeley, the campus selected to a temporary meeting space for classes administer the site, has assembled an and an expanded living space, talks experienced team to realize the reserve’s with staff at the nearby Lick Obser- potential. Mike Hamilton will serve as vatory and other neighboring facili- reserve director. Hamilton (no relation ties about future collaborations, and to the surrounding mountain range) is cultivates contacts in the surrounding the long-time director of the James San communities to increase awareness of Jacinto Mountains Reserve in southern this new NRS site. California and a nationally recognized leader in using technology to support On top of all of this, Hamilton environmental research. Todd Daw- regularly visits UC Berkeley’s capital son, a professor of Integrative Biology projects office, as well as faculty in the and Environmental Science, Policy, College of Environmental Design’s and Management at UC Berkeley, Green Building Research Center, to will serve as the reserve’s faculty direc- discuss designing new, more permanent tor. Dawson’s research focuses on the facilities. “The campus has made a interface between plants with their commitment to develop facilities that [Above] Mike Hamilton [left] is one of environment; oak woodlands are a the NRS’s most experienced reserve are ecologically sustainable both in the featured ecosystem he and his group directors, having worked at and managed construction and in long-term opera- have been studying. Finally, Jeff Wilcox James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve tion,” he notes. “We plan to power the for nearly 30 years. Todd Dawson entire research center with solar power has been retained as reserve steward. [right], a UC Berkeley professor and As ranch manager for the last 11 years, now also faculty director for Blue Oak and to incorporate passive heating and Wilcox has successfully controlled such Ranch Reserve, is ideally positioned cooling. Berkeley is the leading center in invasive species as bullfrogs and feral to study the interface between oaks the country now for alternative energy and their environment — and perhaps pigs, while fostering the comeback determine, for example [below], research with the new Energy Biosci- of tiger salamanders and other native why mistletoe afflicts certain trees ences Institute. And Lawrence Berkeley populations. He also managed a suc- (left) but not others (right), even Laboratory has been a leader in energy cessful prescribed fire program. where the trees exist side by side. conservation for decades. Being able Photos by Jerry Booth to bring those partners in as research Building a new reserve from collaborators, perhaps to test the the ground up is a tremendous latest fuel-cell technology in our opportunity with hidden chal- battery system, is very exciting. lenges that are incredibly time These groups could use the reserve consuming. Though Hamilton is as a test bed or field site in ways officially employed only half time we’ve never thought of the NRS on Blue Oak Ranch Reserve dur- sites being used before.” ing the first six months of 2008, his real time in the San Francisco From hilltops around the reserve, Bay Area is packed. On Berkeley the human bustle and technologi- campus, he continually attends cal emphasis that mark modern meetings, working to establish San Jose and Silicon Valley are administrative procedures, make clearly visible. The reserve itself is contact with potential researchers and instructors, and an oasis of natural quiet. For both Hamilton and Dawson, tap into the campus’s wide-ranging expertise for potential the juxtaposition of these disparate worlds heightens the value collaborators. At the reserve, he works with a builder to of the site. “It’s a significant wildland,” Hamilton points out.
U niversity of C a l i f o r n i a 16 Transect • 26:1
“Yet the urban impacts are ubiquitous — air pollution, urban for Embedded Network Sensing, are notorious “gearheads.” heat, invasive species, and just the crush of humanity in the Combine that fact with the reserve’s proximity to Silicon valley. That makes it ideal for many kinds of research, but Valley, and it should not be too surprising that their vision the public outreach aspect of this is also big. We’re going to for tracking changes to the reserve’s environment is seriously be able to bring in urban kids who have never experienced high tech. “We are fortunate to have the Lick Observatory mountain lion habitat or wildlands. Most of them probably adjacent to Blue Oak Ranch,” Dawson explains. “They have no idea it’s so close to their homes.” already have a wireless network, and they’re very excited to provide an interface for Blue Oak Ranch to the observatory, “And being able to bring university NASA Ames, and beyond. We see classes to this urban/wildland inter- this as a great opportunity to be in face is really important,” Dawson a natural setting off the grid and yet adds, “because it means we can easily be completely connected.” get our students out into the field, show them a natural reserve, walk Hamilton has already scoped out the them around, and talk about wildlife, reserve’s viewshed, and he estimates watersheds, and biodiversity issues that 95 percent of the site could be that the land represents. If a student connected in a two- to three-hop doesn’t understand the concept of wireless network. “Having a land- a watershed, we can go show them scape-scale wireless network is a big what it is, how we study it, and why deal for environmental research,” we need to study it. This site will be Hamilton explains. “When it’s an incredibly important component completed, Blue Oak Ranch Reserve of the ongoing dialog over land-use will have one of the largest and most changes and climate change that’s densely distributed ecological sensing taking place around the world.” systems of any field station in the country. Combined with the network According to Dawson, it’s critical that at the NRS’s Angelo Coast Range scientists increase public awareness Reserve, which is about the same and intensify research into Califor- size, and the growing wireless mesh nia’s oak savannas because climate network at the Quail Ridge Reserve change will have a dramatic impact [see related story on page 11], the UC on such ecosystems over the next 50 NRS will be at the head of the pack years. A similar Mediterranean eco- in the implementation of large-scale, system in South Africa, the fynbos, is Blue Oak Ranch Reserve steward Jeff wireless systems.” Wilkins (left) points out tiger salamander predicted to literally fall off the tip of eggs to (from far right to middle) reserve the continent as the warming climate director Mike Hamilton, faculty director While the future is impossible to pre- pushes it ever farther south. “Many Todd Dawson, and student visitor Razmig dict, and the work is just beginning, of these Mediterranean regions, Makasdjian. Photo by Jerry Booth the chances seem excellent that the including blue oak woodlands, are NRS’s new Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, very diverse. They have a high amount of endemism in the with its many natural resources and unsurpassed location, animals and plants, so climate and land-use changes hap- will mature into a cutting-edge site for observing the natural pening in these zones will lead to the loss of a lot of very world and understanding better how human activities are critical, sometimes keystone, species.” changing it. —JB
Both Dawson, who directs UC Berkeley’s Center for Stable For more information, go to: Isotope Biogeochemistry, and Hamilton, a principal investi-
N a t u r a l R e s e r v e S y s t e m 17 Transect • 26:1 NRS-hosted outreach program wins CA governor’s 2007 top environmental leadership award
n 2001, when Jennifer “Kids In Nature provides students Thorsch was named to head in our community with oppor- UC Santa Barbara’s Cheadle- tunities to observe, engage in, IEsau Botanical Collection, she and understand the importance might have been content to simply of programs that preserve our preserve the specimens for research ecosystems,” Thorsch explains. use. Instead, she teamed up with “We strive to help develop an then-reserve director Mike Wil- educated population that is able liams and the docents at the NRS’s to make informed decisions about Sedgwick Reserve to develop Kids the future of our environment, In Nature, a unique program that and the animal and plant species each year introduces hundreds who inhabit it.” of elementary school students to Kids In Nature students share a microscope. science and nature.11 Photo by Jennifer Thorsch The Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Awards Seven years later, their vision and the public-school students in Santa Bar- program was established in 1993 to hard work of the Sedgwick Reserve staff bara County, providing an innovative recognize individuals, organizations, and volunteers was honored when Kids program that enriches the learning and businesses that have demonstrated In Nature received the 2007 Governor’s experiences of underrepresented and exceptional leadership in conserving Environmental and Economic Leader- underserved youth. Program activities California’s resources, protecting and ship Award for Children’s Environmen- focus on environmental science, botany, enhancing the environment, and build- tal Education, one of the state’s highest ecology, and habitat restoration. The ing public/private partnerships. The and most prestigious environmental yearlong curriculum combines hands- program is administered by the Califor- honors. UCSB Chancellor Henry T. on, place-based, classroom activities, nia Environmental Protection Agency Yang joined Thorsch in Sacramento to interactive, custom-designed computer and the California Resources Agency, in accept the award for the campus. simulations, and field trips to UC Santa collaboration with the State and Con- Barbara, the Sedgwick Reserve, and the sumer Services Agency, the California “This honor is a milestone in the evo- Arroyo Hondo Preserve.12 At Sedgwick, Department of Food and Agriculture, lution of the program,” says Thorsch. dozens of volunteer docents worked and the Business, Transportation, and “Our approach to providing hands-on with the students throughout the school Housing Agency. —JB science education has increased student year, introducing them to the area’s interest in science, improved student animals and plants, and helping them For more information about Kids In test scores, and provided role models restore native plants along damaged Nature, go to:
C Santa Cruz has announced the selection of Gage Dayton replaces Margaret H. (Maggie) Fusari, who retired Dayton as its new campus NRS administrative last year. In January 2008, he started working part-time director. Dayton, who has a strong background as UCSC campus NRS administrative director while he Uin conservation and environmental restoration, is the son of wrapped up his other projects, gradually increasing his time Paul Dayton, long associated with the NRS and currently until he reaches 100 percent on July 1, 2008. campus NRS director for UC San Diego — making the Daytons the first father-son team in the NRS family. To contact Gage Dayton: Director, Natural Reserves Gage Dayton has been finishing a postdoctoral research UC Santa Cruz grant at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratory, while also 467 Natural Sciences II managing a number of restoration projects, including a Santa Cruz, CA 95064 $1.1-million restoration of approximately 400 acres within Phone: 831-459-4867 the Moro Cojo Slough in Monterey County. Email: [email protected]
Dayton received his BS degree in wildlife management from California State University at Humboldt and his PhD in ecol- And more good staff news ogy and evolutionary biology (wildlife and fisheries sciences) out of UC Santa Cruz… from Texas A&M. In addition, he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses, both in the classroom and in the field. t was also recently announced that Mark D. Readdie Dayton comes highly recommended for his outstanding has been named resident director of the Landels-Hill communication skills and his abilities to interface well with Big Creek Reserve in Big Sur. Readdie has already diverse stakeholders, “fix tattered relationships,” and move Istarted work on a major funding proposal to significantly disparate groups toward consensus, reaching agreement and enhance the reserve’s infrastructure and usability. His service advancing projects. as interim director for several months prior to his official appointment gave him the opportunity to begin building relationships in the local community.
Readdie graduated with a BA in biology from UC Santa Cruz and earned his PhD in biology there as well. His dis- sertation research involved the process of facilitation and its importance to the structure of zonation patterns on rocky intertidal shores in central California. Readdie has conducted kelp forest monitoring research along the state’s central coast, and has also worked and taught in Mexico and in the South Pacific. Beyond his strong background in marine sciences, he is a well-versed field naturalist.
To contact Mark Readdie: Director, Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve HC67 Box 1679 Big Sur, CA 93920 Phone: 831-667-2543 (reserve) Gage Dayton and his daughter Savanna, at the Grand Canyon (with daughter Camille off camera). 831-459-1621 (UCSC) Photo by Lily Dayton Email:
N a t u r a l R e s e r v e S y s t e m 19 Transect • 26:1 A few words Researchers are generally not shy when it Continued from page 1 comes to discussing their interests, and they end up educating one another. They The NRS Transect National Park Boundary and Wilder- are there because they want to under- Spring/Summer 2 0 0 8 • 26:1 ness—Proposed 6,” dated May 1991. stand various aspects of the surrounding (b) Cooperative Management Agreement The NRS Transect is published biannually by area, and it is not surprising that on the Natural Reserve System (NRS), part of the – Upon enactment of this title, the Secre- occasion they forge highly productive Office of Research—Division of Academic Af- tary shall enter into a cooperative manage- collaborations. Since the assortments of fairs, in the University of California Office of the President (UCOP). ment agreement with the University of skill sets are spontaneous, the outcomes California for the purposes of managing Subscriptions are free, available upon request. tend to be strikingly original. the lands within the Granite Mountains Contact: Transect Editor, Natural Reserve System, University of California, 1111 Franklin Street, Natural Reserve. Such cooperative agree- Transect readers may contemplate the Oakland, CA 94607-5200; phone: 510-987- ment shall ensure continuation of arid 0150; fax: 510-763-2971; email: susan.rumsey@ lands research and educational activities relevance of these observations while ucop.edu. of the University of California, consistent reading this issue’s lead article, which Transect issues are also available for viewing on with the provisions of this title and laws traces the fascinating research path Eric the World Wide Web at:
1986 Nonprofit Org. Natural Reserve System U.S. Postage University of California PAID University of 1111 Franklin Street California Oakland, CA 94607-5200