News from the Bernard Field Station

BFS Manager Jennifer Gee’s quail research is featured both in the New York Times and on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams.

A female Gambel's Quail. ©Jennifer Gee.

Since April 2010, the New York Times has been running a blog called “Scientist at Work – Notes from the Field”. According to the NY Times website, “This blog is the modern version of a field journal, a place for reports on the daily progress of scientific expeditions — adventures, misadventures, discoveries. As with the expeditions themselves, you never know what you will find.”

Dr. Gee and her collaborator, Dr. Jennifer Calkin, are blogging about their investigations of the interface between two quail species, Gambel’s Quail (Callipepla gambelii) and Elegant Quail (Callipepla douglasii), in Sonora, Mexico. You can click here to see all of Dr. Gee’s posts on her Mexican adventures.

Sunset from Navopatia Field Station, Sonora, Mexico. ©Jennifer Gee.

Drs. Gee and Calkin were featured in a December 26 Rock Center with Brian Williams piece on the crowdsourcing website Kickstarter, which they used to fund their initial Mexican Expedition. You can see a video here. The segment on Drs. Gee and Calkin starts at 6:19. You can also check out our previous post on their use of Kickstarter.

One of the initiatives our Interim Manager, Dr. Jennifer Gee, has undertaken this year is to produce a BFS Vegetation Management Plan, which she developed in consultation with Dr. Chris McDonald, Desert Natural Resources Advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension, San Bernardino County.

Dr. Chris McDonald, UC Extension Service, and Dr. Jennifer Gee, BFS Interim Manager, contemplate the cattail problem at pHake Lake.

The goals of the Vegetation Management Plan are to preseve the academic and ecological functions of the Field Station, to maintain fire safety, and to monitor and manage exotic, invasive, and pest species.

The Plan was approved by the BFS Faculty Advisory Committee this fall, and we are now beginning to implement the plan, using a combination of outside contractors, interns, Claremont College classes, and volunteers. Here are some the vegetation management activities that have been going on this fall:

• Cattail control:
  pHake Lake has a thriving population of Broad-leaved Cattails, Typha latifolia, which grow very rapidly and would take over large portions of the lake if we did not trim them back. Our goal for cattail control is to maintain some open shoreline for boat-launching and observation as well as some relatively open shallow-water areas for wading birds and dabbling ducks, while retaining areas of dense cattails for use by birds like American Coots, Song Sparrows, Yellowthroats, and the occasional Virginia Rail or Sora.In September Johnny’s Tree Service trimmed back cattails from the boat landing area, the south shore “beach”, and shallow area around the little island in the northeast corner of the lake.
  

  John Garbo of Johnny's Tree Service with cattails removed from pHake Lake.

• Mapping exotics and invasives:
  Monitoring exotic, invasive, and pest plants is an essential part of the vegetation management plan, and we’ve started using GIS to map the location of some of these plants. Prof. Elise Ferree’s Keck Science class, Bio 57–Concepts In Biology, mapped the locations of Century Plants (Agave americana) and Peruvian Pepper Trees (Schinus molle), and Christi Gabriel, Seeds of Success Intern at RSABG, has mapped a number of additional trees.
  

  Peruvian Pepper Trees mapped by the Bio 57 class (left) and various plants mapped by Intern Christi Gabriel (right).

• Removing invasive plants:
  Volunteer workers have started removing invasive plants from the BFS perimeter to prevent their incursion into the field station. Last Saturday’s volunteers targeted Tree-of-Heaven, Ailanthus altissima. This is a highly invasive species, native to the far east, including China and Taiwan. Last summer as part of weed abatement for the LA County Fire Department, Johnny’s Tree Service dug out a group of trees that had colonized the highly disturbed strip of land between Foothill Blvd and the BFS fence. But with the recent rains, small trees have resprouted vigorously, and volunteers rooted these out.
  

  Prof. Paul Stapp, Cal State Fullerton, and Mari Bennett, HMC ’14, dig up Ailanthus.

  

  Ben Stapp, son of Prof. Paul Stapp, and Prof. Richard Haskell, HMC, attack a big Ailanthus root.

  The little trees, however, proved to be attached to very large roots, so the task was not as easy as it appeared.

  

  Big, bigger, biggest! Ben Stapp shows off the Ailanthus roots.

  Once the Trees-of-heaven were dug out, we scoured the rest of the perimeter for other invasives and also removed one small eucalyptus tree, one Tree Tobacco, and small colony of Mexican Fan Palms.

  

  Tim Cox, Paul Stapp, Elliott Cox, and Sandra Schmid dig out the palm colony.

The Claremont Colleges seek to hire a Director for the Robert J. Bernard Biological Field Station (BFS – www.bfs.claremont.edu), a natural study area adjacent to the Colleges’ campuses. The BFS comprises a diversity of habitat types, including native sage scrub, non-native grasslands and an artificial lake, which are used by undergraduate courses in ecology and environmental biology at the five Claremont Colleges, as well as for student and faculty research.

Duties: This is a full-time co-terminus staff position with 0.75 FTE devoted to field station direction and 0.25 FTE to teaching responsibilities in the Pomona College Biology Department. The Field Station Director oversees the day-to-day operations of the field station, including coordinating field station use, maintaining the habitat and facilities, working with a Faculty Advisory Committee to develop and implement academic programs and policies, and managing financial resources, as well as establishing and maintaining a long-term ecological monitoring program and database of ecological data, projects, and results. The Director is expected to participate in grant-writing and other development activities to raise funds for programmatic and facilities needs.

Qualifications: Ph.D. in ecology, conservation biology, or other relevant field and experience with biological field stations. Strong interpersonal and communications skills, and a passion for the mission of field teaching and research are required. Experience in ecological monitoring of terrestrial communities, familiarity with Southern California ecosystems, and a record of attracting funding are preferred.

To apply: Send curriculum vita and statement of interest and have three letters of recommendation sent to:

Department of Human Resources
550 N. College Avenue
Pomona College
Claremont, CA 91711
   or
email to staffjobs@pomona.edu.

For more information: Contact Jonathan Wright, Department of Biology, jcw04747@pomona.edu.

Deadline: Review of applications will begin December 15, 2011, and continue until the position is filled.

Pomona College, one of the Claremont Colleges, is a highly selective, coeducational liberal arts college located 35 miles east of Los Angeles. Pomona College is an Equal Opportunity employer and especially invites applications from women and members of underrepresented groups.

We have a new species addition to the BFS Bird List — the Yellow-headed Blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus), which was spotted by Dr. Paul Stapp’s class on September 29. The brilliant yellow head makes identification of this blackbird easy, and its loud, rusty-hinge call is also quite distinctive.

A Yellow-Headed Blackbird photographed at the Salton Sea. Photo by Glenn and Martha Vargas © California Academy of Sciences.

Yellow-headed Blackbirds occur throughout the US west of the Mississippi River, where they breed in marshes in the northern part of their range and migrate to Mexico and the southwestern US in winter. In California, Yellow-headed Blackbirds have historically bred mainly in the Central Valley and Northeastern California with a few scattered breeding sites in the southern part of the state. Since the 1950s, more breeding sites have appeared in southern California, including the Salton Sink (where the photo above was taken), and marshes in the desert created by development. Yellow-headed Blackbirds often nest and migrate with other blackbirds, and the one spotted at the BFS was in a migrating flock of Red-winged Blackbirds

Habitat loss threatens California’s Yellow-headed Blackbird populations, which have declined in some of their traditional breeding areas, and the Yellow-headed Blackbird is a California Species of Special Concern.

Dr. Paul Stapp‘s Mammalogy from Cal State Fullerton is trapping rodents at the BFS this week and caught a Western Harvest Mouse (Reithrodontomys megalotis), in their trapping grid in the SW part of the station (near the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden). This species has not been seen at BFS since 1990, so we’re glad to report it’s still here.

The Western Harvest Mouse, R. megalotis, trapped at the BFS. Photo © Paul Stapp.

Dr. Stapp says, “At 9-12 g, this is the smallest mouse on the site and prefers grassy habitats (though probably not the rank swards of exotics in the East Field). They are reportedly granivores, but they are opportunistic in their diet, eating some small insects. Harvest mice are not uncommon regionally but certainly have lost habitat with urban development, exotic grass invasion, and the presence of cats. It was great to see them here and a nice surprise, given how shrubby most of the site has become. That SW corner is really special.”

We have a new addition to the BFS Bird List — the Sora (Porzana carolina).

The Sora is a small, secretive bird of freshwater marshes and is most often found in cattails and bulrushes, where it forages for snails, small crustaceans, insects, and seeds. At the BFS it was seen foraging among the cattails between the two little islands in pHake Lake. Since the lake level has been lowered to facilitate cattail removal, this area has become basically a mud flat with some shallow water — just to the Sora’s liking!

Although the Sora is seldom seen, I was able to get a few photos:

A Sora behind the little island in pHake Lake.

This photo gives a good sense of the Sora's coloration and its stout, yellow bill.

Successful foraging!

The Sora belongs to the Railidae family and is the most common and widely distributed rail in North America. Other Railidae at the BFS include the American Coot and the Virginia Rail, which also skulks around in the cattails. The Sora has a grayish body, a short yellow bill, and black on its face, while the Virginia Rail has a longer thinner red bill, a more reddish body, and no black on the face.

Since the Sora is hard to spot, you may have more luck hearing it. It has two distinctive two distinctive calls — a long, high, descending whinny and a two-noted “sor-AH” call, with the second note higher. You can hear recordings of the calls on All About Birds.

Many thanks to Dan Stoebel and Nina Karnovsky for identifying the Sora!

Look who was spotted crossing the main east-west road yesterday evening!

A male California Ebony Tarantula crossing the road.

This new addition to our invert list is a male fall-breeding California native tarantula, Aphonopelma eutylenum – the California Ebony Tarantula. It is more accurately called Aphonopelma “eutylenum type” as this species has been described by several different validly published names. In the fall, the males go out seeking mates, so be extra careful if you’re driving on the field station.

Another view of the tarantula.

These “eutylenum type” tarantulas were once quite common in the flatlands of southern California, but have been expirpated from most valleys by developement and farming. They are still common in most coastal sage scrub communities, and it appears we have a remnant population at the BFS. They have also been seen next door at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden.

Many thanks to Tom Prentice, UCR Entomology, for identification and information about this species.

The BFS Manager, Dr. Jennifer Gee, is featured in a New York Times article on web-based “crowd funding” of scientific research.

According to the article, Dr. Gee and her collaborator, Dr. Jennifer Calkins, may have been the first professional scientists to use this approach to underwrite basic research. To raise nearly $5,000 for a pilot study of the Elegant Quail (Callipepla douglasii) they used Kickstarter, a web-based funding platform for creative projects.

In a manner familiar to all National Public Radio listeners, Drs. Gee and Calkins offered premiums to those who pledged money to support their research, such as field-seasoned quail bands for a $10 pledge, a Quail Diaries T-shirt for a $12 pledge, and dinner and discussion with the scientists for a $250 pledge.

A Quail Diaries T-shirt.

In order to obtain any funds from Kickstarter, Drs. Gee and Calkins needed to raise the desired funds within a specified time, since Kickstarter uses “All or Nothing Funding.” According to the site, “a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands. Why? It protects everyone involved. Creators aren’t expected to develop their project without necessary funds, and it allows anyone to test concepts without risk.”

The two scientists did reach their goal, and the money raised enabled them to buy radio transmitters, receivers, other supplies and equipment, and to travel to Mexico in March to carry out their study. On the Kickstarter site you can see a Quail Diaries video about Drs. Gee and Calkins’ project.

• Lin, T. 2011. “Scientists Turn to Crowds on the Web to Finance Their Projects.” New York Times, 12 July 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/science/12crowd.html
• Calkins, J. 2010-2011. “The Quail Diaries: In Search of the Elegant Quail.” Kickstarter.com. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/401217730/the-quail-diaries-in-search-of-the-elegant-quail
• Calkins, J. 2008-2011. “The Quail Diaries: Science, Culture, and Quail.” http://thequaildiaries.wordpress.com/

During her regular monthly BFS bird survey on July 4, Prof. Cathy McFadden spotted a new addition to the BFS Bird List – three Eurasian Collared-Doves, Streptopelia decaocto, flying over the HMC property, possibly coming out of the old toad pool area.

Originally native to India, Eurasian Collared-Doves spread into Turkey and the Balkans in the 1600s and expanded across Europe in the 1900s. They were introduced into the Bahamas in the mid-1970s and are now established in the southeastern states. They have been expanding across the U.S., and in the last few years, they’ve have made it into most parts of Southern California. They were first reported in south Claremont earlier this year, and it seemed to be only a matter of time before they made it to BFS. It will be interesting to see if they establish within BFS – they seem to like urban areas.

A Eurasian Collared-Dove in India. Photo by Dr. Lloyd Glenn Ingles © California Academy of Sciences.

Eurasian Collared-Doves are large doves that are a very pale cream color with a black half-collar on the back of the neck. Compared to other doves and pigeons seen at the BFS, they are a much lighter color than the Band-tailed Pigeons and are considerably larger than Mourning Doves.

If you spot any Eurasian Collared-Doves at the BFS, please notify the Manager (Jennifer_Gee@cuc.claremont.edu).

Whether or not you think they’re ‘cute’, they’re definitely ‘coot’! While sampling at pHake Lake, my students and I spotted two sets of American Coot (Fulica americana) chicks. Here are some photos:

One of the mother (or father?) Coots with two chicks.

Two Coot chicks.

A Coot parent feeding the chicks.

According to “All About Birds“, the downy young with their bald red heads are alert and ready to leave the nest within 6 hours of hatching.