Download Research projects at the Angelo Reserve Oct 2004

Unit Mission and Activities
The California Biodiversity Center (CBC, http://[email protected]), a relatively
new organized research unit, fosters collaborations between the Berkeley Natural History
Museums, Berkeley's Natural History Field Stations, and other partners studying changes in
California's biological diversity, past, present, and future. Biological populations in California
and elsewhere can change unexpectedly with dramatic consequences, both biological and
economic. We see an exotic weed, present at low densities for decades following its
introduction, suddenly explode as a noxious pest (e.g., yellow star thistle); sudden oak death and
other pathogens threaten tanoaks, coast live oaks, madrones, redwoods, and Monterey pines; a
native frog population (e.g. mountain yellow legged frog) thriving in one watershed but
dwindling or disappearing in another, apparently similar habitat. In all of these cases, ecological
change, evolutionary (genetic) change, or both could account for the change in the species'
performance and impact. Interactions of genetic and ecological change probably drive many
changes in biodiversity and environments, yet such interactions go widely unrecognized because
of the lack of collaboration between scientists familiar with museum-based, historical and
molecular genetics approaches and field ecologists and earth scientists using field observations
and experiments to investigate contemporary processes. Such collaborations are fostered by the
CBC.
The CBC's affiliated partners include Berkeley's Natural History Museums and Natural
History Field Stations (Table 1). The field stations provide protected areas that serve as "living
laboratories," where researchers can investigate the on-going processes that are currently
influencing biological diversity. The museums’ vast collections and databases add geographic
breadth and historical depth to our understanding of processes that can control biodiversity-processes that begin with the geologic origin of California and range in time scale from the
splitting of species lineages to changes within a single generation. Combining these two
invaluable types of resources enhances the abilities of CBC researchers to evaluate the relative
roles of climate, evolution, human impacts, and altered community composition (due to
invasions, extinctions, or emerging pathogens) in changing distributions, abundances, and
genomes of key species over time.
Berkeley Natural History Museums
Berkeley Natural History Field Stations
University of California Museum of Paleontology
Angelo Coast Range Reserve
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
Hastings Natural History Reservation
University of California Botanical Garden
Hans Jenny Pygmy Forest Reserve
Essig Museum of Entomology
Chickering-American River Reserve
University and Jepson Herbaria
Sagehen Creek Field Station
Hearst Museum of Anthropology
Sierra Snow Lab
Table 1. Affiliated partners of the California Biodiversity Center
Angelo Coast Range Reserve
Station Manager
Pete Steel
Address
U.C Angelo Reserve, 42101 Wilderness Lodge Road, Branscomb, CA
95417 Tel: (707)984-6653
Email
[email protected] Web Site: http://angelo.berkeley.edu
The Angelo Coast Range Reserve (ACRR) is one of 35 reserves protected for university level
teaching and research by the University of California Natural Reserve System (UCNRS,
http://nrs.ucop.edu/). The Angelo Reserve is administered by the Berkeley campus through the
California Biodiversity Center. Angelo Reserve Facilities support year round research and
teaching, and include individual as well as group housing available to any qualified person,
institution, or group, on a per/person/night basis. An Environmental Science Center built in 2000
(with a grant from the Goldman Fund) provides lab space, simple computer facilities, a library
and collections room, a class/conference room, and high-speed internet connection.
In 2002, the Angelo Reserve was chosen to be the first collaborative field site for an NSF
funded Science and Technology Center, the National Center for Earth Surface Dynamics
(NCED). Since then, ecologists, earth scientists, and environmental engineers from Berkeley,
University of Minnesota, MIT, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins have worked on the reserve in a
large collaborative effort called Desktop Watersheds. NCED is funding the installation, led by
Collin Bode, of a state-of-the-art wireless backbone to support monitor distributed environmental
sensors, acoustic detectors, and cameras that document changing conditions and ecological
responses on temporal and spatial scales of ecological relevance.
NCED also funded the acquisition and analysis of detailed digital topographic data (from
airborne laser swath mapping) which NCED researchers are using to build watershed-scale
numerical models to explore the response of the Angelo watershed ecosystem to environmental
change. Ecological research at Angelo are has focused on the extent to which channel network
structure, primarily via contributing drainage area, controls factors that limit the distribution and
abundance of key channel organisms. Current work has also defined functional relationships
between stream channel and network properties and the locations, rates, and scales of nutrient
cycling, periphyton growth, contaminant uptake, riparian tree recruitment and survival, juvenile
salmonid growth and survivorship, insect emergence, insect grazing on stream periphyton, and
bat foraging. Several drainage area thresholds have been located at which important changes
occur in food web linkages between attached algae, aquatic insect prey and aquatic or aerial
predators. Over the renewal period, we will refine our knowledge of the physical and biological
mechanisms mediating these spatial thresholds in food web controls, test the generality of these
mechanisms in other channel networks, and continue to quantify functional relationships
between the physical environment and ecological responses and feedbacks as a basis for
forecasting change from organismal to channel and watershed scales. Simpler, static models, in
which fixed topography and steady state fluxes are used to estimate environmental properties,
will evolve over time to dynamic models in which solutes, detritus, organisms, and sediment are
routed from hillslopes through channel networks, and landscapes and ecosystems respond to
changing environmental conditions.
Continued iteration between spatially explicit modeling and field work continually challenges
researchers in the field to explain differences between observations and predictions, a framework
that we think will greatly accelerate our progress in understanding linkages between landscapes
and ecosystems.
Research Narrative
CBC projects Oct 2004-Sept 2005
In 2004/2005 the CBC has sponsored a number of diverse events. Brief summaries are given
below and full details are available on the CBC website: http://cbc.berkeley.edu/
1. History of California Seminar Series (Fall and Spring 2005)
The aims of the seminar series are to bring faculty and other interested locals together in an
informal setting to overview and exchange ideas on all aspects of the history of California so as
to identify gaps in our knowledge, and useful areas for cross-disciplinary collaborations.
2. Grass Foray to Tom's Point in Marin County (6 November 2004)
Jeff Corbin led a California Biodiversity Center Biological Foray, to a native coastal grassland at
Tom's Point.
3. Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force Meeting - California-Nevada Working Group
(January 2005)
This annual meeting was held on the Berkeley campus in 2005 and room and refreshment
expenses were provided by CBC allowing the meeting to be a free event for all participants.
4. Botanical Foray (March 19-22 2005)
The California Biodiversity Center provided sponsorship for the 10th Spring Outing; Botanical
Excursion; Foray, Retreat, and Escape to the Environment (SO BE FREE) held at the Oregon
Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB), Charleston, Oregon.
5. California Ecological Observatory Network (2005- )
CBC is a sponsor of the California Ecological Observatory Network (CalEON) - a regional
network of field sites, natural history museums, and university labs. CBC has provided the
following support for CalEON
6. Stream Food-Web and Nutrient Spiraling Workshop (April 25-29 2005)
Profs. Beth Boyer (U.C. Berkeley), Jacques Finlay (U. Minnesota) and Prof. Alex Flecker and
Steve Thomas (Cornell Univ.) visited the Berkeley campus and the Angelo Reserve for a stream
food-web and nutrient spiraling workshop
7. Ecological Flora of California (June 30 2005 and ongoing)
The Ecological Flora of California (EFCal) is a new component of the Jepson Flora Project that
will provide ecological information on the California flora. CBC sponsored an advisory board
meeting and is collaborating with other funding sources to provide funding to start development
of the database.
8. Berkeley Field Reserves Brochure (Fall 2005)
In order to increase the visibility of the UC Berkeley Field Reserves CBC is sponsoring John
Latto's design and production of a color brochure which will be made available to the reserves
for distribution to interested parties and, especially, potential donors
9. Ecology and Management of California Grasslands Author's Conference and Writing
Workshop (September 30-October 1, 2005)
The editors and authors of 'The Ecology and Management of California Grasslands', a book to be
published by the University of California Press in 2007, held an Author's Conference and
Writing Workshop at Bodega Marine Lab. CBC provided financial sponsorship for the meeting.
Research projects at the Angelo Reserve Oct 2004- Sept 2005
A large number of research projects continued, or were initiated, at the Angelo Reserve over the
past year. Below, we highlight one research project and give summary details of 23 others. Fuller
descriptions are given for all projects at the Angelo reserve website:http://angelo.berkeley.edu/
1. Solutes, soil production, and biota: In mountainous western landscapes, such as in the Angelo
Coast Range Reserve (ACCR), nitrogen is the major nutrient limiting primary and secondary
production in both watershed and channel ecosystems. Soil solute chemistry that drains to
channels is strongly microbially-mediated. A Ph.D. student in Mary Power’s lab group,
partially funded by NCED, has established a large scale climate change experiment at the
ACRR. For the past 5 years rainfall amounts and distribution have been manipulated to
match predictions by leading global circulation models for the California North Coast, and
ecosystem and food web responses have been documented. Ongoing manipulations with
other NCED researchers are bridging three fields: experimental community ecology (Power
lab.), microbial genomics (the Banfield lab in EPS at Berkeley), and biogeochemistryecosystem science (NCED collaborators Finlay, Welter, and Schade, based at Univ. of
Minnesota). Researchers in the Banfield lab will use advanced genomic techniques and
micro-arrays to reveal associations between microbes and various grass and herbaceous
species, whose relative abundances have been changed by different rainfall regimes. Fungal
response to altered rainfall and the effects on mineral weathering will be explored. Freeliving soil bacteria will be documented using for identification and estimation of their
metabolic activities, leading to a new understanding of nitrogen fixation and cycling. These
studies will yield new insights on climate controls on nutrient cycles and fluxes, providing
crucial input for river food web models anticipating the effects of climate change.
2. Monitoring Phytophthora ramorum distribution in coastal California watersheds. The Angelo
reserve is part of Shannon Murphy’s (UC Davis) network of sampling locations that will
monitor Phytophthora ramorum infestation, causal agent of Sudden Oak Death.
3. Simulated climate change in an annual grassland. Blake Suttle (UCB) completed the fourth
year of a four-year manipulation of the duration and intensity of rainfall in large grassland
plots to generate predictions for the fate of these grasslands under climate change scenarios.
4. Pacific lamprey impacts on the aquatic food web of the South Fork Eel river. Mike Limm
(UCB) is investigating the role of Pacific lamprey on the South Fork Eel river food web to
shed light on their roles in detrital dynamics, and their interactions with other organisms.
5. Effects of White Alder recruitment on river channel formation. Research by Christopher
DiVittorio, (UCB) will investigate the effects of White Alder recruitment on river channel
geomorphology of the South Fork Eel River.
6. The responses of grasses to alternate climate change scenarios. Meredith Thomsen (UCB)
continued ongoing field research examining the responses of grasses to climate change
7. Survey of nitrogen fixing microbial diversity. Karelyn Cruz (UCB) is carrying out a survey
of nitrogen fixing microbial diversity at across a soil landscape at the Angelo Reserve.
8. Biogeochemical Consequences of Alder Establishment in a Stream Network. Jill R. Welter
(UCB) is exploring linkages between the spatial distribution of alders in the South Fork Eel
River watershed, foliar and phloem quality, terrestrial herbivore performance, and in-stream
respiration and decomposition.
9. Phyllogeography of banana slugs (Ariolimax spp.) John S Pearse (UC Santa Cruz) is
studying the distribution of banana slugs on the west coast of North America to determine the
species boundaries which reflect vicariant events.
10. Import and export of arthropods from watershed streams. Camille McNeely (University of
Minnesota) is measuring the biomass of arthropods, plant material, and other biomass
entering and emerging from streams in the South Fork Eel River watershed.
11. Phosphorus availability and AMF. Anna Rosling (UCB) is carrying out primary field
sampling at the South Meadow to isolate fungi from deep soil and weathered bedrock.
12. Carbon flux into tributaries of the South Fork of the Eel River. Michael Limm (UCB) is
investigating carbon flux into the tributaries of the South Fork of the Eel River.
13. Conifer-Endophyte Investigation. Fungal endophytes are present in the foliar tissues of all
studied conifers and yet their influence of leaf physiology is virtually unknown. Emily Limm
(UCB) is investigating the fungal endophytes in redwood and Douglas fir trees.
14. Strath terrace formation Theodore Fuller (University of Minnesota) is studying the elevation
of the bedrock strath surface and the internal stratigraphy of the deposits overlying the strath.
15. Are the Acroceridae pollinators or nectar scavengers? Christopher J Borkent (Royal British
Columbia Museum) is assessing what flower visiting behaviors Eulonchus species
(Acroceridae) show under natural conditions.
16. Long term monitoring of Rana boylii Sarah J Kupferberg (UCB) is carrying out a long term
monitoring study of Foothill yellow legged frogs (Rana boylii) on the Angelo Reserve.
17. Sediment dynamics in managed ecosystems: linking physical processes to biological
consequences. Bret C Harvey , (USFS) is collect aquatic invertebrate samples (including
evening drift) and physical data for hydraulic modeling of the S.F. Eel R. above Elder Cr.
18. Integrating the effects of future land-use and climate change for river food webs Wendy J
Palen (UC Berkeley) will combine large existing datasets on physical, climatological, and
hydrological features of the watershed to explore the consequences of altered sediment
transport for downstream communities.
19. Demography of N. Spotted Owls in NWC Peter Carlson, (Colorado State University) will
survey for spotted owl in traditional spotted owl areas as part of a yearly survey effort
20. Bacterial-Algal Interactions in Epilithic Biofilms Maria Goodrich (UC Berkeley) will
explore factors influencing the interactions between biofilm-associated algae and bacteria.
21. Periphyton distribution and nutrient fluxes Miki Hondzo and Rachata Muneepeerakul
(University of Minnesota and Princeton University) are examining periphyton
bioaccumulation and nutrient fluxes.
22. Effects of vegetation growth on bar and bank stability at ACRR Chris Paola (University of
Minnesota) is studying the effect of vegetation, especially alder growth, on the stability of
stream bars and banks within the Reserve.
23. Lizard population dynamics in watershed landscapes John Sabo (Arizona State University)
is to estimating the abundance of western fence lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis) and western
sagebrush lizards (S. graciosus) on cobble bar and meadow "island" habitats.
24. Relative Weight of Juvenile Steelhead in Response to Turbidity and Steelhead Density
Katherine D McLaughlin (California State University Humboldt) is sampling fish in Elder
Creek, in order to calculate a steelhead density for the creek
CBC and Angelo Reserve Publications 2004/2005
1. MI Bidartondo, B Burghardt, G Gebauer, TD Bruns
Changing partners in the dark: isotopic and molecular evidence of ectomycorrhizal
liaisons between forest orchids and trees Proceedings of the Royal Society of London,
Series B, 271, 1799 – 1806. 2004
2. RJ Eisen, L Eisen, RS Lane
Habitat-related variation in infestation of lizards and rodents with Ixodes ticks in dense
woodlands. Experimental and Applied Acarology, 33, 215-233. 2004
3. JK Howard, KM Cuffey, M Solomon
Toward using Margariitifera falcate as an indicator of base level nitrogen and carbon
isotope ratios: insights from two California Coast Range rivers . Hydrobiologia, 541,
229-236. 2005
4. PM Kotanen
Revegetation following Soil Disturbance and Invasion in a Californian Meadow: a 10year History of recovery. Biological Invasions, 6, 245-254. 2004
5. Polis, G.A., M.E. Power and G. Huxel. 2004 Food webs and landscapes. University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
6. ME Power, N Brozovic, C Bode, D Zilberman
Spatially explicit tools for understanding and sustaining inland water ecosystems.
Front. Ecol. Environ. 3, 47-55 2005
7. JD Stock, DR Montgomery, BD Collins, WE Dietrich
Field measurements of incision rates following bedrock exposure: Implications for
process controls on the long profiles of valleys cut by rivers and debris flows
GSA Bulletin, 117, 174-194, 2005
8. Strayer, D.S., M.E. Power, W.F. Fagan, S.T.A. Pickett and J. Belnap. 2003 A
classification of ecological boundaries. BioScience (Special Section on Ecological
Boundaries),BioScience 53:723-729.
9. M Tenuta, H Ferris
Sensitivity of Nematode Life-History Groups to Ions and Osmotic Tensions of
Nitrogenous Solutions. Journal of Nematology, 36, 85-94. 2004
10. JL Williams, JM Levine
Small-scale variation in growing season length affects size structure of scarlet
monkeyflower Oikos, 106, 131-137. 2004