Natural Reserve System Natural Reserve System UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA university of california 1111 Franklin St. The UC Natural Reserve System provides a Oakland, CA 94607-5200 ucnrs.org library of ecosystems throughout California. Reserves offer outdoor laboratories to field scientists, classrooms without walls for students, and nature’s inspiration to all. Founded in 1965 to provide a network of wildland sites available for scientific study, the NRS has grown to include more than 40 locations encompassing more than 756,000 acres across the state. The NRS is the world’s largest university- Reserves are listed by managing campus operated system of natural reserves; no Berkeley Los Angeles San Diego other network of field sites can match its 1 Angelo Coast Range Reserve 17 Stunt Ranch Santa Monica 27 Dawson Los Monos LOBSANG WANGDU size, scope, and ecological diversity. 2 Blue Oak Ranch Reserve Mountains Reserve Canyon Reserve 3 Chickering American River 18 White Mountain Research Center 28 Elliott Chaparral Reserve Reserve Merced 29 Kendall-Frost Mission Bay 4 Hastings Natural History Marsh Reserve 19 Merced Vernal Pools and Reservation 30 Scripps Coastal Reserve Grassland Reserve 5 Jenny Pygmy Forest Reserve 20 Yosemite Field Station Santa Barbara 6 Point Reyes Field Station 31 Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve 7 Sagehen Creek Field Station Riverside 32 Coal Oil Point Natural Reserve 21 Box Springs Reserve Davis 33 Kenneth S. Norris Rancho 22 Boyd Deep Canyon Marino Reserve 8 Bodega Marine Reserve Desert Research Center 34 Santa Cruz Island Reserve 9 Jepson Prairie Reserve 23 Emerson Oaks Reserve 35 Sedgwick Reserve 10 Lassen Field Station 24 James San Jacinto 36 Sierra Nevada Aquatic 11 McLaughlin Natural Reserve Mountains Reserve Research Laboratory 12 Quail Ridge Reserve 25 Motte Rimrock Reserve 37 Valentine Camp 13 Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve 26 Sweeney Granite Mountains Santa Cruz Desert Research Center Irvine 38 Año Nuevo Island Reserve 14 Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve 39 Fort Ord Natural Reserve 15 San Joaquin Marsh Reserve 40 Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve 16 Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego 41 Younger Lagoon Reserve PEGGY L. FIEDLER M. WONG KATHLEEN Desert Research Center Natural Reserve System UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UC Davis Reserves McLaughlin Natural Reserve Located at a former gold Lassen Field Station mine, McLaughlin Natural Reserve protects unusual Earth’s subterranean pulse runs serpentine habitats. Oak strong beneath Lassen Volcanic • woodlands are interspersed National Park. Lassen Peak is with serpentine and non- the world’s largest plug volcano. serpentine chaparral in a Geothermal mud pots, sulfur mosaic that includes pristine • UC Davis vents, and hot springs abound. •• habitats, rangelands, and Cinder soils, four watersheds, • • reclaimed mining areas. whitebark pine forests, and the ELLA SAMUEL rare Sierra Nevada red fox add to the area’s appeal. JEFFREY CLARY Bodega Marine Reserve Jepson Prairie Reserve Tidepools give way to beaches, An island of remnant Central Valley active dunes, marsh, and coastal prairie amid a sea of farmland, prairie at Bodega Marine Reserve. Jepson Prairie Reserve comes alive Harbor seals, shorebirds, and a with winter rains. Natural clay-lined wide array of marine invertebrates vernal pools fill, drawing breeding live here year round. A stretch of California tiger salamanders and the San Andreas Fault and the rousing tadpole and fairy shrimp to facilities of UC’s Bodega Marine hatch. Native wildflowers bloom in Laboratory help make the reserve ADAM G. CLAUSE rainbow rings around drying pools a magnet for scientists of many through spring. disciplines. CHRISTOPHER WOODCOCK Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve Quail Ridge Reserve Stebbins Cold Canyon is nestled Lake Berryessa surrounds the Quail Ridge within the dry ridges of the Reserve peninsula. Rare native grasses northern Coast Range. A riparian and oak woodlands cloak its steep slopes. woodland lines the banks of Isolation has kept out many weeds, giving its intermittent stream, while stands of native purple needlegrass, the canyon rises on either side junegrass, and California oniongrass room through habitats that include to flourish. Precipitous terrain plus freedom chaparral, blue oak woodland, from electromagnetic noise makes the and grasslands. reserve an ideal site to test environmental LOBSANG WANGDU LOBSANG WANGDU sensor and wireless mesh networks. .