The California Biodiversity Center: understanding …



CALIFORNIA BIODIVERSITY CENTER

2001-2002 FISCAL YEAR REPORT

PREPARED BY

MARY E. POWER, DIRECTOR

And

JOHN LATTO, ACADEMIC COORDINATOR

with field station reports from

JEFF BROWN

DIRECTOR, SAGEHEN FIELD STATION

AND

RANDALL OSTERHUBER

CENTRAL SIERRA SNOW LABORATORY

Unit Mission and Activities

The California Biodiversity Center (CBC, ), a 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 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 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 new pathogens in changing distributions, abundances, and genomes of key species over time.

Table 1. Affiliated partners of the California Biodiversity Center

|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 |

CBC Activities, 2001-2002:

The CBC co-sponsored, with the Berkeley Natural History Museums, a Public Lecture Series at U.C. Berkeley in 2001. Speakers were Dr. Graham Chisholm, Director of the California Nature Conservancy, Prof. Kent Lightfoot, an archaeologist at Berkeley who studies Native Californians, particularly coastal cultures; and Prof. Matteo Garbelotto, a Berkeley forest pathologist and leading expert on Sudden Oak Death. The CBC also co-hosted, with the BNHMs, a public open house for KQED, to complement the recent television series on Evolution, with displays and discussions that introduced the public to opportunities and resources at the Museums and Field Stations.

In March 2002 CBC was a cosponsor of a UC Museum of Paleontology short course entitled 'Back to the future: the history of San Francisco Bay'. CBC members were also involved in lectures and topics discussed included: geological forces that continue to shape the Bay; the results of sea level fluctuations through the ice ages; the ecology of the Bay and what it takes to survive in such a fluctuating environment; major impacts on the Bay - the human invasion and 'other' invasive species; the future of the San Francisco Bay.

The CBC organized two retreats, one at the U.C. Botanical Garden (April 2001), and at the Hastings Natural History Reserve (May 2002). These were attended by faculty and researchers in Integrative Biology, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Anthropology/Archaeology, and Environmental Science, Policy and Management. Attendees made brief presentations of their own work and discussed plans for collaborations that could be fostered by the CBC. These retreats have launched several collaborative proposals for both research and educational initiatives, as well as ongoing plans for scientific and teaching partnerships (e.g., the Environmental Education to the Luce Foundation). The CBC also sponsored a weekend field trip to the Angelo Coast Range Reserve to welcome and orient new graduate students in the Department of Integrative Biology at Berkeley in August, 2002.

The CBC and Hastings Reservation organized a special conferences in celebration of the Sagehen Field Stations 50th Anniversary, the Sierra Nevada Science Symposium . CBC was one of a number of symposium conveners who provided financial and logistical support for the 2002 Sierra Nevada Science Symposium. The topic of the Symposium was 'Science for Management and Conservation'. CBC affiliates from UC Berkeley (Craig Moritz, MVZ Director, chaired a session, Jeff Brown, Sagehen Manager, hosted a field trip to his reserve) were well represented presenting 6 talks, chairing 3 sessions and presenting 18 posters. The main success of the conference was in bringing together people from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines that shared a common goal: management and conservation of the various Sierra Nevada ecosystems. Representatives of state and federal government agencies and those working within universities were about equally represented as were academic scientists and those more closely involved with management issues.

In San Francisco on October 27, 2002, Director Mary Power was a speaker and panelist at the California Science Teachers Association (CSTA), organized by Senior Analyst Judy Scotchmoor of the U.C. Museum of Paleontology. The presentation was part of a professional development program for teachers entitled, "Earth's History and the Nature of Science." Director Power highlighted opportunities for high school students to engage in field research at Berkeley's Natural History field stations, showed slides of student and faculty projects at the Angelo Coast Range Reserve, and discussed their relevance to citizens' choices about land use and water allocation in California.

The CBC sponsored an EcoInformatics Workshop for data managers, students and faculty on October 28, 2002. The presenters were Dr. William Michener, Associate Director (Special Projects) of the Long Term Ecological Research Network Office at the University of New Mexico and former Program Director of Ecology in the Division of Biological Sciences at the NSF, and Dr. James Brunt, Associate Director (Information Management) of the Long Term Ecological Research Network Office at the University of New Mexico. They updated the growing environmental informatics group at Berkeley on new initiatives and national standards being developed for ecological informatics. These include the Science Environment for Ecological Knowledge (SEEK), the Partnership for Biodiversity Informatics (PBI), and the Knowledge Network for BioComplexity (KNB). The follow up workshop, where hands on training in some informatics and database management was offered, was attended by graduate students, postdocs, informatics staff, and faculty from the Berkeley departments of Integrative Biology, Environmental Policy, Science and Management, Geography, Energy and Resources Group, Civil and Environmental Engineering, as well as the Jepson Herbarium, the U.C. Herbarium, the Essig Museum of Entomology, the U.C. White Mountain Research Station, San Francisco State University, the Berkeley Forest Research stations, the U.C. Botanical Garden, the U.C. Museum of Paelontology, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, the Center for Stable Isotpoe Biogeochemistry, and the new NSF Science and Technology Center, the National Center for Earth Surface Dynamics (Appendix 1).

Field Station Activities, 2001-2002:

Angelo Coast Range Reserve

About the reserve:

The Angelo Coast Range Reserve (ACRR) is one of 34 reserves protected for university level teaching and research by the University of California Natural Reserve System (UCNRS, ). The Angelo Reserve is administered by the Berkeley campus through the California Biodiversity Center. The reserve was established in 1959 by the Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Heath and Marjorie Angelo, and was managed by TNC until 1989 when management was turned over to the UCNRS. Title to the reserve was transferred in 1994. In 1961 the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) set aside some of its adjacent land in recognition of its natural value. Together the two areas combine to form an 8000 acre natural area for research, teaching, and public environmental education.

The reserve is located in northern Mendocino Co. in the steep and rugged Coast Range. Elevations range from 390 m to 1263 m. Habitats include mixed evergreen forest, chaparral, oak woodlands, meadows, and riparian zones along the S. Fork Eel River. In addition to a 5-km reach of the S. Fork Eel River, the reserve encompasses the entire watersheds of 3 perennial streams. The climate is typically Mediterranean, with the bulk of the rain falling between November and March, followed by long dry and warm summers.

Collections on site include an extensive herbarium and plant species list, as well as surveys of mammals, soils, fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians.. The USGS has maintained a gauging station on Elder Creek since 1974.

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. When fully furnished the newly completed Environmental Science Center (funded by a grant from the Goldman Foundation) will provide lab space, computer lab, library and collections room, class/conference room, and high-speed internet connection. Recent users include graduate students and classes from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, Humboldt State University, SF State University, classes from College of the Redwoods, K-12 classes from the Laytonville Unified School District and local private schools, USGS, Cal. Fish and Game, and over 1500 public day users.

The Angelo Coast Range Reserve hosted a kickoff workshop, September 19-22, to set the agenda for research and teaching for the new NSF Science and Technology Center, the National Center for Earth Surface Dynamics (NCED). Earth scientists, ecologists, engineers, and educators from U.C. Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Minnesota, and Fond du Lac College in northern Minnesota met at the new Environmental Center recently completed at the Angelo Reserve. Focused discussions with the entire core NCED team, as well as breakout group discussions, were held to map out several research areas and particular collaborations. Two such projects, an examination of ecosystem physiology over scales from microns to kilometers, and a study of how riparian trees influence the evolution of channel morphology, will take place at the Angelo Reserve over the coming field seasons. The Angelo Reserve will serve as a primary field laboratory for the Minneapolis-based NCED (). NCED will fund high speed internet connections to the Angelo Reserve.

Selected 2001-2002 Research Projects and recent publications based on research at the Angelo Reserve are described in Appendix 2.

Sagehen Creek Field Station

Description

Sagehen Creek Field Station(SCFS) is a research and teaching facility of the University of California at Berkeley’s, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, the Berkeley Natural History Museums and the California Biodiversity Center. The Station was established in 1951 with the signing of a long-term special use permit with the USDA Forest Service, which manages the land.

The year round Station facilities are at an elevation of 6380 feet in California on the east slope of the northern Sierra Nevada, approximately 20 miles North of Lake Tahoe. The roughly 8000 acre Sagehen Creek watershed includes yellow pine, mixed conifer, and red fir forests, brushfields, scattered mountain meadows and fens. Deep snow is typical of the winter season, and dry, warm weather is typical of the summer period. Sagehen Creek is about 8 miles long, extending eastward from near the crest of the Sierra

to Stampede Reservoir on the Little Truckee River. The watershed is managed by the Truckee Ranger District of the Tahoe National Forest for multiple uses. Sagehen Creek is a candidate for inclusion in the Wild and Scenic River Inventory.

Field Station

Station Manager Jeffrey R. Brown

Address University of California, Berkeley

Sagehen Creek Field Station

P.O. Box 939

11616 Sagehen Rd

Truckee, CA 96160

Telephone (530) 587-4830

Fax (530) 582-4031

Email SagehenC@uclink.berkeley.edu

Web Site

Established 1951

Multicampus Research / Public Outreach

SCFS provides full service, multidisciplinary research and classroom facilities to any qualified group on a per night/person person use fee basis. Use of the station and facilities is quite varied. Recent use includes: UC Berkeley graduate students and classes, UC Davis graduate students and classes, SFSU graduate students, the USDA Forest Service, California Fish & Game, University of Nevada at Reno, the Desert Research Institute, The Truckee School District, Truckee River Watershed Council, USGS, Lawrence Hall of Science, The Nature Conservancy, California Public Health Service, Lawrence Livermore National Lab and UC Santa Barbara.

Sagehen Creek is a Benchmark Creek for the USGS and water samples have been collected and analized since 1975. Weather data has been collected since the early 1950’s. Stream flow measurements and temperatures have been taken at the USGS stream gauging station on Sagehen Creek since the early 1950’s. Extensive plant, mammal, vegetation, fish, soils, archaelogic and insect survey records are on file. Over 70 PHD and Masters theses and more than 300 other scientific publications have been produced form research efforts conducted at SCFS.

SCFS has an underwater observation building built adjacent to Sagehen Creek. This facility has 3-8’ long underwater viewing windows that enable various projects relating to streams to be conducted.

2002 Annual Report

University of California Berkeley

Central Sierra Snow Laboratory

Administered by the California Biodiversity Center

by Randall Osterhuber

Manager and Staff Research Associate

Central Sierra Snow Laboratory

PO Box 810

10162 Bunny Hill Road

Soda Springs, California 95728 USA

(530) 426-0318

(530) 426-0319 fax

email contact: randall@





wrcc.dri.edu/weather/cssl.html

The Central Sierra Snow Laboratory (CSSL)

Since its inception in 1946 (built by the then U.S. Weather Bureau and Army Corps of Engineers), the CSSL has been a snow hydrology research facility. The Central Sierra Snow Laboratory is a research field station of UC Berkeley specializing in snow physics, snow hydrology, meteorology, climatology, and instrument design.

The CSSL's mission is to provide a facility for research to address the uncertainties, characteristics, and timing of the Sierra Nevada's snowfall and hydrologic cycle. This includes, but is not limited to, the temporal and spatial distribution of the accumulating and ablating snowpack; the snowpack's physical and chemical response to atmospheric and anthropogenic phenomena; and identifying short and long term implications of these phenomena to snowpack ground- and surface-water yield. Since more than 50 percent of California's usable fresh water is born of the melting Sierra Nevada snowpack, understanding the physical variations of snowpacks and alpine watershed climatic regimes is essential if water managers are to have sufficient resiliency to cope with climatic change. Industry, recreation, riparian health, recreation, and domestic water use all have claims—and sometimes competing interests—levied against the snow zone's water yield.

Current research activities at the CSSL (Appendix 3) include using rare earth elements as solute transport tracers within the snowpack; measuring the attenuation of cosmic radiation through snow to assess snowpack snow water equivalent; trends in climatology and snowpack characteristics during the past 13 decades; weather instrument testing and evaluation; avalanche safety and forecasting; and conducting various community education and outreach programs that address local snow hydrology and weather issues.

Personnel

Andrew Barkhuff, Program Manager, National Weather Service 6,7

Mark Bollinger, Research Scientist, 2B Technologies 4

Elizabeth Carter, Atmospheric Scientist, Firnspiegel 5,6

David Collins, Electrical Engineer, Dartmouth College 3

Ken Condreva, Research Scientist, Sandia National Laboratories 4

Michael Dettinger, USGS, Scripps Institution of Oceanography 6,7

Xiahong Feng, Professor of Geophysics, Dartmouth College 3

Frank Gehrke, Chief, Snow Surveys, CA Department of Water Resources 4,6,7

Emma Goldberg, UC Berkeley 2

Dan Greenlee, Hydrologist, USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Service 6,7

Kathy Hoxsie, Meteorologist, National Weather Service 6

Arlen Huggins, Research Climatologist, Desert Research Institute 6

Richard Kattelmann, Snow Hydrologist, UC Santa Barbara 5

James Kirchner, Professor of Geophysics, UC Berkeley 1,3

Björn Klaue, Hydrologist, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan 3

Joyce Leighton, Administrative Analyst 1

Ed Luby, Associate Director 1

Jessica Lundquist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego 1,4,6

Greg McCurdy, Programmer, Desert Research Institute 6

Bob Moore, Snow Ranger, Tahoe National Forest 5

Gary Murphy, Avalanche Forecaster, Alpine Meadows Ski Corp 5

Randall Osterhuber, Research Associate, Central Sierra Snow Laboratory 1,3,4,5,6,7

Kelly Redmond, Climatologist, Desert Research Institute 6

Carl Renshaw, Geophysicist, Department of Earth Science, Dartmouth College 3

Tarel Selles, Analyst 1

Marina Solgado, UC Santa Barbara 2

Alex Tardy, Meteorologist, National Weather Service 6

Susan Taylor, Hydrologist, US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory,

Hanover, NH 2,3

Kelly Turner, Evergreen College, Washington 2

Bill Williamson, Operations Director, Sugar Bowl Ski Area 5

1 UCB Faculty/Staff

2 Student

3 REE project

4 Gamma sensor project

5 Avalanche safety/forecasting

6 Meteorology/Climatology/Monitoring

7 River flow forecast

Appendix 1. Attendees of EcoInformatics Workshop, October 28, 2002, UC Berkeley

Bill Michener1 and James Brunt2, Presenters

1Associate Director (Special Projects) of the Long Term Ecological Research Network Office at the University of New Mexico.

wmichener@lternet.edu

2Associate Director (Information Management) of the Long Term Ecological Research Network Office at the University of New Mexico

jbrunt@lternet.edu

|Name |Position, job |Informatics interest |email |

|Kathleen Dickey |marine biologist Research Associate, |standardizing data collection,|kdickey@ |

| |Jepson Herbarium, census (NOAA) |setting up protocols | |

| |Farallones, Tomales Bay, ATBI, database| | |

| |management | | |

|Gordon Nishida |Museum Scientist, Essig Museum of |standardization of data |nishidag@uclink.berkeley.edu |

| |Entomology, UCB |structure and modeling | |

| | |metadata for arthropods | |

|Xu Liang |faculty, Civil and Environmental |hydro-, |liang@ce.berkeley.edu |

| |Engineering, UCB. |environmental-informatics, | |

| | |data systems, data fusion and | |

| | |mining | |

|Neo Martinez |faculty, S.F. State Uiv., affiliated |ecological networks, |neo@sfsu.edu |

| |faculty, UCB Energy and Resources Group|semantics, ontologies | |

|Eric Berlow |Research Scientist, U.C. White Mountain|data synthesis for USFS and |eric@wmrs.edu |

| |Research Station, Visiting Scholar, UCB|National Park Service data on | |

| | |alpine meadows | |

|Rich Williams |Researcher, UC Santa Cruz, SFSU |Theoretical ecology, |rich@sfsu.edu |

| | |simulation/modeling knowledge | |

| | |representation | |

|Carrie Salazar |Programmer Analyst |Web datatbase application of |salazar@nature.edu |

| | |scientific data | |

|John Battles |faculty, Environmental Science, Policy,|Forest ecology research, data |jbattles@nature.berkeley.edu |

| |and Management, UCB |sharing, archiving, mining | |

| |Research Director, Forest Research | | |

| |Stations | | |

|Effie Dilworth |Data Base Analyst, applications |general |database@sscl.berkeley.edu |

| |development for SMASH, U.C. Herbarium | | |

|Debra Kelly |Programmer/Analyst, Museum Informatics |general bioinformatics |dkelly@socrates.berkeley.edu |

| |project, U.C. Botanical Garden SAGE | | |

| |database | | |

|Roberty Hijman |Biogeography/informatics researcher at |many |rhijmans@ |

| |MVZ | | |

|Colleen Whitney |Webmaster, U.C. Museum of Paleontology |accessibility of information |cwhitney@uclink.berkeley.edu |

| | |via webs | |

|Josh Klaus |Staff Researcher |many |joshk@nature.berkeley.edu |

|Agneta H. Plamboek |Postdoc at the Center for Stable |general |agneta@socrates.berkeley.edu |

| |Isotope Biogeochemistry, UCB | | |

|Pamela Templer |Postdoc, with Profs. Mary Firestone and|general |ptempler@nature.berkeley.edu |

| |Whendee Silver, ESPM, UCB | | |

|Jeanette Howard |Graduate Student, Dept. of Geography, |spatial components of data |jhowie@uclink4.berkeley.edu |

| |UCB |sharing | |

|Tim Herrlinger |Research Affiliate |Long-term data sets and |tjherrlinger@ucdavis.edu |

| | |management | |

|Collin Bode |Programmer Analyst, Power lab, Angelo | GIS query and display in |collin@socrates.berkeley.edu |

| |Reserve, and Mus. Vertebrate Zoology, |distributed spatial databases | |

| |UCB | | |

|Jack Sculley |Graduate Student, Dept. of Integrative |spatial datasets, modeling |jsculley@socrates.berkeley.edu |

| |Biology, UCB | | |

|Mark Stromberg |Research Director, Hastings Reserve, |finding data at field stations|stromber@socrates.berkeley.edu |

| |Mus. Vertebrate Zoology, UCB | | |

|Karen Campbell |Director, Knowledge Transfer, National |proper informatics practices |kmc@umn.edu |

| |Center for Earth Surface Dynamics |for NCED, a new NSF Science | |

| |(NCED) |and Technology Center | |

| | |partnering with the Angelo | |

| | |Reserve and UCB | |

|Diana Dalbotten |Director, Education Programs, NCED |database design and management|dalbo001@umn.edu |

|Mary Power |faculty, Integrative Biology, UCB, |capture, archiving, and |mepower@socrates.berkeley.edu |

| |faculty manager, Angelo Reserve, |dissemination of data from | |

| |Director, California Biodiversity |field stations, long term | |

| |Center, NCED |ecological monitoring | |

Appendix 2. Selected Research Projects and Publications, 2001-2002, Angelo Coast Range Reserve

Spatial scales in river and watershed food webs. Isotopic tracers, increasingly available, reveal flow paths through space and time of organisms or their elemental constituents. Concurrently, new mapping technologies based on remote sensing are being developed to characterize landscape features (e.g. watershed divides, thermal cells in oceans) that contain and constrain these fluxes and the food webs they support. At the Angelo reserve, both of these tools support studies of how cross-habitat fluxes from rivers to forests affect consumers, communities, and ecosystems in recipient watershed habitats (Power and Rainey 2000). Subsidies (exported algae and emergent aquatic insects) and boundaries have been experimentally manipulated to study their effects on terrestrial consumers, food webs and ecosystems (e.g., Sabo and Power 2002). New work with scientists, engineers, and modelers at the National Center for Earth Surface Dynamics should permit upscaling and increased understanding of how these ecological processes contribute or respond to more regional dynamics.

Otolith and isotopic analysis of habitat use by juvenile salmonids in a river drainage network. Following up on work by Jacques Finlay and others at the Angelo Reserve (Finlay et al. 2002), Dr. Peter Weber (Geography, UCB) wanted to determine if the carbon isotope patterns seen in river and stream food webs were reflected in the otoliths of the fish. Otoliths are banded calcium carbonate accretions in the inner ear of bony fish. They grow continuously over the life of the fish and, unlike bone, are metabolically inert. Therefore, these structures contain a chemical history of the fish. Otolith carbon isotopic composition could potentially be used to reconstruct the feeding and geographic history of a fish. Aquatic food web carbon isotopes are complex and therefore the opportunity to follow up on previous carbon isotope work at the Angelo Reserve was welcome. Otoliths and insect samples were collected. The analyses are in process.

Impacts of fine deposited sediment on juvenile salmonids and the food webs that support them. Excessive loading of fine sediments into western rivers has degraded spawning and rearing habitat for salmonids, and contributed substantially to their declines. Impacts on salmon redds have been studied extensively, but effects on juvenile rearing are less well documented. A field experiment in the South Fork Eel River examined the impacts of deposited fine sediment on juvenile steelhead with a design that allowed the effects of fine bed sediments to be isolated from other covarying factors. Increasing levels of embeddedness with deposited fine sediment (from zero to 100%) decreased growth and survival of juvenile steelhead trout. The nearly linear decreases in growth resulted from decreased food availability and metabolic costs of increased activity and intraspecific aggression. The invertebrate community changed from one of more available prey to one of unavailable burrowing taxa with higher levels of deposited fine sediment. Steelhead in more heavily embedded channels showed more continuous movement and aggression and higher incidence of injury. This study (Power et al. 2002, Suttle et al., submitted) shows a direct impact of riverbed composition on salmonid rearing success, which has been identified as a life history bottleneck in models informing efforts to recover these populations.

In continuing research on the impacts of deposited fine sediment in river food webs (Power et al. 2002, Suttle et al., submitted), Blake Suttle (graduate student, Integrative Biology) explored how fine bed sediment concentration affects interactions between mayfly larvae, the most abundant aquatic grazers, and dragonfly and damselfly larvae, their major invertebrate predators. He measured predation on mayfly grazers in replicate enclosures of differing bed compositions and found that increasing levels of deposited fine sediment lead to greater predation, indicating that high levels of deposited fine sediment simplify and perhaps shorten river food webs.

Rebecca Doubledee investigated the distribution, abundance, and activity levels of Rana boylii, a native frog species of special concern, with respect to the concentration of fine deposited bed sediment.

Influence of mutualistic ant-aphid interactions on an invasive riparian plant. Will Sattherthwaite, a Ph.D. candidate at UCSC, investigated effects of the interactions of ants and aphids on invasive European thistles along the active river channel.

Effects of predators on plants transmitted through pollinators. With undergraduate Mary Sorenson, Blake Suttle examined the effect of a predator of pollinating insects on the reproductive success of the invasive plant from which it hunts. They found strong negative indirect effects of the predator (crab spiders) on the plant (ox-eyed daisies), indicating that this predator may limit the invasive spread of this plant, a previously undocumented form of biotic resistance to invasion.

Simulated climate change in an annual grassland. Blake Suttle completed the second year of a four-year manipulation of the duration and intensity of rainfall in large grassland plots, as forecast for Northern California under two leading climate change models, to generate predictions for the fate of these grasslands under alternate climate change scenarios. Plant related response variables include seasonal cover, biomass, and decomposition rate of each major plant group, disturbance recolonization, nitrogen availability (as both labile soil N and grass leaf tissue N), and species richness. Animal related response variables include richness and abundance of taxa, as measured through seasonal sweep net and pitfall samples. He also conducted two field experiments and extensive grasshopper foraging behavior observations examining how changes in resource availability, herbivory, and predation affect food chain structure in northern California annual grasslands.

Meredith Wilson in Carla D'Antonio’s lab in Integrative Biology, continued ongoing field research examining the responses of native grasses to alternate climate change scenarios predicted by leading climate models. In replicate plots in Blake Suttle’s experiment receiving different amounts and duration of precipitation, three native grass species were added as seed, plugs, and large tussocks. Plugs of the European perennial grass, Holcus, were also introduced and monitored. The survival, growth, and reproductive success of each is being monitored for three years.

Drs. Rebecca Eisen and Lars Talleklint-Eisen, working with Prof. Bob Lane in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, UCB, sampled the Angelo Coast Range Reserve for immature stages of the tick Ixodes pacificus, the primary vector of the Lyme disease spirochaete in California. The determined seasonal activity patterns of immature stages of this tick, which have recently been found to have a higher incidence of infection than older tick life stages which have had their blood cleansed by feeding on the western fence lizard, Sceloporus occidentalis. Ticks on the lizards were also sampled.

Prof. Kathrin Stanger-Hall from University of Texas at Austin collected diurnal fireflies at the Angelo Reserve to expand her work on the phylogenetic relationships of North American lampyrids (firefly beetles).

Angelo Publications 2000-2002

Bastow, J. L., J. L. Sabo, J. C. Finlay, and M. E. Power. 2002. A basal aquatic-terrestrial trophic link in rivers: algal subsidies via shore-dwelling grasshoppers. Oecologia 131:261-268

D’Antonio, C. M., J. M. Levine, and M. Thomson. 2002. Ecosystem resistance to invasion and the role of propagule supply: a California perspective. Journal of Mediterranean Ecology in press.

Fausch, K. D., M. E. Power, and M. Murakami. 2002. Linkages between stream and forest food webs: Shigeru Nakano's legacy for ecology in Japan. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 17: 429-434

Finlay, J.C., Khandwala, S. and M.E. Power. 2002. Spatial scales of energy flow in food webs of the South Fork Eel River. Ecology 83: 1845-1859.

Finlay, J.C. 2001. Stable carbon isotope ratios of river biota: implications for energy flow in lotic food webs. Ecology 82: 1052-1064.

Finlay, J.C. 2000. Stable isotope analysis of river food webs and carbon cycling. Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.

Gresens, S.E. 2001. Thermal sensitivity of ingestion and digestion in larvae of a eurythermal chironomid. J. North Am. Benthol. Soc. 20: 68-83.

Howard, J. K. and K. M. Cuffey. 2002. Freshwater mussels in a California North Coast Range river: occurrence, distribution, and controls. Journal of the North American Benthological Society in press.

Levine, J.M. 1999. Indirect facilitation: Evidence and predictions from a riparian community. Ecology 80: 1762-1769.

Levine, J.M. 2000. Species diversity and biological invasions: relating local process to community pattern. Science 288: 761-763.

Levine, J. M. 2002. A patch modeling approach to the community-level consequences of directional dispersal. Ecology in press.

Levine, J. M. 2001. Local interactions, dispersal, and native and exotic plant diversity along a California stream. Oikos 95: 397-408.

Levine, J. M. 2000. Species diversity and biological invasions: relating local process to community pattern. Science 288: 852-854.

Levine, J. M. 2000. Complex interactions in a streamside plant community. Ecology 81: 3431-3444.

Levine, J. M. 1999. Indirect facilitation: evidence and predictions from a riparian community. Ecology 80: 1762-1769.

Levine, J.M. 2001. Ecological determinants and consequences of plant species diversity along a California stream. Ph.D. Dissertation, U. California, Berkeley.

Marks, J.C., M.E. Power and M.S. Parker. 2000. Flood disturbance, algal productivity, and interannual variation in food chain length. Oikos 90: 20-27.

Power, M. E.and W. E. Dietrich. 2002. Food webs in river networks. Ecological Research 17:451-471.

Power, M.E. 2002. Shigeru Nakano's fundamental contributions to our knowledge of trophic exchange between streams and watersheds. in press (In Japanese).

Power, M.E., K.B. Suttle, J.M. Levine, and F. C. McNeely. 2002. Effects of fine bed sediments on juvenile steelhead and food webs supporting them. Ecological Society of America Abstract, Tuscon, August 2002

Power, M.E. 2001. Prey exchange between a stream and its forested watershed elevate predator densities in both habitats. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 98: 14-15.

Power, M.E. 2001. Controls on food webs in gravel-bedded rivers: the importance of the gravel bed habitat to trophic dynamics. pp 405-422 in Mosley, M. P. (editor), Gravel-Bed Rivers V, New Zealand Hydrological Society, Wellington, New Zealand (ISBN 0-473-07486-9).

Power, M.E. 2001. Field biology, food web models, and management: Challenges of context and scale. Oikos 94: 118-129

Power, M.E. and W.E. Rainey. 2000. Food webs and resource sheds: Towards spatially delimiting trophic interactions. pp. 291-314- in M.J. Hutchings, E.A.John and A.J.A. Stewart (eds.) Ecological Consequences of Habitat Heterogeneity. Blackwell Scientific, Oxford, UK.

Power, M.E. 2000. What enables trophic cascades? Commentary on Polis et al. Trends in Evolution and Ecology 15: p. 443-444.

Sabo, J. L., J. L. Bastow, and M. E. Power. 2002. Length-mass relationships for adult aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates in a California watershed. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 21:336-343.

Sabo, J.L. and M.E. Power. 2002. Numerical response of riparian lizards to aquatic insects and the short-term consequences for alternate terrestrial prey. Ecology, in press.

Sabo, J.L. and M.E. Power. 2002. River-watershed exchange: Effects of riverine subsidies on riparian lizards and their terrestrial prey. Ecology 83: 1860-1869.

Sabo, J.L. 2000. River-watershed exchange: Effects of rivers on the population and community dynamics of riparian lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis). Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

Appendix 3: Current Research Activities and Recent Publications from the University of California Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Laboratory

Current Research Activities

Snowpack Solute Transport Mechanisms

Snowmelt often accounts for the majority of the annual water input to a catchment. During the winter, snowpacks accumulate and store atmospherically deposited chemical contaminants. But the chemical composition of snowmelt does not equal the average composition in the snowpack itself, but varies temporally as melting proceeds. During snow metamorphism, solutes tend to be concentrated near the exterior of snow grains, resulting in an ionic pulse during the first ~25 percent of snowmelt. The magnitude of this ionic pulse is dependent upon the solute transport mechanism. At the CSSL, very dilute concentrations of rare Earth elements (REE) are applied to the snow surface at intervals throughout the winter. These REEs act as tracers, the presence of which are detected in the snowpack meltwater. Observations of the travel time, distance, and concentration of each REE can distinguish between piston and preferential flow. Distinguishing between these two transport mechanisms may have important implications for solute transport processes at the watershed level.

Assessing Total Snowpack Snow Water Equivalent by the Attenuation of Deep-Space Radiation

Remote sensing of snowpack snow water equivalent (swe) is most commonly measured with large (7.5 m2) bladders filled with an antifreeze fluid. The fluid is compressed by the weight of the overlaying snowcover and the subsequent pressure on the antifreeze is measured by a pressure transducer or manometer. There are many problems with this technique of attempting to "weigh" a finite column of snow cover that is somewhat infinite in extent. These problems include bridging of the sensor, flooding, plumbing leaks, and siting and installation difficulties. New swe sensing techniques are under development at the CSSL that measure the slight attenuation of very high energy gamma radiation as it passes through the snowpack. This radiation originates in deep space and is quite constant at any one location on Earth. A small cube (~8 cm3) of scintillating material records the gamma energy, one cube placed at ground level, another stationary above the snowpack. The energy spectra of the two are compared, and it is found that the attenuation is exponentially related to the snowpack swe. These sensors are small, portable, and solid-state. Refinements of design and application are ongoing at the CSSL.

Avalanche Safety and Forecasting

The avalanche fatality rate in the western US continues to climb; the lead demographic among winter recreationists being snowmobilers. The fatality rate in the Sierra Nevada, despite its prolific snowfall and high concentration of winter recreationists, is a small fraction of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Montana. This is largely due to the snowpack-stabilizing effect of (relatively) warmer winter air temperatures common throughout the Sierra Nevada. Nevertheless, the Sierra is averaging about one avalanche fatality per winter. Data (air temp, snowfall, snowpack settlement, wind speed/direction, precipitation) from the CSSL is used to generate daily avalanche hazard forecasts from mid-November through April. These forecasts are distributed on the internet via private and government sites. Research at the CSSL also concentrates on the identification of potential shear layers within the snowpack and the mechanisms that promote their formation and disappearance. Interviews are also conducted with individual winter recreationists regarding their avalanche and backcountry experience. One goal is to explain why a large increase in the number of women winter recreationists does not positively correlate with the almost exclusively male-dominated avalanche accident/fatality demographic.

Long-Term Meteorological and Climatological Trends, Measurements, and Monitoring

The CSSL has fairly complete meteorological records dating from 1946 (when the CSSL was built). There have been meteorological measurements recorded on Donner Summit immediately surrounding the CSSL since 1870. The Southern Pacific Railroad, Pacific Gas and Electric, and the California Department of Water Resources are responsible for the early data collection. Combined, the data stream is 132 years. No other data stream of such length from a high-elevation western snow zone exists. Investigations of periodicity, recurrence intervals, climatic extremes, and trends within the historic record are ongoing. The CSSL is a reporting met station: part of the newly-formed trans-Sierra climate monitoring program. Much of the data collected at the CSSL is displayed on-line; more instruments being added all the time. Data from the CSSL is used and archived by hundreds of agencies and individual users.

Community Outreach

The CSSL conducts many tours of its facility and research projects each winter. Visiting groups range from hydrology graduate classes to local school groups and interested individuals. In addition, CSSL personnel conduct informative lectures and slide shows on topics of snow and snow hydrology.

Relevant Publications

A Study of Solute Transport Mechanisms Using REE Tracers and Artificial Rain Storms on Snow, Water Resources Research, 37, p. 1425-1435, 2001. Feng, X., Kirchner, J., Renshaw, C., Osterhuber, R., Klaue, B., Taylor, S.

Climate Summary of Donner Summit, 1870 - 2001, Publication of the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, 2001. Osterhuber, R.

Investigating Periodicity in the Long Term Precipitation Record of Donner Summit, California, Proceedings of the Western Snow Conference p. 92-94, 2000. Osterhuber, R.

Isotopic Evolution of Snowmelt: I. A Physically based 1-D Model, Water Resources Research in press, 2002. Feng, X., Taylor, S., Renshaw, C., Kirchner, J.

Isotopic Evolution of Snowmelt: II. Verification and Parameterization of a 1-D Model Using Laboratory Experiments, Water Resources Research, in press, 2002. Taylor, S., Feng, X., Renshaw, C., Kirchner, J.

Isotopic Evolution of a Seasonal Snowpack and its Melt, Water Resources Research 37, p. 759-769, 2001. Taylor, S., Feng, X., Kirchner, J., Osterhuber, R., Klaue, B., Renshaw, C.

Rare Earth Elements as Chemical Tracers in Snow Studies, Proceedings of the Eastern Snow Conference, p.13-20, 1998. Taylor, S., Feng, X., Klaue, B., Albert, M., Kirchner, J.

Snowpack Snow Water Equivalent Measurement Using the Attenuation of Cosmic Gamma Radiation, Proceedings of the Western Snow Conference, p. 19-25, 1998. Osterhuber, R., Gehrke, F., Condreva, K.

Warm Storms Associated With Avalanche Hazard in the Sierra Nevada, Proceedings of the International Snow Science Workshop, p. 526-533, 1998. Osterhuber, R., Kattelmann, R.

Water Conditions in California, Bulletin 120, California Department of Water Resources, 2002. Gehrke, F. et al.

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