In California, a day’s drive can take a visitor from record-setting desert heat to glaciated peaks to temperate rainforests with the world’s tallest trees. This astounding climatic and landscape diversity has helped create a biodiversity hotspot. California is also an economic hotspot – the 6th largest economy in the world – and is home to nearly 40 million people. The demand for land for new development and farms, along with accelerating climate change, puts tremendous stress on ecosystems, and the benefits they provide.
The state’s legacy of conservation has created a network of natural and working lands that benefit people by supplying clean water, capturing carbon, and directly contributing to the state’s economic and cultural vitality through recreation, tourism, and agricultural production. Conservancy scientists work across the spectrum of ecosystem types and human land uses, to advance conservation goals that also contribute to the well-being of people in those places.
Gennet, S., J. Howard, J. Langholz, K. Andrews, M.D. Reynolds, S.A. Morrison
This paper discusses the 2006 outbreak of toxic foodborne E. coli and its impact on wildlife. The authors explain how farming practices for food safety that target wildlife can damage ecosystems but…
Golet G.H., J. Hunt, D. Koenig
Floodplains often are managed both for agriculture and as habitat for native species. On the Sacramento River, farmers have expressed concern that natural areas may be sources of pests to adjoining…
HR Sofaer, TS Sillett, SI Peluc, SA Morrison, CK Ghalambor
Island archipelagos can provide useful opportunities for comparative studies in ecology. In this paper, for example, breeding ecology of a songbird was studied on two of the California Channel…
TS Sillett, RB Chandler, JA Royle, M Kéry, SA Morrison
The Island Scrub-Jay occurs only on 250 km2 Santa Cruz Island. This study combined an intensive, short-term field survey with novel statistical modeling to generate estimates of population abundance,…
JongminYoon, T. Scott Sillett, Scott A.Morrison, Cameron K. Ghalambora
When members of a single species display very different behavioral patterns it can present a helpful model for ecological study. This paper examines two breeding populations of a songbird species: one…
Tim Bean, Bob Stafford, Laura Prugh, Scott Butterfield, Justin Brashares
This paper compares the efficacy of different monitoring methods for estimating distribution, abundance, and population growth of the endangered giant kangaroo rat to determine the best practices for…
Cameron, D., S. Parker, B. Cohen, J. Randall, B. Christian, J. Moore, L. Crane, S. A. Morrison
Industrial-scale renewable energy generation facilities can have sizable footprints and therefore significant impact on the conservation values of a landscape. This assessment focused on a region…
M. Rebecca Shaw, Kirk Klausmeyer, D. Richard Cameron, Jason MacKenzie, Patrick Roehrdanz
Species will move around the landscape as the climate changes, presenting challenges for traditional conservation strategies like land acquisition. This paper models the cost and total land area that…
Jennifer Carah, Jason Pelletier
A two-page summary of salmon restoration efforts at the Garcia River Forest on the North Cost of California focusing on the reintroduction of wood in streams as a strategy.
The Nature Conservancy, Jennifer Carah
Salmon and trout thrive in streams with cool water, low levels of sand and silt, and deep, shaded pools. Intensive forest management in California over the last 150 years led to the removal of these…
Parker, S.S., E.W. Seabloom, J.P. Schimel
Understanding how plant invasions occur is vitally important for land managers and conservationists working to enhance biodiversity in California grasslands. While much of the research on this topic…
Scott A. Morrison, T. Scott Sillett, Cameron K. Ghalambor, John W. Fitzpatrick, David M. Graber, Victoria J. Bakker, Reed Bowman, Charles T. Collins, Paul W. Collins, Kathleen Semple Delaney, Daniel F. Doak, Walter D. Koenig, Lyndal Laughrin, Alan A. Lieberman, John M. Marzluff, Mark D. Reynolds, J. Michael Scott, Jerre Ann Stallcup, Winston Vickers, Walter M. Boyce
This paper discusses conservation of the Island Scrub-Jay in the context of novel threats posed by climate change. The authors discuss management actions that could reduce extinction…
