Press Releases, Directors Blog, and Announcements

Directors BLOG - Late Summer 2011

Thu, 1 Sep 2011 11:55:45 -0700

Freaky Frogs

by Michael Hamilton and Pieter Johnson

As the story goes, early gold rush era miners in California would place a live canary in a mine shaft and keep a close watch of it for any signs of the bird succumbing to toxic gases -- presumably canaries being more sensitive than humans -- and thus providing an early warning indicator of a potentially lethal situation. Whether this bioindicator was effective or not, NSF funded researchers from the University of Colorado working at Blue Oak Ranch Reserve are studying another bioindicator, the abundance and distribution of native amphibian hosts and a parasitic trematode, that might indicate changing environmental conditions due to land use and other factors.

The University of Colorado project "Linking land use change, host diversity and amphibian malformations" has been conducting research focused on the environmental drivers of amphibian parasite infections. The goal of the work is to understand how both abiotic conditions (e.g., surrounding land use and water chemistry) and biotic conditions (e.g., community composition and diversity) influence the levels of pathogenic infection in amphibians with a focus on the trematode Ribeiroia ondatrae, which causes severe limb deformities such as extra, missing, and malformed limbs in frogs. An aquatic snail serves as an intermediate host for the parasites, from which infectious stages emerge that embed within tadpole tissue and cause malformations. Birds that consume infected frogs serve to transport the parasite across the landscape; thus, malformations might be beneficial to the parasite by increasing the likelihood infected frogs are captured.

Over the past 2 years, the research group has sampled twelve ponds on the Reserve along with hundreds more on surrounding open space including adjacent Nature Conservancy Kammerer Ranch, and Joseph Grant Ranch County Park. Intriguingly, despite the presence of all required hosts for Ribeiroia at these ponds, only three have been found to support the parasite, and only one with moderate infection levels, suggesting an as of yet unidentified factor is keeping disease low at these wetlands. This is consistent with the relatively high frequency of sensitive amphibian species on the property, including the endangered California tiger salamander. Many ponds in the region support high levels (50%) of malformations in multiple species of frogs, including the endangered Red-legged frog.

The team has a long history of working with amphibians in California, particularly with respect to amphibian malformations, and perform similar inspections for amphibian parasites on National Wildlife Refuges across the country.

Helisoma snails are an intermediate host for the trematode Ribeiroia ondatrae which cause the malformations in amphibians

An extra limb on this large bullfrog

Director's BLOG - Summer 2011

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:19:30 -0700

Snakes in the Grass: Meet Robosquirrel and “Chewbacca” the northern Pacific rattlesnake in this unique field research

by Michael Hamilton and Rulon Clark

One would think that in the oak woodlands, the most important predators would be mammals such as mountain lion, coyote and bobcat. But new field research is discovering that the most important predator may be rattlesnakes in terms of overall biomass. Rulon Clark, an assistant professor at California State University at San Diego, and his team of eight graduate and undergraduate students, are studying rattlesnakes and their prey at one of the newest University of California Natural Reserves, Blue Oak Ranch Reserve. The 3,300 acre reserve is situated on the west slope of Mount Hamilton, only 10 miles from San Jose.

Clark and his students have documented densities of rattlesnakes on the reserve that far exceed any they have previously encountered throughout California, including the remote Mojave Desert. Rattlesnakes have likely been left alone by humans at Blue Oak Ranch Reserve for many decades. Given the local abundance of wild prey, the snakes have reached population levels that may have been typical prior to centuries of persecution by ranchers and hunters, according to Clark.

The rattlesnake researchers, dubbed “Team Crotalus,” have just completed nearly two months of detailed studies of the interactions between the northern Pacific rattlesnake, Crotalus oreganus, and its preferred prey species the California ground squirrel, Spermophilus beecheyi. When confronted by predators, many animals engage in lengthy, conspicuous interactions involving stereotyped signals and displays. These antipredator signals have been studied mainly as warning signals directed toward conspecifics, even though they may also serve to communicate with predators. Studies of how these signals affect predators have been rare because predation is infrequent and difficult to observe in the field.

Team Crotalus has begun assembling a one-of-a-kind database of natural antipredator signaling interactions and predator responses. To do so, they are using a high tech assortment of tools. These range from radio telemetry transmitters surgically implanted in the rattlesnakes, to miniature, battery-powered webcams. The webcams transmit live video of snake/squirrel interactions several miles away to the reserve headquarters for recording and observation. The team also confronts snakes with a mechanical, taxidermied rodent affectionately named “Robosquirrel.” The Robosquirrel is programmed to make antipredator sounds and movements to snakes in experimental encounters. The bouts allow the scientists to test predictions of how predators and prey communicate in controlled experiments.

Team Crotalus research has focused on the behavior of rattlesnakes confronted by two prey species, ground squirrels and kangaroo rats. These two distantly related rodents have evolved sophisticated antisnake behavior independently. Comparing the two rodents’ interactions will allow the scientists to examine the role of various ecological and organismic factors that shape predator-prey signaling interactions. Their unique approach combines these methods in studies that simultaneously consider both prey signaling behavior and predator responses in an experimental context. This system promises to provide novel insights into such areas as honesty in animal communication, antagonistic coevolution, and the role of animal sensory systems in shaping signaling behavior.

For more information:

Bree Putman’s BLOG
Strike, Rattle and Roll
http://strikerattleroll.blogspot.com/

Rulon Clark Lab
http://www.bio.sdsu.edu/pub/clark/Site/Home.html

Director's BLOG - Fall 2010

Thu, 2 Dec 2010 12:16:54 -0800

So many sensors, so little time: lessons learned from a wired, and wireless wilderness

Its the Thanksgiving break, and “for fun” I’m multi-tasking with technology as I consider the progress we are making in achieving goals set out nearly three years ago to build an ecological observatory that records the cycles and fluctuations of important natural processes. Taking the “pulse of nature” is our metaphor for ubiquitous sensing of the minute by minute variation in the climate and moisture within the soil, near the ground, and in the oak canopies at unique locations that span the range of topographic nooks and crannies found across the Reserve. Similarly and simultaneously our plans involve deploying robotic network cameras on towers that visually document what’s changing on the ground in terms of seasonal growth and periodic life cycle events -- what we ecologists call phenology. Coordinating these two measurement systems will utilize custom software to continuously track the spatial and temporal statistical correlation of a varying seasonal microclimate and the life cycles of a great many different species and their habitats. Sounds easy? Hardly!

Thanks to the National Science Foundation, my colleague Todd Dawson and I received funding in the fall of 2009 to deploy the “Very Large Ecological Array.” Utilizing 50 wireless eKo nodes measuring climate and 10 robotic camera nodes, we are now deploying the first elements of the observatory, while building the software infrastructure to manage the data that the system will process into comprehensible maps and ecological summaries. The off-the-shelf components of VeLEA are in hand and we have so far deployed 34 of the eKo nodes, 2 servers, 8 of the weather station sensors, and ambient temperature and humidity sensors for every eKo node. The first of the camera nodes has been installed for testing and the remainder of the array will be installed over the next 3 months, including 50 integrated soil water content/leaf wetness/ soil temperature sensor probes. The data that is being collected will be initially managed by the eKoView data management system, a web portal that provides sensor system administration and configuration, as well as data exploration, charting, and data export tools. If you are interested in seeing this in action, go to the following link and sign in under a guest account.

Below are a few of the screen shots from eKoView. Click on an image to enlarge.

After logging into eKoView, the interface provides an adjustable scale map view of the deployed node locations relative to an aerial photograph of the Reserve. The color of the node icon tells us the quality of its radio communication, green indicates at least 3 other nodes are communicating, while amber signifies one good link. A node icon that turns red is no longer communicating. The table on the left pane updates the time that any one node was last heard.

By clicking on the sensor button, a pull-down menu gives you a choice to display any sensor value that is associated with a node. The value of the sensor is displayed as part of the node icon.

The chart tab give you a list of pre-defined charts, as well as the choice to create a new one or two axis chart. In this chart rainfall rate is displayed simultaneously with rainfall accumulation for the 8 nodes that have tipping rain bucket sensors, for a period of 5 days. The chart below displays above ground temperature for the current 35 nodes over the same 5 day period.

In the above temperature chart, its easy to see that across the wide elevation range of the reserve, the nighttime temperatures vary as much as 30 degrees F, while daytime temperatures are more similar, with only a 5 degree F. variation.These daytime and nighttime profiles are independent of each other, one does not predict the other. But cumulatively, warmer winters and much hotter summers are in store for the bay area as regional climate change impacts the microclimate dynamics.

In the next few months as the soil moisture sensors are put in place, we will be able to calculate the spatial and temporal dynamics of water deficit, and using the robotic cameras, to document the correlation of a spatially variable microclimate with seasonal growth rates and phenological stages of plants, and the water levels of the ponds. This will someday lead to predicting important ecological events such as the annual abundance of acorns, success and failure of seedlings, population trends in native versus non-native species, amphibian reproductive success as a function of habitat quality, factors leading to disease outbreaks such as Sudden Oak Death, West Nile Virus, and Hanta Virus, and many more.

In the meantime, we are fine-tuning the locations of the nodes, picking the most optimal sites to quantify the microclimate dynamics and yet maintain efficient radio communication. I’m sure we will have our share of issues to confront, from curious wildlife, to equipment failures caused by extreme weather, and the inevitable software challenges -- lessons that I’ve been working with for nearly 10 years at the James Reserve, and now here at BORR. We will keep you posted as our ecological observatory story unfolds.

Good cheer,

Michael Hamilton
Blue Oak Ranch Reserve
December 2010

Ute's BLOG: Impressions and Adventures During Research Times at Blue Oak Ranch Reserve

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:34:30 -0700

In honor of Michael Hamilton, the Director of BORR, who introduced me to the ecosystem and gave me the opportunity to do research there; to Jeff Wilcox, the Steward of BORR, who introduced me to the Reserve property and regularly transports me and my equipment between the city of Berkeley and BORR. Finally, in honor of my faculty supervisor, Professor Todd Dawson of the University of California, Berkeley, his wife Stephania Mambelli, and the members of the Dawson lab, from whom I get support, knowledge, and competence in performing research on stable isotopes from.
The Blue Oak Ranch Reserve (BORR) habitat consists of Mediterranean, hilly oak savannah: mostly grassland with some shrubs and dispersed oak trees on it. Many oak trees on the BORR property are infested with parasitic mistletoes.
The Reserve landscape is so hilly that without a 4WD you shouldn’t drive around by car. But if you have the opportunity to visit and drive the roads, it is amazing how much wildlife you might be able to see. Michael and Jeff showed me Blue Oak Ranch Reserve the first time. During my fist loop around the Reserve we saw a coyote (Canis latrans), which was startled by the truck. We saw some black-tailed mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) grazing at the side and several birds like the red wing black bird (Agelaius phoeniceus) and the western bluebird (Sialia mexicana).
But one of the most impressive appearances was this: the artists are acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus).
The bird stores acorns in the trunks of several oak species to make sure that it has acorns available during the whole year and nobody else except itself has access to the stock. Acorns in a trunk - isn’t it interesting? When you look around BORR and have a look to all those dispersed trees in that open savannah grassland it becomes conspicuous to see no juvenile trees anywhere. Why not? Are there to many herbivores like the acorn woodpecker or the black tailed mule deer? Or is that due to its being used as a cattle ranch in the past? Nobody really knows, but it would be important to know in order to protect this habitat as an oak savannah.
Another funny experience is to encounter the California quail (Callipepla californica). It’s not hard to believe why their nickname is “clown bird” because when you observe them moving with their tiny head plume drooping forward it makes you laugh because it looks funny. And for sure you’ll never meet just one of them; no, there are often whole families running like clowns and taking off afterwards with the sound of a bunch of propellers.
At the beginning of my BORR time I was so impressed to see wildlife all the time, especially snakes (we have just six snake species in Germany (ring snake (Natrix natrix), smooth snake (Coronella austriaca), dice snake (Natrix tessellata), aesculapian snake (Elaphe longissima), crossed viper (Vipera berus) and aspic viper (Vipera aspis); you have to be very lucky to see just one, and all of them are non-venomous).
Once, in May, when I was finished with my workday, I decided to take a bike ride and enjoy the sunset. On this ride I saw my first snake just by the wayside. It was a beautiful animal and since that day the biggest snake I’ve ever seen in wilderness. It was a California kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula californiae). Check out this little movie I recorded of that moment:

Afterward, I went to Cabin Pond, which is named for a cabin close by. I dropped the bike and sneaked around the pond so that I could observe garter snakes (Thamnophis couchi atratus) hunting the tadpoles of Pacific chorus frogs (Psuedachris regilla)

On another day I wanted to leave the office (inside the barn) to use the restroom. When I left the room and stepped into the big hall in front I nearly stumbled across a gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer), which had entered the barn. Jeff released it outside afterwards.
Along with the previously mentioned non-venomous snakes there is one more I have seen. It’s the Western yellow-bellied racer (Coluber constrictor), a little thin snake with grey-green shiny skin. You usually see them warming up along any of several pathways at BORR, or you see them at Barn Pond, which is the closest pond to the barn. Once, after my predawn measuring, I while hanging my sleeping bag on a clothesline, I heard a strange noise that I had never heard before. It was a noise that curdled my blood, and I was scared for a moment. The origin of the noise was near of my feet. Carefully, but also curious, I looked down at my boots and directly into the eyes of a rattlesnake ready to strike forward. As I looked down, I carefully stepped backwards to get away from a potentially dangerous situation. I told Michael the experience I had and he came to show me how to relocate a rattlesnake a snake forceps. As a German, I am not experienced with venomous animals, but I felt the natural respect one should have. If one follows the rules of respect, one will remain on the safe side. I also highly recommend wearing boots at the Blue Oak Ranch Reserve so that you are safely prepared for any situation. Another thing which makes you feel safe knowing that it’s a big effort for the rattle snake to produce the venom they use, and humans are not it’s prey. The snake tries to save the venom for its traditional pray like birds, rodents, or bunnies, for example. So it usually warns you with the noise of it’s rattle, but will only bite you if it fears for its own life. Hence, as long as you avoid provoking the rattlesnake, you are rarely in danger.

Rattlesnake are not the only dangerous animal you might hook up with. Inside the barn there are several black widows in the shadows: (13. Photo: black widow). But there are not only adventures possible with animals. In the kingdom of plants there is one species at BORR you should avoid to touch as much as you can: poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum).

This oak savannah with all its wildlife illustrates a typical landscape of California, and for a typical landscape in California it is typical that it burns sometimes. Because no rain falls for roughly six months the vegetation dries out and becomes very sensitive to fire. Fire can cause a problem for humans and animals, but for the native vegetation it can signify a set-up for habitat, and for nutrient availability as well.
We already know a lot about fire-adapted vegetation. Native plant species, in particular, seem to be adapted to fire; however some recent invasive species are not. Why are those species invasive then? Which plant species are invasive? How sensitive are they against fire and what role do they play within a burning environment? How big is the impact of fire to the nature and regeneration of a landscape? Which sequence of plant species appears within secondary succession after a burn?
It would be important to know about all that to get an idea about how to use fire in the future to protect biodiversity. It might be possible to use fire as a tool to defend native plant species from the invasion of neophytes.
To answer some of those questions, controlled burns were conducted in the past on BORR. One of those fires was planned for the beginning of July this year and took place while we had the Asctec Falcon 8 available – a flying robot platform developed by the German company “Ascending Technologies,” which was used as a camera platform for taking aerial images. We are using this vehicle for my research to map the vitality of vegetation via aerial near-infrared photography, but because we had it available during the prescribed fire, we could record fantastic moving images from a view directly above the advancing flames of the fire.

Unique for BORR as a research site is its closeness to San José; the Silicon Valley. All over the world Silicon Valley is well known for its companies of innovative technology like Tesla, for example. Another company, “Crossbow,” develops sensor nodes for measuring ecophysiological data like moisture and temperature from the soil. Recently, Crossbow installed several of these sensors, in a network, on BORR. Researchers can check the data they record easily via the internet. In addition, BORR has a real-time weather station whose data you even can view through the BORR homepage (look for advice for at the welcome page).

With the support of these developments you can track the climate conditions within the BORR ecosystem and compare them to plant physiological data or behavior and development of animals. All in all it helps you to understand the ecosystem’s circles like they are in reality and not like the usual simulated lab trials. These conditions make BORR very special for of all kinds of ecological, geographical, or biological research.

About the research I do

Maybe it’s time to introduce myself, now. I am Ute Runkel, from Germany, and I am here at BORR to do plant physiological research for my diploma/master thesis in collaboration with the Dawson Lab at the University of California, Berkeley (http://ib.berkeley.edu/labs/dawson/). I arrived in Berkeley at the beginning of May in 2009 for a six-month visit to collect data for my thesis and experience BORR`s wildlife. I related many of my wildlife encounters above; now, let me briefly explain the research I do.

My research is directed at understanding the water demand on oak trees in different topographic conditions at two different elevations at BORR. I measure and compare the water potential and stomatal conductance of Californian valley oaks (Quercus lobata) and their hemiparasitic mistletoe (Phoradendron villosum). I perform these measurements with sensitive, specialized instruments in a two-hour diurnal sequence, every second week, at two different elevations. I also record air moisture, air temperature, soil temperature, and soil moisture that I download from Crossbow`s remote sensing and monitoring network (www.xbow.com). Finally, I collect leaf samples for stable isotope analysis of sugars (because of sugars are the product of photosynthesis) which I do afterwards in the Dawson lab back at UC Berkeley. I compare the data I described above with near infrared aerial images taken with a digital camera fixed on the flying robot platform Asctec Falcon 8 from the German company Ascending Technologies GmbH (www.asctec.de).

Because of different elevations I mentioned at the beginning there are caused different structures at BORR. The lower elevation for example gets the fog from the Californian bay area and the higher level not. For understanding the impact of fog at the water conditions for a water limited environment like BORR is, for understanding the water stress of plants due to water availability from soil and atmosphere during the day and the vegetation period for understanding the fire sensibility due to dry vegetation for example this kind of research is needed to protect biodiversity in future especially due to climate change and other human impact.
There are still so many questions left. Questions about the absence of juvenile trees, about fire sensitivity, about interactions between species, about how the environment changes due to climate change, about the impact of invasive species and human treatment to the nature and how to protect biodiversity sustainable and some other questions more you might have an idea about.

Ute Runkel
Graduate Student
Universität Trier, Germany
October 2009

Directors BLOG - December 2008

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 18:33:44 -0800

Storm warnings: thoughts about this year and next, and what to do about 2050...

Christmas Eve, and I’m spending a few days at my mother’s home in southern California in anticipation of our annual convergence of family members that began last night and will continue over the next few days. While my mother is giving me a hard time about “working on my computer” ~ I actually don’t consider writing my web journal to be work at all, its personal therapy to enhance my memory :D, I assure her that this is recreational and that I’m multi-tasking for my own amusement. So while I’m blogging, I’m watching two videos on my laptop, the first is in “real-time” of the rapidly approaching storm clouds above BORR visible via the webcam above the Barn, and the second a short YouTube video put together by NY Times Dot Earth blogger Andrew Revkin celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Astronauts who captured the historic “Earthrise” photograph. Revkin’s blog is a must read, and his byline is thought provoking in its reminder that by the year 2050 there will be 9 billion people on this pale blue dot, thats two times more population than todays’ China, in a world that the vast majority are likely to be desperate to find even the most basic food, potable water, and resources for life support.

I’m pondering the connections between these two video streams...a storm warning in the short term, and a warning for the planet delivered 40 years ago. Both videos utilize advanced technology to focus our attention, the former on the weather that when scaled up validates the current conditions which are challenging holiday travelers nearly everywhere in the US it seems. The latter video was the first time in human history that our global opinion became visually focussed on how small, fragile, and potentially vulnerable to environmental change our world actually has become, or always has been for that matter. While we can send robots to Mars and the outer planets, we only really have one planet that supports life and we better work a whole lot faster to solve some vexing problems because by 2050 it may very well be too late.

It has been a year since we quietly started up this newest UC Reserve, and in that time I am proud to admit we have accomplished some serious milestones. I can’t say that everything I wanted to do in 2008 was checked off, as a chronic list maker, the items I add to it always grow faster than they are removed. Converting the Cedar Barn into a self-sufficient off the grid home was a big one, thanks to assistance from our contractors and campus Capital Projects, and it passes state building code for safety and energy efficiency. Bringing wireless Internet over 6 miles from the summit of Copernicus Peak and the Lick Observatory right into my living room was a feat of technological wizardry successfully achieved by the great guys at the James Reserve.

A few items were left off that I really wanted to see installed - an indoor composting toilet, and a solar hot water system - remain to be accomplished. But those will be installed once we move into our Phase 2. Speaking of which, a huge accomplishment was in getting the first version of the Phase 2 master plan out of the word processor in December and into the hands of various campus experts who will review and revise the draft by early January. The Plan is the result of the input of more than 100 people and businesses who provided a plethora of innovative ideas, ranging from suggestions for green components, possible building floor plans, campus and academic needs, national directions in field station facilities design, technologies for environmental monitoring, funding scenarios, and a laundry list of other stuff. We will put a draft of the plan on this website for public review in few days once I incorporate a few more comments from external reviewers (an early draft is available now). Suffice to say our plan represents a state of the art design for sustainable field stations and draws extensively from two model field stations that have built comparable facilities.

Over the next two months we will be refining this plan and incorporating specific details about the technologies and designs which we hope will attract a broad range of academic, public and business interests. Our intentions are very clear, to use this fantastic opportunity for developing facilities and infrastructure that will support world class ecological and environmental research and teaching at our newest Natural Reserve in a low cost and least impact manner. Our Chancellor has made a commitment to UC Berkeley leading the nation’s academic institutions in sustainability, and he and our UC faculty have encouraged us to develop buildings and support systems at Blue Oak Ranch Reserve that meet and exceed this standard. My own personal standard is to see us explore novel innovations that have global applicability in reducing our carbon footprint, improving our water supply, and maintaining ecological services ~ to invent unique educational experiences for our students to involve and inform them in the benefits of living in a sustainable manner, and better yet, to motivate them to contribute to the innovations that will generate solutions to the vexing problems of a world in 2050.

Cheers,

Michael Hamilton
Blue Oak Ranch Reserve
December 2008

Directors BLOG - September 2008

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:22:32 -0700

“The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together” ~ Sir William Shakespeare

Wow, fall has literally just fallen, and the past three months have been what I can now admit the most unusual, might I even say, surrealistic summers of my life. Certainly Sir William could not have said it better! This months blog, or rather “novella” is a summary of the summer, a “summery summary” to pun it in another way, and I hope well worth the wait ;-)

From the fire to the frying pan...summer started out with my friends and family organizing a wonderful farewell party spanning the weekend of the summer solstice. My new life at Blue Oak Ranch would begin the first of July, with the moving van scheduled to transport me and all of my worldly goods to San Jose during the last week of June. I was truly humbled by the number of people who said they would come to the party and celebrate my 35 years of living and working in the San Jacinto Mountains. Out of town guests from as far away as Ithaca, New York began showing up, and by Friday evening a traditional James Reserve solstice campfire was lit, and my friends and I gathered around to make music, savor delicious food, and indulge in some wickedly good libations. It didn’t take long for us to fully relax, laughing until it hurts over jokes and stories we’ve all heard before, and anticipating more to come in a weekend-long progressive celebration. Saturday’s community event would be held in Idyllwild at the Nature Center, where they had the capacity to handle all of the friends, family members, colleagues and locals we expected, 150+ at last count.

As the campfire frivolity and the flow of really good beer reached some tipping point for me, I got up to either stretch or relieve my bladder (it matters not), misjudged my footing in the semi-darkness, and took a spectacular fall right into a friends arms. Fortunately for my head, but also unfortunately, for my foot was tucked under the split log bench as this happened, and my own weight caused my right leg to be bent in a completely unnatural direction, accompanied by a sharp jolt of pain. I immediately discovered that I couldn’t walk without assistance, so I sat back down and the sinking realization that something was really wrong with my leg began to register in my brain.

The next day was the big party, but one look at my right leg as I woke up told me that this would not be the dancing event I had hoped for. Darn...two live bands and a troupe of belly dancers would be performing all day...but the fickle finger of fate deemed that I would be an observer. We applied about a mile of ace bandage to my swollen ankle, my 82 year old friend Rachel, loaned me her walker, I popped a few ibuprofin, and we headed to Idyllwild. Even with the sprain, and all the ribbing I got, this day was the highlight of my year. Irish music, classic folk and rock, and belly dancers!! I was in nirvana, and my friends and loved ones shared wonderful and mostly embarrassing stories about of our times together growing up, patrolling the high peaks as wilderness rangers, recounting my college years, or reliving singular moments in my life over the past 26 years at the James Reserve. I really miss this place, these people, and the memories of my life that was embedded in the San Jacinto Mountains.

Well, I guess the mountain decided otherwise, and was not quite ready to let me go. The next day when I went to see the doctor about my leg, where an x-ray showed that I did a heck of a lot more damage down there than a simple sprain. The tendons and ligaments were a mess, and on top of that I had a nasty spiral fracture to my fibula, that although did not need surgery or pins, would put me in a non-walking cast on Friday for the next 6 weeks. No driving, no moving, no nothing, nada! Being homeless was not an option, and fortunately our James Reserve Assistant Director, Becca Fenwick, who was hired to replace me on July 1, did not need “my home” on the Reserve as she already lived in another cabin and was happy to hang tight until I could leave. So Lolomi Lodge went from being long-time home, to being my prison for nearly 6 weeks. My new home, 400 miles north at Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, was undergoing its own transformation, thanks to hired contractors, to provide essential services such as an indoor toilet, electricity, a kitchen, and other amenities. While the living space at BORR is approximately 1/3rd the size of Lolomi Lodge at the James Reserve, my new little apartment has a 5,000 ft2 barn attached to! I like to think of it as every man’s dream garage! Lots of storage, enough room for a personal aircraft if one had one of those, along with friendly resident critters that include barn swallows, cottontail rabbits, little brown bats, and a zillion pre-adolescent California Quail.

I won’t bore you with the next 5 weeks, suffice to say that my friends at the James Reserve were terrific, taking me on road trips to town, checking in on my needs, encouraging a positive attitude when “grumpy” was my more typical character. The cast came off on July 29th, a week early, then I undertook a few days of physical therapy while getting back my road legs. I finished packing and boxing up the items that were too challenging for a one-legged man, the movers arrived on Monday the 4th to load up the rental truck, and on the morning of August 5th I said my goodbyes to one reserve and hit the road for another! It was smooth sailing, so to speak, and I rendezvoused with Jeff at the bottom of Mt Hamilton Road, giving him the challenge of driving the 30’ long, 12’ tall loaded to bear U-Haul van up that skinny highway, and then across 3+ miles of dirt road into Blue Oak Ranch. Jeff was a master at driving the big truck through the Reserve, weaving between the lower limbs of massive old valley oaks that I swore we’re lower than 12’, yet arriving without a scratch to the final destination at the Cedar Barn. It wasn’t more than a few minutes before one of the barn denizens, a rather plump Northern Pacific Rattlesnake, decided to check out this large “metal beast” to see if it was either a threat or edible. It certainly was curious, and we had to nudge her on her way as this snake was in no hurry to go anywhere.

While my doctors encouraged me to take it easy and give the leg at least a couple of months of R&R, I found it challenging to stay still when there are so many wonderful places to explore, and such significant work to be done to get the Reserve up and running. Case in point...FIRE. On the same day as my fateful accident at the James Reserve, Jeff and his local California Department of Forestry colleagues had planned, and were nearly ready to ignite a 500-acre prescribed burn in the center of the ranch. This would be the second time that this particular watershed has been burned by design, previously in the fall of 2006. A spring burn plays a very different ecological role than one in the fall, as the non-native annual grasses are completing their spring seed development stage, so if you want to eliminate next year’s crop, you “steam cook” the still moist seeds using a fire before they drop off the plants and are dispersed by wind and wildlife. While some native plants are also impacted by a spring burn, the majority of the biomass in these grasslands are non-native grasses that germinate, flower and set seed earlier than the native annual and perennial species. Burning in late summer or fall is more natural in the sense that its a time when fires are more likely to be started by natural sources of ignition such as lightning, and its also a time of the year where plants are better able to recover from the heat effects of fire.

The burn did not happen in June, as on the very same day that Jeff’s burn was planned (and as I was preparing to revel around a campfire on two happy legs), a swath of subtropical moisture swept across northern california from the Sierras, through Napa County and into the coast ranges all the way to Arcata, bringing little moisture but generating thousands upon thousands of lightning strikes, subsequently igniting hundreds of wildfires. Every available fire crew ended up on those burns, our “practice burn” was scrubbed, and a summer of smokey air began that lasted well into August, blanketing half of the state with ash, smoke or both. During the month of July while I was sequestered at the James Reserve, fires spread through difficult wildland terrain, threatening small communities from Big Sur, through the western Sierras, and nearly to the redwood forests in Humboldt County.

They didn’t let me out much in July, but to walk my daughter down the aisle at her wedding on July 5th, nothing was going to stop me. My friend Leslie (you will read more about her in a bit) was invited to my daughter’s celebration in Salem Oregon, and we decided to brave the smoke and drive her Prius from Idyllwild to the wedding. Leslie needed to stay up there for work reasons and appreciated my company, even if I could not help with the driving. We spent the first night at BORR, carefully avoiding the floors that had been torn apart to install plumbing. It was basically camping, but it felt good to be here for even one evening. The air was smoky from the fires that were burning many miles away, and it made us wonder just how bad it was going to be the next day as we made our way to Oregon. Driving north on I-5, the worst of the smoke was between Red Bluff and Mount Shasta, where the sky was dark from smoke and acrid smell permeated everything. We high-tailed it over the Siskiyous into Ashland Oregon where the sky was blue once again.... and the wedding was perfection!

Back at the Ranch....being the “tenderfoot” that I was from nearly six weeks in a cast I still found plenty to keep me busy. The word was that CDF did want to go forward with a late summer burn, so Jeff made the arrangements to update the burn plan, and since the site was ready to go with the requisite fuel breaks, we set the process into motion for a burn during the 2nd week of September. This was great news for me as I would have missed the burn if it had gone as planned in June.

In the meantime...something big had been cooking back at the James Reserve while I was convalescing, and in the week following my move to BORR, Tom Unwin and Kevin Browne arrived with a truckload of equipment and goodies to bolt together and deploy on the hill just to the north of the barn. They had designed our first portable solar-powered high speed wireless relay which would bridge the computer network up at the UCO Lick Observatory (operated by the UC Santa Cruz campus) with our remote and off the grid location in the center of BORR. Tom and Kevin really know what they are doing, and while I remained skeptical as to the difficulty of pointing two 8” square directional antennas precisely at each other from 6 miles apart, those two chaps not only succeeded but it worked the first time they turned the system on. A second pair of radios point from the tower to the Cedar Barn and provides a conventional WIFI cloud for us to access the Internet. Kevin and Tom also installed a networked weather station and a user controllable pan-tilt-zoom camera, so we now automatically collect data about weather and plant phenology. Once our Prop 84 infrastructure plan is approved, we intend to deploy up to 24 more of these nodes, blanketing most of the Reserve in an advanced wireless network that will aid researchers in support of their research monitoring needs. The San Jose Mercury News gave us front page coverage of this milestone on September 10th, with beautiful color photographs.

Starting with this months BLOG, we plan to periodically describe in photographs and video particular reserve ecosystems, plant or animal habitats, or species. This month we highlight one of the most remote locations in the Reserve, a canyon that defines the northern eastern boundary, the Arroyo Hondo. Its headwaters are the west slope of Mount Hamilton, and are joined by two other drainages prior to entering the Reserve. I was offered a chance to hike down into the Arroyo with a small team of volunteers who make the trek each year. I had to pass this time for obvious reasons -- its a 1,000’ descent in less than a mile --but I asked them to take my waterproof camera and a checklist of species to look for (River Otter, Steelhead, and Foothill Yellow-legged Frog being on the top of the list). Their survey was fascinating and I’ve added a media gallery of their 100 best shots.

My lovely friend Leslie Stager made her way back from Oregon in late August to pitch her tent near the barn for a few weeks, and apply her intuitive skills as a nature photographer to document habitats, wildlife, and our prescribed burn. She has gifted us with a world through her mind’s eye and camera, of Blue Oak Ranch Reserve like I have never seen it. Visit her gallery, and activate the slide show mode to best enjoy her beautiful imagery.

My summer started with fire -- that fateful campfire, and ended in fire -- with an impressive 506 acre prescribed burn that Jeff and other experts tell me was nearly ideal. It will take weeks and months to document the fire effects to the oak woodland and savanna, and the positive changes that this important tool provides, so stay tuned.

Thanks for bearing with my summery yarn, a mingled web of good and ill together, but mostly good! Its great to be home now -- HUZZAH!

Cheers,

MIke Hamilton
The Cedar Barn
Blue Oak Ranch Reserve
September 2008

Directors BLOG - June 2008

Tue, 3 Jun 2008 06:09:04 -0700

“The Green Flash” and other spectrally significant events

With the beach season now upon us, I suspect that more than a few of you have successfully witnessed that illusive phenomenon called the “green flash” in the moments shortly before the sun sets over the ocean. After sufficient margaritas or Piña colada-infused social behavior, my friends and I have all “seen” the flash, an event that atmospheric scientists tell us is a result in the large variations in astronomical refraction near the horizon, not unlike a mirage commonly seen over flat land. While it is fun to speculate on the physics (especially when relaxing at sunset on a beach with that margarita), I mention the solar variety green flash in this months blog as a segue to another green flash event, the ephemeral vernal green-up of grasses and other plants, along with the even shorter green cycles of desiccation-tolerant mosses, at Blue Oak Ranch Reserve!

I wrote last month about how exciting it was to see the reserve grasslands and woodlands turn from the deep golden browns and tans of January, to the verdant shades of green infused by a rainbow of wildflowers by April. Since last November my visits to the reserve have been in monthly 2-10 day blocks of time as I transition from managing the James Reserve to BORR this summer. These visits have provided opportunities to observe many striking seasonal environmental and biotic contrasts, an accelerating living phenology of change in response to rainfall and warming temperatures as spring approached. Our somewhat intense early winter rains were on track for an above average precipitation year, however the season cut off short resulting in a nearly entirely dry spring which has compressed the growth period of not only annual plants, but perennial species as well. NASA has been globally tracking a seasonal “greenness” measurement called NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) for decades, using low resolution AVHRR imagers aboard weather satellites such as GOES, and today with high resolution systems such as the MODIS spectroradiometer that flies aboard the TERRA EOS satellites, the same multispectral imagers that produced this geospatial time-series data of Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, and used by Dr. Chris Potter at Ames Research Center (ARC) for his ecosystem research which we mentioned in last months blog.

Measuring the seasonal patterns of greenness is one facet of phenology, the ecological study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events that are influenced by environmental changes, especially seasonal variations in temperature and precipitation driven by weather and climate. Phenology observations are now a component of global change research, and there is a new national research initiative to track phenology in a coordinated manner across the US and around the world. Global climate change is expected to significantly shift the growing season earlier as mean temperatures creep up, especially in the temperate latitudes. In California, climate modelers predict that rainfall may not significantly change in the next 50 years, it has always had a high degree of year-to-year variability, but they do predict (and have already measured) a significant warming of mean winter and summer temperatures, which is having a profound effect on survival of the snowpack in the Sierras -- without which our state water supplies becomes uncertain. Shifting growing seasons may not only influence agricultural productivity, but species which have co-evolved life history strategies for phenological synchronization (such as plant and animal pollination) might become out of sync. Plants may find that their insect pollinators are not around during flowering, or as abundant, thereby affecting their reproductive success -- and insects might find their food supplies have either dwindled or not yet available when they hatch or emerge from winter dormancy. Evolutionary advantages are expected to shift in favor of those species whose adaptations to a variable climate, such as invasive pioneers, are better suited for less predictable seasons.

Sensing technologies to automatically track phenology at close range are well into development at research centers such as CENS (Center for Embedded Networked Sensing) at UCLA. Ground-based imaging systems, embedded environmental sensors and new analysis techniques will someday allow for sophisticated continental-scale monitoring of phenology. One of the first of such tools, “The Moss Cam,” a time-lapse digital camera system with an integrated micro-climate weather station was conceived and deployed at the James Reserve by Professor Brent Mishler, Director of the Jepson Herbarium, and myself, in June, 2002. Over the years our system has been developed to collect daily color and infrared images of a 100cm2 living patch of the Star Moss, Tortula princeps, along with continuous measurements including air temperature, soil temperature, humidity, rainfall, soil moisture, wind speed and direction, leaf wetness and barometric pressure. The Star Moss has unique physiological adaptations that allow it to survive for very long periods of time without any water, and to rapidly respond to rehydration at a cellular level in a matter of seconds to reactivate its dormant physiology for photosynthesis and respiration. The spectral shift from brown to bright green is faster than any other plant I’ve ever seen, literally in seconds, the moment it encounters a few raindrops. A spectral analysis of these images has been calculated by Dr. Eric Graham at CENS, and calibrated to laboratory measurements of net CO2 uptake, demonstrating that T. princeps can be used as a model species for simple ﬁeld estimations of photosynthesis, carbon gain, and phenological events. Our colleagues have a keen interest in the evolutionary significance of desiccation tolerance and the potential for this evolutionary adaptation to be incorporated into the genome of agriculturally important plants.

So the next time I am pondering the significance of the solar “Green Flash” while sipping a margarita on my favorite beach, I’ll be just as likely to reminisce about that first time I witnessed the flash of green grasses and bright mosses covering the hillsides and canyons on Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, and the implications for future research and activities as we explore and learn more about this precious landscape.

Mike Hamilton, Director
The Cedar Barn
Blue Oak Ranch Reserve
June 2008

Directors BLOG - May 2008

Thu, 8 May 2008 07:55:21 -0700

Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!" ~Robin Williams

Spring has arrived and in my wildest dreams I had not expected to see such a diversity and expanse of wildflowers stretched across the hill slopes and canyons of Blue Oak Ranch Reserve. Thousands of acres of California Poppy, Shooting Stars, Owls Clover, Violets, Fiddle Neck, Indian Paintbrush, Lupines -- a botanical rainbow painted under the almost iridescent green canopy of tender young Blue and Valley Oak leaves just emerging from their winter leaf buds. The grasses are in full flower and even though most of the species are introduced Mediterranean immigrants, there are interspersed many California native bunch grasses that are holding their own and even expanding in the second decade since they have been released from a century and more of over-grazing by cattle.

I admit I’m a bit frustrated by the fact that I cannot spend the time this spring with my trusty Jepson Flora in hand to key out all of these beautiful jewels...there is just not enough time in the day as I am stretched thin to manage the many administrative details to prepare our new facilities for my upcoming residence, as well as preparing for the basic needs of new users that are anxious to begin their study of this spectacular reserve. Not to mention that I am still splitting my time between the James Reserve and Blue Oak Ranch Reserve until the end of June. But July 1 is rapidly approaching, when I will be able to focus ALL of my time at BORR, living on site and kick starting our larger planning efforts to develop new facilities and infrastructure with the Prop 84 funding opportunity.

Last month saw the installation of 30 solar photovoltaic modules on the roof of the cedar bar, 16 high capacity gel batteries, and two power inverters, which in combination now provide continuous AC power from the sun! Real Goods Carlson Solar expertly conducted the installation. These are the same folks who recently completed a 25 kilowatt solar power plant at the James Reserve, and in the past have provided solar power systems to the Granite Mountains Reserve. While our little 2.25kW system will easily provide for my personal needs living in the apartment of the cedar barn, once we begin our larger facilities development, a power plant that is at least the size of the new system at the James Reserve will be installed at BORR to handle the electrical needs of our dormitory and classroom, researcher cabins, office and lab space, and my new home.

Another milestone was the delivery of a new 5,000 gallon water tank which is now perched on the hill slope above and to the north of the barn. Once the tank is plumbed, we will have more than adequate water pressure at the barn, along with a substantial volume of water to be used in the event of a fire. The tank will be connected to our solar and wind powered well pumps, providing a nearly continuous flow of freshwater. Both of these improvements are the first steps towards our green design for ecologically sustainable facilities and utilities.

This month we will be taking delivery of ultra-energy efficient light bulbs that utilize non-toxic LEDs for bright natural spectrum lighting, a closed-loop solar hot water heating system to provide domestic hot water for drinking and bathing, as well as space heating using hydronics (an advancement on the old-style hot water radiators), and hopefully providing enough excess hot water to keep my hot tub nice and warm. A tankless hot water heater will serve as a backup for periods of sun-less days. We will also be installing a propane powered generator as an emergency back up for electrical power. Work is also moving right along on bringing the first wireless link from the Lick Observatory to the barn. Kevin Browne, our NRS Information Manager based at the James Reserve is taking the lead on the installation, and so we anticipate having wireless solar-powered Internet access sometime in June. Finally, we have GREAT roads now, thanks to our grading contractor. Access to BORR via our south entrance is now a breeze and no longer requires four wheel drive when the weather turns bad.

Commencing with the launch of our website in March, we have begun taking on-line reservations for the first wave of research scientists and graduate students who are or will soon be working on projects at the reserve. Dr. Chris Potter, from NASA AMES in Sunnyvale has started an analysis of satellite remote sensing data to document the seasonal and year to year changes in the overall photosynthesis of the woodlands and savanna. Kevin Lund, a graduate student in ESPM at UC Berkeley, will be surveying the ponds at BORR for Pacific treefrogs with developmental abnormalities that potentially arise from infections by a tremotode parasite that uses a fresh water snail as an intermediate host. Another amphibian researcher, Gretchen Padgett-Flohr, a graduate student at Southern Illinois University, has been conducting a multi-year study of Amphibian Chytirdiomycosis, an amphibian skin disease caused by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. She will be assessing the occurrence and prevalence of the pathogen within and between ponds at BORR. Her surveys here and throughout California have greatly expanded the knowledge of this pathogen’s role in amphibian decline in California.

Spring has always been one of the busiest time of the year for most of our NRS Reserves, and Blue Oak Ranch Reserve will be no exception. The BORR landscape is alive with diversity, its spring, and our doors are open for business, so as Robin William’s said “Lets party!”

Mike Hamilton, Director
The Cedar Barn
Blue Oak Ranch Reserve
May 2008

NRS Transect Spring 2008 Issue

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:26:40 -0700

New NRS reserve will link northern CA wildlands to urban environs and to two UC campuses

Identifying the ideal site for a new NRS reserve can be extremely difficult. The landscape should be large enough, and diverse enough, to support a variety of
research interests. At best, it should be close enough to a campus so professors can bring classes for day visits. It should be protected and relatively undisturbed, yet it should also be accessible to a range of visitors, especially students from underserved K-12 schools.

With its recently acquired 36th reserve, the NRS seems to have hit the reserve trifecta. Blue Oak Ranch Reserve is a spectacular 3,280-acre property in the Mt. Hamilton Range, yet just seven miles (as the crow flies) from downtown San Jose. The site is embedded within 180,000 acres of permanently protected wildlands and open space, yet it lies within an hour’s drive of both UC’s Berkeley and Santa Cruz campuses. In addition, the land’s proximity to the major urban centers of the south San Francisco Bay Area makes it an ideal candidate for developing outreach programs that connect city folks to the natural world. The Berkeley campus plans to apply for funds from California State Proposition 84 to be used to build a research and teaching center at the reserve, as well as living quarters for reserve users and staff.

The reserve’s blue oak woodlands inspired its name, but the land also offers extensive upland valley oak woodlands, mixed (blue, black, valley, coast live) oak woodlands, steep densely vegetated canyons, and well-preserved perennial streams with intact riparian vegetation and populations of
native trout, river otters, and yellow-legged frogs. In total, Blue Oak Ranch Reserve supports more than 430 species of plants, 130 species of birds, 41 species of mammals, seven species of amphibians, 14 species of reptiles, seven species of fish, and hundreds of species of invertebrates. Because this
area serves as an important connection in a long corridor for migratory wildlife between Alameda and Santa Clara Counties, the location provides opportunities for major research projects that address large-scale conservation and management issues of regional, state, and national concern. The entire reserve is protected by a conservation easement held by The Nature Conservancy.

The Blue Oak Ranch Reserve encompasses more than 3,000 acres that include extensive oak woodlands — welcome habitat in a state where oaks too often fail to regenerate and have been devastated by disease. UC Berkeley, the campus selected to administer the site, has assembled an experienced team to realize the reserve’s potential. Mike Hamilton will serve as reserve director. Hamilton (no relation to the surrounding mountain range) is the long-time director of the James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve in southern California and a nationally recognized leader in using technology to support environmental research. Todd Dawson, a professor of Integrative Biology and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley, will serve as the reserve’s faculty director. Dawson’s research focuses on the
interface between plants with their environment; oak woodlands are a featured ecosystem he and his group have been studying. Finally, Jeff Wilcox has been retained as reserve steward. As ranch manager for the last 11 years, Wilcox has successfully controlled such invasive species as bullfrogs and feral pigs, while fostering the comeback of tiger salamanders and other native populations. He also managed a successful prescribed fire program. Building a new reserve from the ground up is a tremendous opportunity with hidden challenges that are incredibly time consuming. Though Hamilton is officially employed only half time on Blue Oak Ranch Reserve dur- ing the first six months of 2008, his real time in the San Francisco Bay Area is packed. On Berkeley campus, he continually attends meetings, working to establish administrative procedures, make contact with potential researchers and instructors, and tap into the campus’s wide-ranging expertise for potential collaborators. At the reserve, he works with a builder to retrofit a large barn (at present, the only significant structure on site) into a temporary meeting space for classes and an expanded living space, talks with staff at the nearby Lick Observatory and other neighboring facili- ties about future collaborations, and cultivates contacts in the surrounding communities to increase awareness of this new NRS site. On top of all of this, Hamilton regularly visits UC Berkeley’s capital projects office, as well as faculty in the College of Environmental Design’s Green Building Research Center, to discuss designing new, more permanent facilities. “The campus has made a commitment to develop facilities that are ecologically sustainable both in the construction and in long-term operation,” he notes. “We plan to power the entire research center with solar power and to incorporate passive heating and cooling. Berkeley is the leading center in the country now for alternative energy research with the new Energy Biosciences Institute. And Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory has been a leader in energy conservation for decades. Being able to bring those partners in as research collaborators, perhaps to test the latest fuel-cell technology in our battery system, is very exciting. These groups could use the reserve as a test bed or field site in ways we’ve never thought of the NRS sites being used before.” From hilltops around the reserve, the human bustle and technological emphasis that mark modern San Jose and Silicon Valley are clearly visible. The reserve itself is an oasis of natural quiet. For both Hamilton and Dawson, the juxtaposition of these disparate worlds heightens the value of the site. “It’s a significant wildland,” Hamilton points out.

Mike Hamilton is one of the NRS’s most experienced reserve directors, having worked at and managed James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve for nearly 30 years. Todd Dawson, a UC Berkeley professor and now also faculty director for Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, is ideally positioned to study the interface between oaks and their environment — and perhaps determine, for example, why mistletoe afflicts certain trees but not others (right), even where the trees exist side by side. “Yet the urban impacts are ubiquitous — air pollution, urban heat, invasive species, and just the crush of humanity in the valley. That makes it ideal for many kinds of research, but the public outreach aspect of this is also big. We’re going to be able to bring in urban kids who have never experienced mountain lion habitat or wildlands. Most of them probably have no idea it’s so close to their homes.” “And being able to bring university classes to this urban/wildland interface is really important,” Dawson adds, “because it means we can easily get our students out into the field, show them a natural reserve, walk them around, and talk about wildlife, watersheds, and biodiversity issues that the land represents. If a student doesn’t understand the concept of a watershed, we can go show them what it is, how we study it, and why we need to study it. This site will be an incredibly important component of the ongoing dialog over land-use changes and climate change that’s taking place around the world.” According to Dawson, it’s critical that scientists increase public awareness and intensify research into California’s oak savannas because climate change will have a dramatic impact on such ecosystems over the next 50 years. A similar Mediterranean ecosystem in South Africa, the fynbos, is predicted to literally fall off the tip of the continent as the warming climate pushes it ever farther south. “Many of these Mediterranean regions, including blue oak woodlands, are very diverse. They have a high amount of endemism in the animals and plants, so climate and land-use changes happening in these zones will lead to the loss of a lot of very critical, sometimes keystone, species.” Both Dawson, who directs UC Berkeley’s Center for Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry, and Hamilton, a principal investigator with the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Embedded Network Sensing, are notorious “gearheads.” Combine that fact with the reserve’s proximity to Silicon Valley, and it should not be too surprising that their vision for tracking changes to the reserve’s environment is seriously high tech. “We are fortunate to have the Lick Observatory adjacent to Blue Oak Ranch,” Dawson explains. “They
already have a wireless network, and they’re very excited to provide an interface for Blue Oak Ranch to the observatory, NASA Ames, and beyond. We see this as a great opportunity to be in a natural setting off the grid and yet be completely connected.” Hamilton has already scoped out the reserve’s viewshed, and he estimates that 95 percent of the site could be connected in a two- to three-hop wireless network. “Having a landscape-scale wireless network is a big deal for environmental research,” Hamilton explains. “When it’s completed, Blue Oak Ranch Reserve will have one of the largest and most densely distributed ecological sensing systems of any field station in the country. Combined with the network at the NRS’s Angelo Coast Range Reserve, which is about the same size, and the growing wireless mesh network at the Quail Ridge Reserve, the UC NRS will be at the head of the pack in the implementation of large-scale, wireless systems.” While the future is impossible to predict, and the work is just beginning, the chances seem excellent that the NRS’s new Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, with its many natural resources and unsurpassed location, will mature into a cutting-edge site for observing the natural world and understanding better how human activities are changing it. —JB

For more information, go to:
<http://nrs.ucop.edu/blue_oak_ranch.htm>
Blue Oak Ranch Reserve steward Jeff Wilkins (left) points out tiger salamander eggs to (from far right to middle) reserve director Mike Hamilton, faculty director Todd Dawson, and student visitor Razmig Makasdjian. Photo by Jerry Booth

Directors BLOG - April 2008

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:14:49 -0700

“Not All Who Wander Are Lost.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Okay, if you are reading my blog then I warn you, you might become insanely jealous, particularly if you are a field person, as I feel I now have scored the ultimate job. Not that my last job wasn’t incredibly cool, 26 amazing years as the director of the world famous James Reserve in the San Jacinto Mountains, an “eco-geeks” paradise where robots and sensors continuously monitor the “heart-beat” of an ecosystem. If that job required me to wear many hats (it did) then this new one will certainly force me to enlarge my hat rack!

“JR” as my colleagues refer to the James Reserve, among the varied uses typical of any really busy NRS reserve, has the singular distinction of being the first NRS reserve to become a test-bed for biologists, computer science and engineering students and faculty whose shared experiments using embedded networked sensing systems must pass the test of deployment under the rigors and inevitable failures imposed upon their inventions by mother nature. Most of these folks are affiliated with the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing, or CENS, directed by UCLA Professor Deborah Estrin. Wearing a CENS cap, my role over the years has been to lead the Terrestrial Ecology Observing Systems group at CENS, coordinating the testbed activities, working with ecologists and other field “ologists” to try out the next generation of sensor and network technologies that will allow their observations and field measurements to automatically and continuously follow them via the Internet wherever they might be.

While I am constantly reminding my colleagues that these new tools are simply that, and not intended to replace their field work, or their students, but rather to dramatically increase the reliability, frequency, quantity and area from which their studies can explore. If we have learned one thing in the 6 years of CENS, its that this stuff requires more people to be involved, not fewer. But in exchange for the increased cost of using networked sensing technologies is the promise that it can be reliably scaled up to hundreds and eventually thousands of devices covering very large landscapes and varied and complex ecosystems, yet manageable by the same number of people as it takes to run just a few traditional data recording weather stations. But its hard to test that concept on a small 30 acre reserve, and there are nearly 550 continuously operating fixed sensors at JR!

When I was hired for the James Reserve in the summer of 1982, fresh out of graduate school where I studied rare and endangered plants of the San Jacinto Mountains, one of the first tasks I was given was to figure out how to bring electricity to the reserve. Just like Blue Oak Ranch is today, the James Reserve was entirely off the grid, surrounded by national forest miles away from the nearest power line. The previous owners, Harry and Grace James, choose a simple retro lifestyle for their retirement home at JR, living off the grid in a log cabin they built themselves, heating with only a couple of wood fireplaces, and using kerosene lamps for lighting. This was pretty much the setting when I arrived, and armed with what seemed like a huge budget ($10,000) I set about converting my new place into something closer to a 20th century home. I knew I would miss having access to a mainframe, but having just read about these new “personal computers” I was keen to get one as soon as I figured out how I would plug it in.

Those were the days, and in what can certainly be called the ultimate in “deja vu” as I am now facing an analogous situation as I once had, pondering how to instead bring a 3,360 acre reserve “on-line” with power, high speed wireless networks, accommodations, and the space to do the field science of the 21st century. The starting budget is 500 times larger than what I had in 1982 (although considering inflation its probably less than half that) and the land area of BORR is just a bit more than 100 times bigger than the James Reserve, offering a suitable challenge for scaling up sensor networks by at least a factor of 10, to a respectable 1000 nodes and 5,000 sensors. At least thats our goal. It will certainly help to have friends in “high places” as the astronomers on the top of Mount Hamilton not only have a great view of the heavens, but also an unobstructed view from their roof of nearly 50% of BORR, and only 5 miles by line of sight. In the works is a collaboration between Lick Observatory, UCSC, NASA AMES and us to bring a 100 megabit wireless internet link up to the observatory from AMES, and then feed a chunk of that network into locations within BORR. Based on some preliminary view-shed analysis in my trusty GIS, we should be able to blanket most of the 3,000 acres with broadband wireless in only one or two hops, comprising perhaps 10 small relay towers. This level of digital coverage will be spectacular, paving the way to building embedded sensors and imagers to study just about anything one can imagine. I’m personally very excited about animal telemetry applications as well as new tools for monitoring plant phenology and physiology across multiple scales. This could lead to breakthroughs in understanding why the oak trees do not seem to successfully regenerate.

Writing this reminds me of yet another analog to my first UC career. Besides making a new home, one of the tasks at the James Reserve was to build a trail system so that classes and researchers could access the habitats in the reserve and nearby Hall Canyon Research Natural Area. I can now mentally plot the locations of many research papers, theses and dissertations that made good use of those trails, and what a valuable piece of “infrastructure” those trails became. Today at Blue Oak Ranch Reserve I am building the digital equivalent of a trail system, and I predict it will be in those locations served by our wireless networks that our future field biologists will choose to conduct their studies, about which to write their papers and complete their dissertations. Of course they still may need a trail or two to get there, we wouldn’t want them to wander about and get lost!

Mike Hamilton, Director
The Cedar Barn
Blue Oak Ranch Reserve
April 2008