CCBER - Director's Report

Our biodiversity collections contain over half a million regionally focused specimens including many specimens from UCSB faculty and the beginning of restoration ecology in the South-Central Coast. We house the collections of past chancellors and many faculty and graduate students. These are research collections, with 340 specimen loans to and from other research institutions occurring last year. Since 2016, our collections have been attributed to 90 peer-reviewed journal publications. UCSB Natural History Collections staff specialize in data science, museum studies, systematics, morphology, biogeography, and taxonomy of plants, reptiles, and insects. Activities this year included fieldwork at several sites across central and northern California including five of the UCSB Reserves, most of the Channel Islands, and at three locations in Colombia. Courses taught by staff researchers include Ethnobotany (Greg Wahlert - ENVS 193EB/ANTH197EB), Vertebrate Biology, Ecology and Evolution (Chris Evelyn - EEMB 113), and Entomology (Katja Seltmann - EEMB 118). We also organize public events including biodiversity workshops, digitization days, and open houses.

CCBER Director, Katja Seltmann is leading the biodiversity data science component of the National Science Foundation Terrestrial Parasite Tracker project, which involves 27 different research institutions. Arthropods are important carriers of human disease, but scientists do not know how they will respond to the changing environment. The Terrestrial Parasite Tracker project began in 2019 and is funded to mobilize data from vector and ectoparasite biodiversity collections to help build a comprehensive picture of arthropod host-association evolution, distributions, and the ecological interactions of disease vectors which will assist scientists, educators, land managers, and policymakers. Arthropod parasites often are important to human and wildlife health and safety as vectors of pathogens, and it is critical to digitize these specimens so that they, and their biotic interaction data, will be available to help understand and predict the spread of human and wildlife disease.

The Cheadle Center has been a key player in the planning, grant writing, and implementation of the 136-acre North Campus Open Space Restoration project. The $15 million-dollar NCOS project provides our community with access to an expanse of coastal open space that extends 2.25 miles along the Ellwood-Devereux coast. The site connects several existing preserved properties, including UCSB’s South Parcel, Coal Oil Point Reserve, as well as the City of Goleta’s Sperling Preserve at Ellwood Mesa Restoration construction began in April 2017 and planting began in September 2017. Bridge and Trail construction was completed in June 2018. The Marsh Trail, adjacent to the wetlands opened to the public in October 2018 and includes ADA accessible boardwalks and bridges for public access and passive recreation. There is a lot more information about the trails, boardwalk, and visitor plaza on the CCBER website or stay connected through NCOS News.

Many of NCOS public amenities are in place including trails, benches, overlooks and the Carlton-Duncan Visitors Plaza. Open to the public, the importance of North Campus Open Space (NCOS) as a place of beauty and respite is more important today than ever.

New for 2019-2020 is the establishment of a thriving population of the Endangered Plant - Ventura Marsh Milk-vetch, Astragalus pycnostachys var lanosissimus, at North Campus Open Space in collaboration with funding from California Native Plant Society and US Fish and Wildlife partnership. These are a few of over 300,000 plants planted at NCOS this year. As the site becomes established, we are seeing the natural recruitment of many natives. In addition to wetland plants, CCBER Restoration collaborated with the student group Your Children's Trees to complete the planting of more than 240 trees at NCOS. Research continues with many UCSB faculty at including Josh Schimel and Jacob Weverka (soil microbial activity); Carla D'Antonio and Joanna Tang (vernal pool restoration); Jennifer King and Derek Pagenkopp (gas flux); and Bruce Kendall worked with data from bird surveys and endangered plant research. The data from NCOS and all of CCBER work is available through the CCBER website or by request. At the beginning of 2020, we see the construction of the visitor-serving elements such as overlooks with benches, visitors plaza, and a discovery trail. Elsewhere in restoration on campus, CCBER expanded restoration of the area known as Campus Point - converting it from ice plant to diverse bluff scrub vegetation. We also completed restoration at Sierra Madre area and San Joaquin housing area.

Each year, over 30 research interns, paid or volunteer UCSB graduate and undergraduate students, work with our Restoration and UCSB Natural History collections staff. A few of our recent student projects include an aquatic invertebrate biodiversity study of Deveraux Slough; an inventory of lichens and ants of Santa Barbara County; comparison of soil amendments for restoration, conservation of the endangered Nipomo Lupine, the evolution of parasitic wasps, and many, many others. We co-author publications, professional talks, and posters with our students, and provide in-depth research experience. This year, three of our long-term student interns accepted Research Assistantships for Ph.D. or MS programs.

One of our UCSB Natural History Collections and CCBER Restoration Undergraduate Research Projects, the UCSBees, has recorded over 90 kinds of bees in our local area over the past 2 years. This year, 10 interns participated in the project (virtually after March) collecting specimens, curating, and participating in research projects. The project extends over three UCSB reserves (Coal Oil Point, Carpentaria Salt Marsh, and Santa Cruz Island Reserve), North Campus Open Space, and our campus. A highlight from the project is the discovery of the federally endangered Crotch's bumblebee on the UCSB campus at North Campus Open Space and near Bren School. Several student projects are supported by the UCSB Coastal Fund including pollen metabarcoding, recording of historical and new collections in our local checklist, and an updated inventory of Santa Cruz Island bee fauna. UCSB Associated Students Coastal Fund supported the UCSBees program this year, which involves students and staff conducting studies on the bees and the plants they pollinate at different sites on campus and elsewhere in the region. These sites vary broadly in terms of management and type of vegetation, from developed and heavily landscaped sites dominated by exotic species to sites currently undergoing restoration (such as NCOS) and more established natural sites (such as Coal Oil Point Nature Reserve). In this blog post, we highlight three of the UCSBees student projects and some of the different bees that can be seen at NCOS and other sites in the region.

UCSBees project provides student research opportunities and helps us protect and learn about our native pollinators.

Kids in Nature goes virtual!

Kids in Nature goes virtual! Staff at CCBER's award-winning Kids in Nature program have been discussing the idea of virtual lessons and activities for several years, but never felt like it was the right time to bring that idea to fruition. COVID-19 quickly made it the right time. In March, our Kids in Nature field trips for area K-12 students were canceled abruptly and our staff and the students began working and teaching from home. Andy Lanes, a KIN staff member, started filming the natural areas on the UCSB campus including the UCSB Lagoon and North Campus Open. He began creating a series of "virtual field trips" funded through a recent Faculty Outreach Grant (FOG) that focus on a citizen science partnership between the UCSB Natural History Collections and local 5th-grade classrooms. After each field trip, we offered a question and answer section for the 5th-grade students through zoom, where students may ask questions related to the videos and get immediate and in-person feedback. CCBER would like to thank the many partners that make this program a success including Mosher Foundation, UCSB Office of Research, UCSB Executive Vice Chancellor, The Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, UCSB Coastal Fund, UCSB Environmental Studies Department, and the UCSB Division of Mathematical, Life, and Physical Sciences.

The mission of the 20 year running Kids in Nature Environmental Education program at the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration is to promote the aspirations and achievements of students in underserved schools by providing quality environmental science education and experiences. For both students and teachers, we create and encourage personal connections to the natural world, which will foster an interest in becoming stewards of the environment. KIN has a significant impact on the students' understanding, involvement in, and awareness of environmental issues through engaging and challenging activities and positive interactions with scientists, CCBER staff, UCSB graduate and undergraduate students both in class and on field trips.  KIN participants spend a significant amount of time on the UCSB campus, which helps to demystify the university and provides the students with opportunities to learn about programs and the campus environment. There are many ways to become involved with Kids in Nature. If it is through undergraduate learning with the Kids in Nature Science Practicum Course, one-day field trips, workshops, educational tours of our natural history museum or ecological restoration sites, planting days at North Campus Open Space, or classroom visits from our staff, we are dedicated to connecting the Kids In our community to Nature.

CCBER’s current fundraising efforts are focused on our CCBER and NCOS Endowments to support the long-term management of our campus biodiversity legacy that is the UCSB Natural History Collections and the vital restoration, research and land stewardship at North Campus Open Space. The CCBER Director’s Council continues to serve as a connection between the CCBER and the community at large. Many members of the Director’s Council have made generous gifts to CCBER’s operations this year and have continued to promote CCBER and our legacy and aspirations. Many thanks to Ed and Sue Birch, Bill and Mary Cheadle, Joseph Cheadle, James Markham, Suzanne and Duncan Mellichamp, Greg and Dale Stamos, Larry Friesen, Jennifer Thorsch, and Shirly Tucker.

We are grateful for the benefit of collaborative efforts through the North Campus Open Space Scientific Advisory Committee, the Director’s Council, CCBER Advisory Committee, Earth Research Institute, UCSB Office of Development and our natural history collection Curators and CCBER Research Affiliates.  Both the Executive Vice Chancellor’s office and Office of Research have generously supported CCBER programs. It has been a crazy year, but CCBER is thriving, and we look forward to continuing these great programs that fostering unique research experiences for students and continue our stewardship of campus lands.