Science Informing Management
How do discoveries impact the policies and management decisions made by the CA-CESU and other agencies? Science-informed decision-making is a core value of the CESU. Research is an important tool for informing management decisions, such as developing strategies on how ecosystems and organisms can adapt to climate change. Learn more about our science informing management projects below.
Backcountry Archaeological Inventory and Condition Assessments at Channel Islands National Park
Years Active: 2021-2023
PI: Douglass Kennett (University of California, Santa Barbara)
This project will provide baseline data for archaeological resources at Channel Islands National Park in targeted, at-risk areas. This project will include inventory, documentation and condition assessment in backcountry areas on Santa Rosa Island. A GIS-based inventory strategy was developed to prioritize island work areas which involved tribal consultation to incorporate tribal concerns and priorities for documentation and treatment. Professional, peer-reviewed, report of findings, new and updated archeological site records, condition assessments, and GIS data will be produced for park management to consume. Field work involved eight 8-day tours of Santa Rosa Island.
Ant Inventory at Cabrillo National Monument to Assess Re-introduction of Coastal Horned Lizards
Years Active: 2021-2023
PI: David Holway (University of California, Los Angeles)
To assess the feasibility of re-introduction of the Coastal Horned Lizard, this project seeks to understand the current condition of the ant community in Cabrillo National Monument. This assessment of the ant community would account for the overall current abundance of native ants and their spatial distribution. Simple distribution models were used to guide decisions about where in Point Loma Ecological Conservation Area initial releases of horned lizards should occur. Occupancy of ants were determined by species across major habitats in both summer and winter for 2 years. Distributions of invasive Argentine ants and native ants was tested to determine if populations vary inversely by year.
Genetic Testing of Separated Populations at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area
Years Active: 2020-2023
PI: Bradley H. Shaffer (University of California, Los Angeles)
The 101 Freeway is the most critical road barrier for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Urban development has also been extensive along the 101, and consequently, very few places still have natural habitat up to the freeway on either side. Constructing a wildlife crossing structure across 101 in the Liberty Canyon Area has been a goal for many years.
To accomplish this, Dr. Shaffer's lab will extract DNA from Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area samples and conduct analyses of population genetic differences for separated populations. Park staff collected genetic samples for various targeted species. Dr. Shaffer's lab extracted DNA from the samples for these species to test an analysis of population genetic structure. The goal is to understand how differentiated populations of these species are both across the freeway and at various distances on the same side of the freeway.
This project will provide critical scientific information about the impacts of freeways and development of population genetic structure for the chosen species. While information has been already gathered on effects of urbanization on larger wildlife species, this work focuses on smaller vertebrates. This work will also allow researchers to directly measure the future success of the proposed infrastructure facility.
Adapting a Fire Management Plan to the Effects of the Dixie Megafire
Years Active: 2022-2024
PI: Alan Taylor (Pennsylvania State University)
A century of fire exclusion in Lassen Volcanic National Park has diminished the interactions between fire, vegetation, and terrain that regulated historical patterns of fuels, fire severity, and fire extent. In Lassen Volcanic National Park, prescribed fire and managed wildfire are the management tools used to reduce fuels and generate fuels/vegetation mosaics that will be resilient to future wildfires. Areas where fuels have been reduced from prescribed fire and managed wildfire can reduce severity of wildfires that burn through them at least for a decade or two. There is considerable concern that climate change can alter fire-vegetation/fuel interactions and increase fire severity particularly in areas that have not burned for a century or more. This research is focused on understanding how areas that were treated (prescribed fire units, managed wildfire units) and burned by recent large wildfires influenced the severity of the Dixie Fire to support fire management planning in Lassen Volcanic National Park.
Post-Fire Forest Inventory in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
Years Active: 2022-2024
PI: Dr. Hugh Safford (University of California, Davis)
A century of fire suppression and high levels of tree mortality from the recent drought have put the conifer forests of Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks at a substantially increased risk of catastrophic fire. Many important resources are threatened by such fires, including the iconic giant sequoia groves. For example, several groves burned in the recent Castle Fire, resulting in the death of a large number of monarch giant sequoias. The KNP Complex fire burned through over 75,000 acres of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in September and October of 2021 including over 18,000 acres of critical old growth Sierran Mixed-Conifer forest habitat.
There is a need for a post-fire inventory of keystone forest tree species to assess forest recovery and identify when and where to intervene with post-fire reforestation based on vegetation trajectories and a RAD (Resist, Accept, Direct) framework. Surveys for this project will include mixed conifer inclusive of sequoia groves. The overarching goals of this project are to assess levels of natural tree regeneration and tree mortality for mixed conifer forest in high severity areas in order to determine whether active reforestation might be needed to retain forest cover.
Providing eDNA Services through CALeDNA
Years Active: 2021-2025
PI: Rachel Meyer (University of California, Santa Cruz)
This project will enable parks and programs staff to use expert services of CALeDNA which is a program run by University of California Conservation Genomics Consortium. This partnership will help detect and monitor species of concern to parks and their habitats using eDNA and genomics. Using eDNA and genomics, this project focuses on developing species-specific and universal primers, sequencing DNA for un-sequences species, and creating species gene maps from eDNA samples. This initial part of the project will focus on aquatic invasive species. CALeDNA is enhancing the ability of national park units and programs to detect and monitor species of management concern within and adjacent to parks. This work will help protect the natural flora and fauna of national parks including Alaska anadromous fish, Alaskan algal blooms, and Hawaiian stream faunal assemblages.