News from the Bernard Field Station

Since our last publication update in August 2016, BFS researchers have been very active indeed. We’ve posted seventeen new peer-reviewed articles and conference papers on the BFS website!

The new publications report research on a wide variety of projects, including carbon and nitrogen storage in soil, effects of drought on bird species richness, a revised taxonomy of a cleptoparasitic (cuckoo) bee genus, refuges that enable native snails to avoid heat and dessication, genetics of nitrogen-fixing sympbiotic bacteria, interactions of non-native grasses with native annuals, genetics of fairy shrimp, using underwater robots to track marine life and examine archeological sites, effects of leg loss on reproduction of Green Lynx Spiders, effects of disturbance on ground spider populations, and others!

We at the Claremont Colleges are incredibly fortunate to have a resource that supports such diverse research. In fact, Onuferko (2018) states in the Acknowledgements of his article,

I thank the Claremont Colleges and in particular Dr. Wallace Meyer (Pomona College) for giving me access to collect Epeolus and other bees at the Robert J. Bernard Biological Field Station in Claremont, California. The area hosts several uncommon/rare cuckoo bees, and its importance as a refugium for native species in an otherwise completely human-transformed environment cannot be overstated.”

Here is the complete list of articles with links to abstracts and the full text of the articles (where available), along with a few photos of some of the experimental subjects:

California Shoulderband (Helminthoglypta tudiculata) – see Osborne & Wright (2018).

• Caspi, T., L. Estrada, A.V. Dowling, E. Su, M. Leshchinskiy, A.R.O. Cavalcanti, E.J. Crane, C.R. Robins, and W.M. Meyer III. 2018. Carbon and nitrogen in the topsoils of inceptisols and mollisols under native sage scrub and non-native grasslands in southern California. Geoderma Regional. In Press. Abstract | HTML (subscription required)
• Myers, B.M., E.J. Questad, M.D. Hubbell, and D.J. Moriarty. 2018. Trends in bird species richness in the midst of drought. Western Birds. In press. Abstract
• Onuferko, T.M. 2018. A revision of the cleptoparasitic bee genus Epeolus Latreille for Nearctic species, north of Mexico (Hymenoptera, Apidae). ZooKeys 755: 1–185. Abstract | HTML | PDF


Bishop Lotus (Acmispon strigosus) – see Pahua et al. (2018) and Regus et al. (2017)

• Osborne, T.R., and J.C. Wright. 2018. Seeking refuge in subsurface microhabitats during aestivation aids avoidance of lethally high temperature and desiccation in the snail Helminthoglypta tudiculata (Binney, 1843) (Pulmonata: Helminthoglyptidae). Journal of Molluscan Studies 84: 132-140. Abstract | HTML | PDF (subscription required)
• Pahua, V.J., P.J. N. Stokes, A.C. Hollowell, J.U. Regus, K.A. Gano-Cohen, C.E. Wendlandt, K.W. Quides, J.Y. Lyu, and J.L. Sachs. 2018. Fitness variation among host species and the paradox of ineffective rhizobia. J. Evol. Biol. 31: 599-610. Abstract | HTML | PDF (from Sachs lab)
• Thomson, D.M., J.W. Kwok, and E.L. Schultz. 2018. Extreme drought alters growth and interactions with exotic grasses, but not survival, for a California annual forb. Plant Ecology 219: 705-717. Abstract | HTML | PDF (subscription required)


Distant Phacelia (Phacelia distans) – see Thomson et al. (2018)

• Aguilar, A., A.M. Maeda-Martínez, G. Murugan, H. Obregón-Barboza, D.C. Rogers, K. McClintock, and J.L. Krumm. 2017. High intraspecific genetic divergence in the versatile fairy shrimp Branchinecta lindahli with a comment on cryptic species in the genus Branchinecta (Crustacea: Anostraca). Hydrobiologia 801: 59-69. Abstract | HTML | PDF (subscription required)
• Lin, Y., J. Hsiung, R. Piersall, C. White, C.G. Lowe, and C.M. Clark. 2017. A multi-autonomous underwater vehicle system for autonomous tracking of marine life. J. Field Robotics 34: 757–774. Abstract | HTML (subscription required) | PDF (from Clark lab)
• Ramirez, M.G., J.N. Takemoto, and C.M. Oliveri. 2017. Leg Loss and Fitness in Female Green Lynx Spiders Peucetia viridans (Araneae: Oxyopidae). Arachnology 17(6): 277-281. Abstract | HTML | PDF (Subscription required)


Green Lynx Spider (Peucetia viridans) – see Ramirez et al. (2017)

• Regus, J.U., C.E. Wendlandt, R.M. Bantay, K.A. Gano-Cohen, N.J. Gleason, A.C. Hollowell, M.R. O’Neill, K.K. Shahin, and J.L. Sachs. 2017. Nitrogen deposition decreases the benefits of symbiosis in a native legume. Plant Soil 414: 159-170. Abstract | HTML (subscription required) | PDF (from Sachs lab)
• Spear, D.M., T.A. Adams, E.S. Boyd, M.M. Dipman, W.J. Staubus, and W.M. Meyer. 2017. The effects of development, vegetation-type conversion, and fire on low-elevation Southern California spider assemblages. Invertebr. Biol. 136: 134–145. Abstract | HTML | PDF (subscription required)
• Thomson, D.M., R.A. King, and E.L. Schultz. 2017. Between invaders and a risky place: Exotic grasses alter demographic tradeoffs of native forb germination timing. Ecosphere 8(10): e01987. Abstract | HTML | PDF


A robot ready for deployment at pHake Lake – see Lin et al. (2017), Viswanathan et al. (2017), Anderson et al. (2016), and Smith et al. (2016).

• Viswanathan, V.K., Z. Lobo, J. Lupanow, S.S. von Fock, Z. Wood, T. Gambin, and C. Clark. 2017. AUV motion-planning for photogrammetric reconstruction of marine archaeological sites. 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) Abstract |PDF (from Clark lab)
• Anderson, J., B. Belcher, K. Clark, J. Faust, E. Hall, J. Sandoval, K. Tozer, and R.N. Smith. 2016. Development and implementation of a marine robotics algorithm validation testbed. OCEANS 2016 MTS/IEEE Monterey Abstract | PDF (from Smith lab)
• Fiesler, E., and T. Drake. 2016. Macro-invertebrate biodiversity of a coastal prairie with vernal pool habitat. Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e6732. Abstract | HTML | PDF
• Smith, K.D. , S.C. Hsiung, C. White, C.G. Lowe and C.M. Clark. 2016. Stochastic modeling and control for tracking the periodic movement of marine animals via AUVs. 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Daejeon, 2016: 3101-3107. Abstract | PDF (from Clark lab)
• Krumm, J.L. 2013. Axial Gynandromorphy and Sex Determination in Branchinecta lindahli (Branchiopoda: Anostraca). Journal of Crustacean Biology 33: 303–308. Abstract | HTML | PDF

Tags: publications