By Kat Kerlin, UC Davis A parasite known only to be hosted in North America by the Virginia opossum is infecting sea otters along the West Coast. A study from the University of California, Davis, elucidates the sometimes surprising and complex pathways infectious pathogens can move from land to sea to sea otter. For the […]
Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve
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. […]
Reviving field research with living laboratories and outdoor education
By Lily Dayton for UC Santa Cruz In the spring of 1948, UCLA graduate student Ken Norris was eager to return to his field research site in the Coachella Valley, where he’d spent previous seasons crouched in the sand dunes, observing the desert iguanas that scurried beneath the Dicoria bushes. When he arrived at his research plot, […]
NRS hosts earthquake warning system sensors
A major effort to warn Californians about impending earthquakes is coming to the NRS. Scientists from UC Berkeley are installing seismometers at four reserves this fall as part of an earthquake early warning (EEW) system for the entire West Coast. Called ShakeAlert, the system will detect the first rumbles of an earthquake, predict its intensity, […]
Pencils spread word about invasive pathogen
Pencils milled from a tanoak tree infected by sudden oak death were featured at the opening of a School of the Art Institute of Chicago and University of Chicago art exhibit in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 1, 2017. Attendees learned about the origin of the pencils, sudden oak death, and issues surrounding global trade, the spread of […]
The world of fungi within a redwood
The world’s tallest trees harbor distinct communities of fungi at different heights within their foliage. Using modern genetic sequencing techniques, scientists have discovered distinct assemblages of fungi within the crowns of individual coast redwoods. The study, published in the American Journal of Botany, is among the first to provide a high-resolution view of a tree’s […]
Road conditions temporarily close Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve
The NRS’s Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve is closed until further notice due to highway conditions and storm damage. Torrential January rains have saturated soils on the steep slopes lining Highway 1 in Big Sur. CalTrans has determined the road is unsafe to travel in several locations due to several active slides, slumping roadways, and a failed highway bridge. At present, Highway […]
Foggy Link Between Redwoods, Climate Change
by Lorena Anderson, UC Merced Communications Most Americans have probably seen gorgeous photos of fog winding its way through California’s coastal redwoods. The trees are one of the state’s most prominent icons, drawing more than 2 million visitors a year. But at a time when rising sea levels, melting polar ice, droughts and superstorms are the most […]