Sampling with the macroinvertebrate team

I'm pretty sure it's not everybody who gets to go hang out in Yosemite for a couple of days for work. Believe me, I do feel lucky. I have to say, though, the smoke in the air in the Wawona and Yosemite Valley areas where I went last week was pretty nasty. Four days after returning I am finally starting to feel normal again. Of course, the smoke has been awful down here in the Central Valley, too, so I can't really blame Yosemite.

And my interactions with the students and leaders of the YLP and REU programs definitely transcended the woodsmoke. It was so exciting and fun to meet those I met, and I can't wait to go back and talk with some more people.

Thursday, my husband Glenn (a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Systems at UC Merced) and I drove up to Wawona together in an SNRI truck. He had some field work to do in Yosemite Valley, and he was scheduled to talk for the YLP and REU students on Friday. We had a nice drive listening to Abbey Road and eating Cheez-Its. (We have 4 kids, so our snacks are usually kid snacks.)

We finally got to the Wawona Field Station, and for all the times I have written about this facility this was the first time I have been there in person. Kind of a shame I have not made it up there before! It is a charming little white clapboard house with green trim and a beautiful big porch. Inside, the living areas have been converted to office space. There's also some lab/staging area and a kitchen.

I met up with Benoit Dayrat from the UC Merced School of Natural Sciences and the two students on his REU team - Alejandro from the University of Puerto Rico and Cymphonee from UC Riverside. They were just about to go out sampling near Happy Isle in Yosemite Valley. I invited myself to go along, and they were really nice about cramming me in their little natural gas powered car and letting me ask lots of questions.

Of course I made myself carsick taking notes as we drove along the winding highway. (If this happens to you on the winding mountain roads, try closing your eyes for a few minutes and focusing on your breathing. I once heard that carsickness is related to an overload of sensory input and the inability to process it all. A little meditation-style technique seems to help.)

I think we were all glad to get out of the car near Happy Isle. It was very weird to see the valley through so much smoke. It seemed to take the dimension out of everything and made the whole panorama look like a painted backdrop in a movie from the 1940s or so - the exact opposite of the clarity you expect if you've seen the best images of the park. We felt terrible on behalf of those who had traveled across the world to spend a few days in Yosemite and ended up with this hazy experience.

Alejandro, Cymphonee and Benoit all donned their hip waders and we tromped a short distance to a still spot in the river. The team (can I call them ABC?) proceeded to manually clean off a couple of armfuls of dead wood that had been submerged in the river, making sure everything they took off landed in a plastic bin of river water. Then they sorted through this bin using sieves and forceps to look for aquatic macroinvertebrates. I was mostly taking pictures and notes, because to my chagrin, there were no fresh batteries available for my digital audio recorder. I had a great time learning about stonefly larvae, water pennies, flatworms, and other invertebrate species. Later we went to another location and sampled from underneath rocks and from submerged mosses.

It was amazing for me to see this very small scale perspective on Yosemite, and especially the Merced River. I have always visited the park with Glenn, who is a hydrologist. Because he studies the big picture of the watershed and the chemistry of the river, I have always seen the park through his eyes, so to speak, as a very large scale water system . It was a fascinating and refreshing change to get acquainted with these tiny creatures who depend on that water.

Benoit told me there are a few motivations for his broad survey of aquatic macroinvertebrates in the park. First, there is simply very little known right now about what is there. A baseline survey is needed so that we can track how biodiversity among this group of species may change in the future. Changes may give us information about water quality or climate change.

I found it a little amusing - ironic, maybe - that a greater diversity of bugs in the water actually means it's healthy, high-quality water. Nature knows where the good stuff is!

I'll post more tomorrow about my time in the park last week!

Yosemite Connection Draws Students to UC Merced Summer Programs

Two innovative programs offer park opportunities for students from UC Merced and other universities

MERCED – Many college students gravitate to jobs and opportunities that take them to the great outdoors for the summer. The University of California, Merced, offers two programs that give students the chance to spend the summer in one of the greatest outdoor destinations in the world, Yosemite National Park.

UC Merced’s Yosemite Leadership Program (YLP) is already underway, and the National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates program (REU) began June 16. The students are in the park through mid-August.

“UC Merced’s physical proximity to Yosemite and Sequoia/King’s Canyon National Parks has helped us develop working relationships and programs that are unique to our campus and extremely beneficial to students and researchers,” said Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies Samuel J. Traina.

Ten students from YLP are interns this summer at the Wawona Field Station operated by the UC Merced Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI) in Yosemite. They work with park rangers and scientists in resources management, wilderness, and public education in positions that include leading guided walks, giving campfire programs, assisting the bear team, assisting archeologists, helping with restoration projects, and working with the wilderness search and rescue team.

A returning advanced intern from last year, Alvaro Luna, will expand on his "Yosemite en Español" interpretation program and will add an interpretation program in French. Other students participating are Orion Agnew, Jeannette Barron, Marie Armstrong, Zander Kurnizki, Chris Hubach, Gesha Uminskiy, Raj Bolla, Money Hothi, Yesi Medina and Renee Smith. Three former YLP interns, Janet Melgoza, Carla Saldana, and P.J. Solomon have returned to Yosemite this summer as paid seasonal rangers.

The YLP internship is a partnership among the UC Merced, the National Park Service, the Yosemite Association, the Yosemite Fund, and the Delaware North Companies. The program has also received generous support from the Toyota Foundation, the Doherty Family Fund and Morgan Stanley. It is overseen by Branch Chief for Education Kathy Dimont of Yosemite National Park.

Two additional UC Merced students, Sunny Grunloh (formerly a YLP intern) and Dannique Aalbu, participate in the REU program funded by the National Science Foundation. Grunloh and Aalbu, along with six other REU students recruited in a highly selective process from universities all over the United States, are paired with science mentors (UC Merced professors and park scientists) to conduct independent research projects in the park. The REU program is led by Professor Benoit Dayrat of the UC Merced School of Natural Sciences.

“From 160 applications, we were able to select only eight students, so you can imagine those participating all have outstanding academic records and motivation,” said Dayrat. “REU is a lifetime unique chance for the students who are participating.”

The YLP and REU students participate together in a new, for-credit, summer seminar called “Science Fridays,” led by the Wawona Field Station director, Eric Berlow, and Dayrat. Science Fridays focus on the process of scientific inquiry, the role of science in natural resource managements, and the communication of science to the public. Weekly lectures and discussions during the seminar expose students to current scientific research being conducted in Yosemite and throughout the Sierra Nevada, give them the tools to think critically about how scientific information is acquired, and expose them to the technological tools that allow scientists to answer large scale questions about critical issues such as climate change. A credentialed English teacher will work with the students to improve their writing and public speaking skills.

The 2008 Sierra Nevada Research Institute Scientific Visualization Fellow (Lauren Benson, UC Santa Cruz) will be in residence at the field station working on a visual display to communicate scientific research to the public. She will also work with students on visual forms of science communication.

The 2008 Sierra Nevada Research Institute Graduate Research Fellow (Sarah Martin, UC Merced) will also be in residence this summer and will work on her dissertation, which examines the impacts of fire control practices on watershed-scale hydrologic processes.

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UC Merced opened Sept. 5, 2005, as the 10^th campus in the University of California system and the first American research university of the 21^st century. The campus significantly expands access to the UC system for students throughout the state, with a special mission to increase college-going rates among students in the San Joaquin Valley. It also serves as a major base of advanced research and as a stimulus to economic growth and diversification throughout the region. Situated near Yosemite National Park, the university is expected to grow rapidly, topping out at approximately 25,000 students within 30 years.