Sagehen News

Best wishes for 2010!

2009-12-29T16:49:00.000-08:00

New winter caretaker.

2009-12-24T13:29:00.000-08:00

Every year we provide free housing to a winter caretaker to help us look after the place during our breaks [we can't leave during the summer].

This year, Sally White moved on to a teaching post in Budapest, so Sam Skrocke is taking her place. Sam is a powerful athlete who actually enjoys being snowed in 2-miles off the highway. He's working out great!

New roof for Leopold Cabin

2009-12-20T12:55:00.000-08:00

The Leopold Cabin now has a new metal roof thanks to contractor Kevin Starr.

Last winter, the old shingled roof held so much snow that the building almost collapsed. We finally managed to repair it this fall, using one-time emergency funds provided by the UCNRS. We barely beat the arrival of winter.

Turns out the structure was in far worse shape than we thought, with 7 additional broken rafters & a big saddle sag. Kevin had to completely replace the roof structure & winch the walls back to plumb.

Happily, the new roof is much burlier than the old one, & higher inside, giving the ARC program more room for their stuff.

New Lahontan Cutthroat Trout for fish house channel.

2009-12-17T17:14:00.001-08:00

The Forest Service office staff was so excited about Cujo living in the Sagehen fishhouse channel that they immediately started raising a friend for him. 'Zilla [short for Godzilla] joined Cujo in October. Hopefully she makes it through the winter.

Keep your fingers crossed, & check the fish cam for her next spring!

Cows in basin.

2009-12-17T17:07:00.001-08:00

Every few years a couple cows will escape from the October roundup north of Independence basin & end up at Sagehen. This year, the whole herd made it. Must have been around 60 of them.

Fortunately, Jeff & I spotted them marching through camp & were able to herd them out the road & toward Independence. We called the cowboys, but they didn't show up & the next day the girls were back & more determined to stay. We finally managed to round up the sneaky ones, head them out & keep them from obliterating our meadow research plots.

DRI invests in basin instrumentation

2009-12-17T16:26:00.000-08:00

Doug Boyle & Brad Lyles from DRI spent a lot of time & effort this fall working to upgrade the Sagehen basin sensing network.

They added snow pillows to many of the towers, moved a couple of towers to more favorable locations, added soil chemistry & moisture sensors to many sites & finished installing the precipitation gauges at T-3 & T-4.

Jeff & Faerthen worked with them to make sure that our wireless backbone was able to move the new data, & the communications network has been very robust this season.

UCNRS has a new Director.

2009-12-17T11:45:00.000-08:00

Dear NRS Community,

On behalf of the NRS Director Search Committee, I am very pleased to announce that Peggy L. Fiedler has been chosen to serve as systemwide Director of the University of California Natural Reserve System. Peggy earned her BA from Harvard University in 1976, then went on to receive an MS and a PhD from UC Berkeley in Wildland Resource Science, concentrating in the field of plant evolutionary biology. After completing her PhD, she joined the faculty at San Francisco State University where she was promoted to full Professor in 1997. While at SF State, she initiated the first Conservation Biology master’s degree program of its kind in the United States.

In 2000, Peggy left SF State in order to become more directly involved in hands-on conservation, working as an environmental consultant in rare plant protection and ecosystem restoration. In this capacity, she led or co-led multidisciplinary teams in the design, permitting, and implementation of restoration projects with budgets up to $3 million. She worked extensively with federal, state, and local governments, large corporations, architectural and law firms, non-profit organizations, and individual landowners.

Peggy’s research on California species of Calochortus (Liliaceae) and her writings on the more theoretical aspects of conservation biology have earned her an international reputation as an authority in conservation biology and rare-plant ecology and management. She has written two textbooks on conservation biology, held long-term editorial positions within two major professional conservation organizations (which publish Biological Conservation and Journal of Conservation Biology), and has a long publication list of refereed journal articles, reports, and book chapters on conservation issues. She currently serves as a Senior Research Associate with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England. Peggy is also a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and a Fulbright Senior Scholar.

Peggy’s remarkable career achievements in both academia and the private sector make her an excellent fit for the position of Director of the Natural Reserve System. I’ve attached a copy of Vice President Beckwith’s official announcement letter to the Vice Chancellors of Research and Deans who oversee the NRS on each of the campuses. Effective January 1, 2010, you can reach Peggy at Peggy.Fiedler@ucop.edu. Please join me in offering Peggy a warm welcome to the NRS!

Sincerely,

Daniel P. Costa, Ph.D.
Chair, NRS Director Search Committee
Chair, Universitywide NRS Advisory Committee
Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Matthias grant time.

2009-10-09T13:15:00.000-07:00

Attention: UC Graduate Students

Mildred E. Mathias
Graduate Student Research Grants

2009 – 10

UC Natural Reserve System

Research grants are available to graduate students enrolled at any University of California campus other than San Francisco who are using one or more of the 37 sites in the UC Natural Reserve System for their research projects. A total of $38,000 is available for grants, with a maximum award of $3,000 per applicant. Students from any academic discipline are eligible.

Applications and supporting materials are submitted electronically. Go to the URL specified below to begin the application process.

Deadline for submission of the application is

October 19, 2009, 8:00 AM

Letters of recommendation and reserve permissions are due

October 28, 2009, 8:00 AM

Further information and to request application materials.

or contact Mike Dorward, UC Natural Reserve System

(510) 987-0159 or mike.dorward@ucop.edu

Reunion

2009-08-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

This week's visitors to Sagehen include a reunion of researchers who did work here in the late 70's and early 80's.

We're really excited to have these folks & their families back at Sagehen, planning new research projects.

The photos include Pete Stine of PSW [in the lederhosen], & Marty Raphael [second from left]. Marty will be working with the Bock's this fall to resurvey their old forest plots.

Great science tools.

2009-08-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some great recent science tools from the web:

Understanding Science is a new Berkeley website that aims to "accurately communicate what science is and how it really works". The site comes from Ken Miller & the same group that created the excellent Understanding Evolution project. I've embedded Miller's Creation Science rebuttal video below.

The World Science Festival, 2008 has posted dozens of fascinating videos on-line, featuring discussion panels with some of the world's greatest living scientists including Sylvia Earle, Marvin Minsky & Daniel Dennett, as well as musicians, philosophers & Nobel Laureates.
A Berkeley group developed an on-line insect identification key, Berkeley BioKeys. It's unfinished, since there's no more money to work on it at present, but the butterflies & a few other insects are reasonably complete.

Archived samples available.

2009-08-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

The National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) maintains a refrigerated archive of precipitation samples from the National Trends Network (NTN) and the Atmospheric Integrated Research Monitoring Network (AIRMoN). These samples are available upon request to outside researchers.

NTN archive samples are filtered, stored in 60-mL polyethylene bottles at 4 deg. C, and retained for five years. AIRMoN archive samples are unfiltered, stored in 250-mL polyethylene bottles at 4 deg. C, and retained for two years.

Samples are available for the following periods:

· NTN samples collected 1/1/2001 - 7/31/2004

· AIRMoN samples collected 1/1/2004 - 7/31/2007

If you would like to request archive samples, or have questions, please contact Chris Lehmann (clehmann@illinois.edu 217-265-8512). Requesters pay a nominal cost for preparing and shipping the samples. The cost estimate will be provided before samples are shipped. The full NADP archive sample policy is posted at: http://nadp.isws.illinois.edu/documentation/archsample.pdf

The CAL will discard 2001 NTN samples this fall. These samples will be sent to anyone willing to cover shipping costs.

If you require samples from specific NADP sites and/or dates, please submit your request by September 1, 2009. We cannot ensure sample availability for requests received after this date.

With best regards,

Christopher Lehmann,
National Atmospheric Deposition Program
Illinois State Water Survey, Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2204 Griffith Dr. Champaign, IL 61801
Tel. 217-265-8512
Email clehmann@illinois.edu

Rate increase

2009-08-03T14:47:00.001-07:00

Sagehen, along with the rest of UC, is really feeling the financial pinch of our irresponsible legislators.

Field stations have always operated very efficiently on a shoe-string without the level of financial support other campus units serving thousands of users receive.

It's very painful for us to figure out how to make cuts. Especially since rising operating costs have sucked up a larger & larger percentage of our static budget each year we've been here.

To help close the budget gap, Sagehen & the other Berkeley Field Stations are increasing user fees beginning July 1, 2009 for Fiscal Year 09-10. You can see our new rates here.

And, like all other Berkeley employees, Jeff & I will see a personal pay cut in the form of a furlough of 3 days a month starting in October.

Groundwater monitoring wells.

2009-08-01T17:04:00.000-07:00

This week we wrapped up a project to drill groundwater monitoring wells at 5 sites along Sagehen Creek.

DRI & USGS researchers are interested in using the wells to follow up on Laura Rademacher's work using the shallow groundwater well transects around the station & in Kiln Meadow.

The new wells will allow for isotope sampling in various levels of groundwater. Isotopes can be used to discover the source of the groundwater & how long it takes to travel through the system.

The new wells were intended to go to bedrock & beyond, but we never hit bottom. Instead, we found up to 50 feet of lake deposits: sand, gravel, clay, etc.

Support field science.

2009-07-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

Katie Moriarty, the Pine Marten researcher who discovered the California wolverine, needs some gear for next winter's field season. Anyone have backcountry ski stuff lying around waiting for a good reason to get rid of it?

Hi all,

Some of the supplies I had planned on having for the next 3 years just feel through. Of course, most of these supplies were not included in my budget for field work/PhD. Crew members and I will be assessing fine scale marten movement in relation to habitat (particularly fuel treatments). We're going to be doing a lot of snowtracking over the next few winters.

Due to a tight budget, I thought I'd check to see if any of you had gear that you didn't want anymore (and were willing to sell for a good cause). If you have any of the things below, just sitting around and ready for serious abuse - let me know. I'll work Craigslist soon, but wanted to check in before I spent more computer time.

- thermometers
- avalanche probes (5)
- huge packs (3) 6000-7000cu"
- ski packs (4), 35-45L slender things that can handle weather/lots of random marten gear and long cross country treks.
- ski poles
- back country shovels
- compasses with declination (4)
- folding treesaws (3)
- some tarps

You know, the usual snow list plus some extras.

Hope all is well. No martens appearing in Lake Tahoe.

katie

New bird species in basin.

2009-07-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

Hey,

We now have a new bird species for the sagehen basin, photos below. He arrived here Monday and has been active in the evenings near the multi road intersection coming into sagehen just off of 89. We are looking for someone to adopt him! He is very aggressive; but, seems used to humans.

--Jeff

New addition to the Sagehen teaching collection.

2009-07-05T15:06:00.000-07:00

The Forest Service is moving to new digs, & there's no room for the mounted bear. So they kindly donated it to Sagehen's teaching collection.

We couldn't resist having a little fun with it while Mark & Barb Stromberg visited from Hastings Reserve.

New cleaning strategy.

2009-06-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks to volunteer Susi Lippuner [PDF] & Biokleen, Sagehen is now exclusively using low-impact cleaning products, aiding in our ongoing effort to reduce our impact on the Sagehen Basin.

Biokleen generously donated dish soap, laundry soap & household cleaner for station visitors to use. Employing plant extracts as the active ingredients, the products are natural, non-toxic & biodegradable with no harsh perfumes. Since Sagehen's water supply is borrowed from a nearby spring then returned to the ground through septic fields, we are concerned that what we put into the drains does not negatively impact the basin ecology.

Visitor response has been enthusiastic, with younger users particularly excited. Whether due to the quality of the products, clearer consciences about the chemistry, or some combination of the two, the station is staying cleaner than it has in the past.

DRI to measure gravity in Sagehen Basin.

2009-06-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

A DRI team led by Sam Earman installed gravitometer mounts in the Sagehen Basin recently. Amazingly, minute changes in gravitation can be use to track groundwater.

2009 Sagehen Summer Speaker Series scheduled.

2009-06-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

In partnership with the Truckee River Watershed Council & in celebration of the COPUS Year of Science, we've posted the schedule for this year's Sagehen Summer Speaker Series. The first talk is July 9.

Wolverine in Colorado after 90-year absence

2009-06-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

Does this sound familiar?

In December, conservation biologists had outfitted the young wolverine, which is part of a reintroduction program farther north, with a tracking collar and watched him make the 500-mile (805-kilometer) journey from the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, crossing rugged landscapes and even busy Interstate-80

This guy's journey from Wyoming is about the same as the California wolverine's must have been from Idaho...only documented this time.

Article.

Professor Karban's work stirs controversy.

2009-06-20T16:38:00.000-07:00

Professor Rick Karban's work on plant communication & behavior is getting a lot of press & stirring up controversy lately, as usual.

In a recent paper in Ecology Letters, he & Kaori Shiojiri suggest that plants have self-recognition, the first step required for several things we typically associate with higher animals; like immune systems & kin selection, for instance.

Here are some links to recent articles:
- No-Brainer Behavior
- Plants "can recognize themselves"
- Plant communication: Sagebrush engage in self-recognition and warn of danger.

You can also watch a video of Professor Karban discussing his work at he Sagehen Summer Speaker Series.

Unusual bird sighting.

2009-06-16T16:25:00.000-07:00

Walter Clevenger & Scott Crosbie, the MAPS project bird banders, caught an unusual, east coast bird here on Sunday: Chestnut-sided Warbler.

Here's Scott's note:

Hey Jeff,

On Sunday Walter and I caught a Chestnut-sided Warbler - this is an east coast species and was the first record of it being sighted in Nevada County. A picture of the bird was posted on the Western Field Ornithologists website.

Thought you would like to know - big news for bird brains. If you want to post a picture on your website that's great.

Cheers,
Scott

Experimental Forest Celebration

2009-06-15T10:32:00.000-07:00

Here's an article about the recent Experimental Forest Celebration at Sagehen, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Forest Service research.

The weather was pretty harsh, but it definitely underscored that our Master Plan is needed to support station research & education efforts, rather than being just some kind of pie-in-the-sky boondoggle.

Hwy-89 Stewardship Team to dedicate new animal undercrossing.

2009-06-05T12:26:00.001-07:00

From "Sierraville (California) Highway 89 stewardship team: ahead of the curve":

"Highway 89 stretches from north to south across California, through Sierra County from Sierraville to Truckee. The highway bisects an important portion of the Loyalton-Truckee deer herd, as well as important habitat for forest carnivores, amphibians and other wildlife on the Tahoe National Forest.

By 2002, several groups were working independently to investigate different aspects of animal-vehicle collisions along the highway.

These groups and their efforts were brought together in 2002 when they were catalyzed by the USDA Forest Service into a stewardship team to work together collaboratively to improve the high wildlife mortality and increasing habitat fragmentation on the highway."

Join the Team as they dedicate their first completed mitigation structure: an animal underpass at Kyburz Flat. directions & more info about event in invitation.

More:

Hwy-89 Stewardship Team videos.
News about the Team.

Wildflower season begins.

2009-05-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

The wildflowers are starting!

In the past couple days I've seen buttercups, sun-cups, waterleaf, squaw carpet, steer's heads & dandelions.

Al Grigarick has updated his great on-line wildflower & conifer guides if you need help with identification.