The border between the ocean and dry land is a tough neighborhood. Residents of the intertidal zone—tidepool animals such as mussels and limpets, snails and barnacles—are alternately battered by waves, then exposed to drying sun.
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Delivering environmental data from the NRS
By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System Climate is the hottest topic in California these days. As global warming heats up the West, it’s set off a cascade of effects ranging from toxic algal blooms, to tree die-offs, to wildfires of unprecedented size and ferocity. The situation has everyone asking the same question: what is […]
2020-21 Mathias Grant recipients
By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System Most people will be staying close to home in 2021 due to the pandemic. UC Santa Barbara graduate student Samantha Sambado will not be among them. Her doctoral research will take her on multiple journeys up and down California, in search of ticks and the human pathogens they […]
Teaching a field program amid a pandemic
Krikor Andonian and Tim Miller, instructors of the NRS’s California Ecology and Conservation program, deliver a report from the field on their Fall 2020 course. CEC program is one of relatively few UC classes being conducted in person right now, and is likely be the only one that will remain in its own social bubble […]
Swapping a weatherbeaten cabin for snug modern quarters
This story is part of NRS reserves transformed by Proposition 84 funds, a series describing the facilities improvements and expansions at NRS reserves supported by Proposition 84 bond funds. By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System In California’s North Coast region, people have long been accustomed to making do. Trips to the store can be […]
2019-20 Mathias Graduate Student Research Grant awards
By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System Joshua trees will be under the gun in the California of the future. Scientists predict that it’ll become too hot and dry for these striking Mojave plants to persist in much its the high desert habitat by 2100. How much water these treelike yucca plants can store at […]
California Heartbeat Initiative soars ahead
By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System A University of California project to study the availability of water in California’s ecosystems is off to a soaring start. The California Heartbeat Initiative (CHI) uses drones, sap flow meters, and other remote sensing techniques to monitor the water status of plants across large swaths of the landscape. […]
Limited underground water storage make plants less susceptible to drought
Plants accustomed to accessing smaller amounts of moisture stored in underground rock formations are more resilient to drought conditions.