UC reserve brings classroom to nature
By Eileen Chen
April 14, 2005 9:00 p.m.
Across the state there are a number of unique and extensive
natural reserves which house diverse flora and fauna, and groups of
researchers studying subjects from archaeology to biology to
ecology ““ all managed by the University of California.
Of these natural reserves, UCLA manages one called Stunt Ranch
which is nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Stunt Ranch is one of 35 sites of the UC Natural Reserve System
of “living laboratories and classrooms,” which was
founded in 1965 for scientific research, conservation efforts and
educational outreach.
“The (Natural Reserve) system is very unique in the world
because no other university has anything like this,” said
Peter Nonacs, associate professor of evolution, ecology and
biology.
“In terms of research and conservation, (the UC Natural
Reserve System) is unparalleled,” he added.
In addition, the UC Natural Reserve system is incomparable
because it allows researchers to begin long-term projects which
might span over years and decades, said Alan Muth, director of Boyd
Deep Canyon Springs Natural Reserve.
David Greenfield, a former UC Riverside assistant professor, is
just one example of someone doing research at the reserves.
Greenfield started studying the acoustic communication between
grasshoppers and since then, his own graduate students and their
subsequent graduate students have come back to this same site, Muth
said.
“Same spot, same population; you can’t guarantee
that anywhere else than the NRS,” he said.
In Stunt Ranch, alongside the graduate and college students
researching post-fire ecosystem dynamics, are elementary school
students participating in acorn grinding, art projects and village
games of the Chumash, an American Indian tribe.
Since Stunt Ranch is closer to an urban area than other natural
reserves, it hosts formal school programs for students in the
greater Los Angeles area, said Carol Felixson, director of
education and community outreach at Stunt Ranch.
Generally, three to four thousand students visit the reserve
under the coordination of the Cold Creek Docents, a division of the
Mountains Restoration Trust. The docents program takes the students
on a 1.5 mile hike on the Stunt High Trail to the educational zone
for interactive activities.
Named for the Stunt family, the Santa Monica reserve is 310
acres and contains Cold Creek watershed, one of the most pristine
watersheds on the West Coast.
In fact, many of the natural reserves in the system are
virtually untouched and represent nearly every kind of natural
habitat found in California, Nonacs said.
Nonacs speaks from personal experience with the Natural Reserve
System.
As of five years ago, Nonacs and his colleagues began studying
the behavioral ecology of harvester ants at the Sierra Nevada
Research Lab.
The data was then compiled to determine the colonial and
parental investments of harvester ants in their offspring.
“The offspring, male or female, never return to the
original ant colony after they mate,” Nonacs said. The male
dies after mating and the pregnant female goes out to begin her own
colony as queen.
Currently, there are two models of parentage ““ one that
states parents produce offspring of the same size and one that
states that the offspring are of various sizes.
Since ant colonies are not made for food storage, in times of an
abundance of food, the nutrition is given to the existing offspring
instead of being used by parents for additional reproduction, thus
yielding various sizes of offspring within a colony.
Over the twenty-some years Muth has been working at the natural
reserve, he has also been studying the fringe-toed lizard, which is
listed as endangered by federal and state law.
“These animals’ habitats are 10 percent of what it
was 100 years ago,” Muth explained.
The natural reserve will probably prevent extinction, but will
not be able to have the species de-listed from the endangered
animals list.
