Purpose
and value of Natural History Research Reserves
Our understanding of environmental problems is limited by the lack of field data collected at relevant spatial and temporal scales. In the environmental sciences, theoretical and simulation modeling guides and inspires, but ultimately depends on field empiricism. The missions of research, teaching, and public outreach require research reserves, where long term studies and manipulative experiments can be carried out without disruption. Research reserves are uniquely important to the University's mission, and are distinct from lands protected for preservation (e.g., by The Nature Conservancy) or public recreation (e.g., by the National Park Service), for at least three reasons. Research reserves provide:
- opportunities to perform controlled manipulations, sometimes over rather large scales, which can be crucial for understanding systems;
- security for field instrumentation needed to obtain long term records of environmental change; and
- protection from shifting or incompatible management policies that could compromise long term research programs and results.
Reserves
in the University of California Natural
Reserve System (NRS) are viewed as outdoor laboratories for research
and teaching, and places where natural systems can be analyzed, ecological
principles comprehended, and the impacts of people on environments better
understood (Ford and Norris 1988). Reserves consist of relatively undisrupted
natural habitats, allowing baseline conditions and changes in these conditions
to be assessed. A basic goal of
the NRS is to bring together scientists from many fields and a variety
of institutions so that the reserves can serve as both subjects and catalysts
for interdisciplinary studies and collaborative research. Such an approach also benefits students, who are able to participate
in studies with leading researchers in settings that emphasize hands-on
learning and direct observation.
As California and the world grow more densely
populated and developed by humans, areas supporting natural ecosystems
will become scarcer. Those that persist will become ever more valuable,
as our need intensifies for these windows of understanding of how ecosystems
functioned under more natural conditions. These natural areas can also inform, and supply native genetic material
for, local ecosystem restoration, when opportunities for restoration arise.
The mission of the NRS is to "contribute to the understanding
and wise management of the Earth and its natural systems by supporting
university-level teaching, research, and public service at protected natural
areas throughout California." This network of reserves is the most complete
system of university-directed field stations in the world. The UCNRS protects natural land areas of significant
size that represent and sustain much of the unparalleled diversity of
California's biota and ecosystems.
NRS reserves (http://nrs.ucop.edu/reserves/nrsmap.html)
The
Angelo Coast Range Reserve
Site History
The
Angelo Coast Range Reserve is made up of two protected areas.
One is a 1642 ha (4055 acre) tract of forested land, the first,
and for many years the largest, preserve of The Nature Conservancy west
of the Mississippi, gifted in 1959 by Heath and Margorie Angelo.
The other is the 1416 ha (3500
acre) watershed of Elder Creek, designated an Environmental Protected
Area by the Bureau of Land Management, and joined to the Reserve in 1961
by a Use Agreement with BLM. The Elder Creek watershed is considered the
largest pristine watershed remaining in the state of California and was
designated as a “Man
and the Biosphere” site by the United Nations Environmental Program in
1964, as part of the California Coast Ranges Biosphere Reserve. It
has been continuously monitored since 1967 by the U.S.
Geological Survey as a benchmark for purity of natural waters.
The
Reserve has been used by University of California researchers since the
1980s, and was officially transferred to the University of California
Natural Reserve System in 1994.
Natural
History
The Angelo Coast Range Reserve (Northwest corner: -123.666, 39.763, Southeast corner: -123.571, 39.687) in Mendocino County, California, encompasses diverse aquatic and terrestrial habitats. With elevations ranging from 378-1290 m, the steep, dissected terrain harbors redwood groves, mixed conifer-deciduous forest, upland Douglas fir and mixed conifer-decidious forests, nine meadows on upland river terraces, and chaparral at higher elevations, particularly along ridgelines.
Because the Angelo Reserve lies east of Elkhorn Ridge, a high region
of the coast range, it is shielded from maritime fog. Consequently, it has more temperature extremes,
drier summers, and more elevationally stratified vegetation than might
be expected in a habitat only 12-15 miles east of the Pacific Ocean (Fig XX to show vegetation transect).
Aquatic habitats include a salmon-bearing mainstream river and
tributary streams, and seasonal seeps and meadow wetlands. Notable fauna
include the Pacific
giant salamander, the Olympic
salamanders, river otters, flying squirrels, black bears, the threatened
northern spotted owl, lamprey eels (for which the river was named), coho
and chinook salmon, and steelhead trout. The reserve protects one of the
largest tracts of coastal Douglas fir-Coast Redwood forest remaining in
the state of California, and a 5 km stretch of the South Fork of the Eel
River designated as a Wild and Scenic River. Protected spawning and rearing
habitat for salmonids and other fishes occurs in the mainstem South Fork
and in three of its perennial tributaries within the Reserve.
Administrative Structure
Today, the Angelo Coast Range
Reserve is operated by the University of
California Natural Reserve System (NRS) and managed by the California
Biodiversity Center at the University
of California, Berkeley.
The University of California Natural Reserve
System is an intercampus program operated through the Office of the President,
Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
An Advisory Committee, composed of representatives from each campus,
meets twice a year to provide broad input on the activities, policies
and priorities of the NRS. Each
reserve is assigned to a particular UC campus for day-to-day administration,
and is managed by a resident or non-resident reserve manager, with oversight
provided by NRS administrative structure and, at most campuses, by a faculty
reserve manager with advice from a campus advisory committee.
The California Biodiversity Center
is an Organized
Research Unit of the Berkeley campus.
Its primary goal is to develop and support research synergisms
that merge the historical and geographic approaches often used by museum
scientists with the experimental and process based approaches of ecologists
and earth scientists, to learn about California’s ecosystems, past, present,
and future. The CBC also sponsors
a variety of educational and outreach activities.
The CBC and the BNHM are responsible for the administration of
five other natural
history field stations controlled by the campus
The Resident Manager at the Angelo Coast Range Reserve is Peter Steel, and the Faculty Reserve Manager is Professor Mary Power. Professor Power is also Director of the California Biodiversity Center. Dr. John Latto is the Academic Coordinator of the CBC, and assists with programs and management at all of the Natural History Field Stations administered by the Berkeley campus, including the Angelo Reserve.
