The Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve, set in a steep, north-facing canyon of the northern Coast Range, provides excellent opportunities to study plant and animal communities of both the inner and outer Coast Ranges. Differences in slope, exposure, and moisture regimes promote a variety of undisturbed habitats, including valley and foothill grasslands, blue oak woodland, chamise chaparral, lower montane chaparral, mixed riparian woodland, and intermittent foothill stream.
Year-round springs provide watering areas for many wildlife species, such as bear, mountain lion, deer, ringtail, and turkey. All together, 108 bird species (35 nesting), eight amphibian, eighteen reptile, 43 mammal, and more than 290 plant species have been found at the reserve.
Adjacent protected lands held by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the California Department of Fish and Game greatly expand the effective research area.
The reserve is named in honor of world-renowned plant geneticist and long-time professor at UC Davis and Berkeley, G. Ledyard Stebbins, an avid naturalist with a strong interest in conserving natural biotic communities.
Public Access
The site is fully open to the public; up to 5,000 people, mostly local hikers, visit the reserve annually and explore its canyon bottoms and ridgetops.
Educational Outreach
The reserve is available for field trips by elementary and secondary schools.
Field Courses
The site is visited by university courses in wildlife field techniques, California floristics, range science, wildlife biology, botany, plant ecology, and geology field studies.
Selected Research
- Diversity and biology of cavity-nesting bees
- Effects of fire on native ant populations
- Microlepidopteran host associations
- Sources of variation in floral nectar availability in fireweeds
- Entomological surveys
- Studies of Lyme disease
- Post-landslide plant succession
Contact Information
Sarah Oktay
Reserve Manager
JMIE/NRS
The Barn
UC Davis
Davis, CA 95616
530-752-6949
sdoktay@ucdavis.edu
Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve website
Location
Solano and Napa Counties, 32 km (20 mi.) west of Davis campus; 10 km (6 mi.) west of Winters; 0.8 km (0.5 mi.) east of Monticello Dam.
Facilities
None; site is best suited for day use.
Reserve bibliography
The reserve bibliography includes citations of journal articles, books, theses, art, and other works published about or based on activities conducted at the reserve.
Databases
Plant List
Natural history handbook with species lists; GIS layers.
Personnel
Roving staff reserve manager; no on-site personnel.
Size
258 hectares (638 acres)
Elevation
91 to 762 m (300 to 2,500 ft.)
Average Precipitation
52 cm (20 in.) per year.
Average Temperature
January: 8 ºC (46 ºF)
July: 28 ºC (82 ºF)