Details for the 2024 Carol baird award can now be found at: https://ucb.ucnrs.org/grants/

 

PAST AWARDEES

2021 Awardees

Emily Lam: Physiological and behavioral responses of northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) to global change among three northern California rookeries

This project uses a combination of thermal imaging, behavioral and physiological metrics to investigate the potential for thermal adjustments in the northern elephant seal in the face of global change.

Project location: Point Reyes National Seashore, Ano Nuevo State Park, Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge

Phoebe Parker-Shames: Continuing Research: Impact of Cannabis Agriculture on Wildlife

This project combines a spatial understanding of land use change with effects on wildlife communities to examine the rate, location, and ecological impact of cannabis expansion for wildlife species, with a focus on large mammals and birds.

Project location: The Angelo Coast Range Reserve, Hopland Research and Extension Center

Rachael Ryan: Quantifying diversity of juvenile coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) under different stream management regimes

This project aims to evaluate diversity of juvenile coho size, habitat use and behaviour 1) between a regulated and unregulated stream; 2) within a regulated stream undergoing floodplain channel restoration; and 3) in these systems under different precipitation scenarios (wet/dry years).

Project location: Lagunitas Creek watershed (near Point Reyes Field Station)

Nina Sokolov: Bee viruses across landscapes: Understanding the impact of crop pollination on disease ecology in managed and native bees

This  project aims to investigate the impact of honeybee migrations for crop pollination on the emergence of viruses- both within California honeybees and native wild bees-through regular temporal sampling of bees and their viruses across a variety of landscapes.

Project location: Point Reyes Field Station, Sagehen Creek Field Station

Jean Wilkening: Plants as sensors of the subsurface: Collecting the data to inform a multi-criteria modeling approach

This project aims to better constrain inference of plant water uptake dynamics by developing a modeling frame-work that couples physiological plant hydraulics and water isotope tracking through both the subsurface and within the plant.

Project location: Blue Oak Ranch Reserve

2019 Awardees

Chelsea Andreozzi: Investigating California Coastal Forests as Refugia for Bats Under Global Change: Case Study Comparison of Angelo Reserve and Working Forest Habitat

This project investigates how bat spatial distribution and activity patterns are influenced by microclimate conditions and forest management practices in a Coastal Californian conifer forest.

Project location: The Angelo Coast Range Reserve (and neighboring Ten Mile River and Mendocino Redwood Company forest properties)

Philip Georgakakos: Can invasive predatory fish benefit dragonflies?

This project tests whether increased densities of  California roach fry can increase rates of predation on these roach by invertebrate predators (damselfly and dragonfly nymphs).

Project location: The Angelo Coast Range Reserve

William Jesse Hahm: Does tree water use impact summer low flow? Investigating the origins of daily stream oscillations

This project tests the hypothesis that stream oscillations are driven by direct use of groundwater by vegetation, and evaluates the extent to which riparian vs. hillslope tree water use contributes to diurnal oscillations in streamflow.

Project location: The Angelo Coast Range Reserve

Huang Heng: The woody plant encroachment into grassland under climate warming in Northern California

This project aims to identify the cold tolerance thresholds of A. californica (California sagebrush) and quantitatively assess the coupling effects of regional climate change and local microclimate modification on ecosystem stability and the potential occurrence of bi-stable states in grassland-shrubland ecotones.

Project location: Point Reyes Field Station, Hastings Natural History Reservation

Phoebe Parker-Shames: Impact of cannabis agriculture on wildlife at the Angelo Coast Reserve

This project combines a spatial understanding of land use change with effects on wildlife communities to examine the rate, location, and ecological impact of cannabis expansion for wildlife species, with a focus on large mammals and birds.

Project location: The Angelo Coast Range Reserve, Hopland Research and Extension Center

2018 Awardees

Kelsey Crutchfield-Peters: Nutrients in transit: a novel isotope approach to link the water cycle to nutrient uptake by trees in a seasonally dry forest

This project connects subsurface water residence time to the seasonal availability of essential plant nutrients (particularly N, P, and S) under varying precipitation conditions in a seasonally dry environment.

Project location: The Angelo Coast Range Reserve

Yi Jiao- The exploration of methyl halide emissions from ponderosa forest with branch chamber and micrometeorological measurements

This project aims to help find the global ‘missing’ budgets of methyl halides with respect to pine forests, and the prediction and modeling of its changing impact on stratospheric ozone level.

Project Location: Sagehen Creek Field Station

Prahlada Papper- Gene flow stabilizes range boundaries and ecological adaptation in California oaks

This project addresses the gene flow optimization hypothesis directly by identifying a simple mechanism that could allow gene flow to follow iso-environmental lines, phenological synchrony, and testing for its imprint across a broad spatial scale in California white oaks.

Project location: Hastings Natural History Reservation, Blue Oak
Ranch Reserve, and Angelo Coast Range Reserve

Gabriel Rossi- The Summer Phenology of Food Webs in Coastal California Streams

This project tests hypotheses about: (1) how low flow (spring to fall) hydrology and food web phenology couple to determine the phenology of rearing habitat for juvenile salmon in coastal tributary streams; and (2) how juvenile salmonids alter their foraging and movement behavior in response to these phenologies.

Project location: The Angelo Coast Range Reserve