UCSB-Santa
Barbara County Oak Restoration Project
Principal Investigators:
Dr. Bruce Mahall, Dept. of Biological Sciences, UCSB;
Dr. Frank Davis, Bren School, UCSB; and
Dr. Claudia Tyler,
The Institute for Computational Earth System Science (ICESS),
UCSB.
Download the Executive
Summary of our Final Report to Santa Barbara County (October 2005)
pdf format
Download the entire
Final Report to Santa Barbara County (October 2005) pdf format (3.3
Mb)
Project Summary
We are conducting
a long-term oak regeneration program to improve our understanding
of the role of cattle and other ecological factors in limiting or
promoting recruitment by valley oak (Quercus lobata), blue
oak (Q. douglasii), and coast live oak (Q. agrifolia).
We will translate our findings into both management recommendations
and prescriptions for restoring oak woodlands and savannas. More
than 75% of oak woodland and savanna ecosystems in California is
grazed by cattle, making cattle the most pervasive anthropogenic
influence on these ecosystems and on their oak populations. For
this reason, a careful examination of the effects of cattle grazing
must be a central theme of a comprehensive investigation of oak
regeneration and restoration. The specific goals of this research
are to:
- conduct large-scale
grazing and related experiments that will determine the factors
affecting the establishment of valley, live and blue oaks in ecosystems
represented on
Sedgwick Ranch
- develop a
prescription for actively promoting oak regeneration in such ecosystems
- disseminate
our findings in the form of presentations, onsite demonstration
projects, and literature that is directed towards local landowners
and resource managers interested in the management and restoration
of oak woodlands.
All research is
being conducted on the
Sedgwick Reserve, a 5860 acre (2372 ha) ranch located at the base
of Figueroa Mountain. Under a a cooperative grazing agreement with
the College of Agriculture at California Polytechnic University, San
Luis Obispo, students and faculty from Cal Poly maintain and care
for the cattle herd at Sedgwick, and assist with the application of
grazing treatments in our experiments.
Presentations
Publications
Tyler,
B.E. Mahall, F.W. Davis, and M. Hall. 2002. Factors
limiting recruitment in valley and coast live oak. Proceedings
of the Fifth Symposium on Oak Woodlands, USDA Forest Service General
Technical Report PSW-GTR-184, pp.565-572.
For more
info on the ecology of oaks: