Six Rivers, Six Scientists
Behind California’s infamously arduous “Redwood Curtain” lies a research lab…
…on the Preston Forest Research Site, a wooded, 3-acre site on the Humboldt State University campus in Arcata, California. This lab is part of the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station and houses research hydrologists, geologists, wildlife and fisheries biologists, plant ecologists, biometricians, research technicians, and support personnel who are conducting watershed, wildlife, and fisheries research applicable to the Pacific Northwest from Alaska to California.
Let’s meet six Redwood Sciences Lab scientists:
Dr. Karen Pope is a Wildlife Biologist. Her research interests specialize in applied research directed toward the conservation of amphibians and reptiles, especially in mountain environments. However, many of her projects also address key basic concepts in ecology like the role of ecosystem subsidy in supporting wildlife populations and how population dynamics are affected by pathogens.
Dr. Bret Harvey is a Research Fish Biologist. His research interests are relationships between stream fishes and habitat features such as depth, cover, sediment conditions, and barriers to fish movement; biotic interactions within stream food webs; and the dependence of these interactions on habitat, and the success and effects of introduced fishes in streams.
Linda Long is a Wildlife Biologist who conducts her studies out of the Arcata lab. She assists on station climate change research and localized needs (regional work). The bulk of her research has been focused on ornithology, including Pacific Seabirds.
Ted Weller is an Ecologist. His research interests are developing quantitative methods for assessment of bat populations; mitigating impacts of wind energy development on populations of migratory bats; and seasonal ecology of bats in forests of northwestern California.
Elizabeth Keppeler is a Hydrologist who works primarily out of Fort Bragg, CA where she works on the Casper Creek Experimental Watershed where along with a team of researchers, she conducts studies evaluating the effects of timber management on streamflow, sedimentation, and erosion in the rainfall-dominated forested watersheds of the northern coast of California.
Dr. Joseph Wagenbrenner is a Research Hydrologist. His research interests are understanding the complexity of hydrologic processes at various spatial and temporal scales; determining the effects that humans have on different components of the hydrologic cycle, understanding the effects of fire and other forest disturbances on hydrologic processes; and identifying the impacts of practices used to mitigate these effects. This work will help provide an understanding of the resiliency, function, and health of natural and human-impacted environments.
What is Forest Service R&D and Who is PSW?
The USDA Forest Service Research and Development (FS R&D) is the world’s largest forestry research organization. FS R&D conducts ecological and social science research to understand ecosystems, how humans influence those systems, and how to manage for sustained and enhanced benefits.
FS R&D operates five Research Stations, the Forest Products Laboratory, and the International Institute of Tropical Forestry. It employs more than 500 scientists, as well as several hundred technical and support personnel located at 67 sites throughout the United States.
The Pacific Southwest Research Station represents FS R&D in the states of California and Hawaiʻi and the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands. The region has the lowest, driest desert in the country, the highest elevations within the 48 contiguous States, and the wettest tropical forests. It is home to an abundantly diverse array of native plants and animals and nearly half of the Nation’s threatened and endangered species. PSW scientists conduct a broad array of natural resources research to achieve our mission to “develop and communicate science needed to sustain forest ecosystems and their benefits to society.”
For Further Information, Contact:
Jacey Goddard
Public Affairs Specialist
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Southwest Research Station
Email
www.fs.fed.us/psw
