JRBP('O'O) July-August 2025 Newsletter

 

July-August 2025

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Jorge Ramos will be attending the Ecological Society of America annual meeting in Baltimore, MD, next week. If you are attending, find Jorge at the various ESA SEEDS events; Wednesday‪ Panel on Careers at a Research Station withOBFS friends; and Thursday poster session to learn about our new wildfire resilience initiatives at JRBP ('O'O).

 

The County Mosquito and Vector Control will be carrying out their annual spraying to control mosquito larvae in Searsville at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve ('Ootchamin 'Ooyakma). The second date only serves as a back-up in case there are technical issues. Next dates include: 

 

Building construction is set to resume the second week of August and is expected to be completed by the end of October 2025. 

 

PG&E has installed a weather station on an existing utility pole between the field station road and the Sand Hill fence.  This station joins the network of 1,300 weather stations PG&E has constructed in California to monitor local weather and improve wildfire safety.  The link is Synoptic Data Viewer. This complements the existing weather resources provided by Jasper Ridge.

 

Frangos C., Kamets, B., Sonawane, C., & Dirzo, R. (2025). Acorn dispersal location and predation risk beneath nurse plants in a Californian oak woodland. Forest Ecology and Management, 594, 122978

Student researcher and Mellon grant awardee, Chrysanthe Frangos, investigated the interaction between acorn dispersal location and predation risk beneath nurse plants in the Californian oak woodland at Jasper Ridge.

 

Kiara Fufunan was awarded the Earth Systems Award for Outstanding Research for her undergraduate honors thesis “Assessing the biogeochemical impacts of prescribed fire on nitrogen cycling in chaparral: Implications for ecosystem recovery and land management”. Kiara worked with Dr. Alandra Lopez, Katie Huy, and Prof. Scott Fendorf. Click here to read her honors thesis.

 

Read the new blog summarizing the highlights of Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve ('Ootchamin 'Ooyakma) during the Environmental Justice Through the Lens of Indigenous Peoples: Research Agendas to Address Unanswered Questions Conference. Presenters included Joey Torres, Richard Torres, and Bernadette Quiroz, members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, who shared some of their current collaborative projects with JRBP ('O'O). 

 

 

Chinmay Sonawane, Maya Xu, Natalie Ward, and Rodolfo Dirzo, a team of Stanford University students, faculty and Jasper Ridge affiliates published a new article titled Global decline of apex scavengers threatens human health in PNAS. The Stanford Report wrote a wonderful summary of their article, read more here.

 

Professor Barnabas Daru was named a 2025 Sloan Research Fellow and was elected as a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London earlier this summer. Dr. Barnabas Daru is being recognized for his major contributions to plant biogeography and biodiversity science.

 

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Rong Liu, a postdoctoral scholar in the Dept. of Biology with the Daru lab, is investigating relationships between plant functional traits (e.g. specific leaf area) at large biogeographic scales.

 

Norzin Tenzin, PhD student in the Dept. of Biology in the Guzman lab, is investigating interactions between arthropods and native and introduced plants across Central Asia and Turtle Island using herbarium specimens.

 

Emily Humphreys, PhD student in the Tribble lab at the U. of Washington, is investigating the role of abiotic stress tolerance in botanical evolution onto specialist substrates, using onions (Allium) as a test case. 

 

Bernard Kim, Asst. Prof. at Princeton University was a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Dmitri Petrov, and they are now collaborating to build an encyclopedia of North American fruit flies (Drosophila). 

 

Cherie De Vore, Asst. Prof at U. of Arizona was a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Scott Fendorf, and she revisited 2021 and 2022 sites to compare soil biogeochemistry in the serpentine and chert grasslands at the preserve.

 

Learn about the Jasper Ridge Microclimate Sensor Array project being conducted by Prof. Jeff Dukes.

 

 

Educational visits brought six summer programs and their student cohorts to Jasper Ridge, along with docents from Año Nuevo State Park! Student cohorts from the Doerr School of Sustainability programs SURGE, SESUR, and Young Investigators came to the Ridge. We also had programs from the Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute and Ohlone College's Summer STEM Bridge return. For the first time, we hosted pre-college students enrolled in the course "Spiritual Ecologies" at the Humanities Institute, and we enjoyed the rich discussions about our place in nature.  

 

In all, approximately 150 students had the experience of morning guided tours at Jasper Ridge. During the month of July, docents fostered camaraderie and shared with guests learning and teaching experiences about the preserve's ecosystems and research.   

 

 

Summer is here, and we are excited for the third summer of our Stewardship Intern Program! Starting in June, two Stanford students, Atash Heil and Jaime Yu (docent class of 2025!) will be interning at the preserve for 10 weeks this summer to help to continue collecting data from the fuel reduction monitoring plots, support invasive species management, and explore independent projects. Stop by to say hi to Atash and Jaime! They will be presenting their final research projects on the main campus on Aug 28, 2025.

 

 

 

Sheena continues to develop the first preserve-wide invasive species assessment and mapping effort with the help of Atash and Jaime. Additionally, Sheena has been initiating and coordinating management events with staff, docents, and volunteers, focusing on two priority species: stinkwort (Dittrichia graveolens) and Fuller’s teasel (Dipsacus sativus). Please reach out to Sheena if you are interested in supporting invasive management and participating in future management events.

 

 

Your support is essential in all of our research, educational and stewardship activities!

 

Thank you, docents, for helping researchers with their projects: Jerry Hearn, Dan Quinn, Teal Derrer

 

Thank you to the docents who lead educational tours in June and July—your energy, time and support are greatly appreciated! Adelaide Nye, Alix Marduel, Atessa Anoshiravani, Bob Siegel, Catherine Magill, Christine Martens, Claire Elliott, Dan Quinn, Dawn Neisser, Esther Tok, Geoff Baker, Helen Quinn, Jackie Magno, Jane Moss, Jerry Hearn, Kelly Benitez, Klaus Porzig, Mary Bernstein, Orianna Min, Paul Heiple, Sarah Macway, Stu Kortez, and Teal Derrer.

 

Thank you to all docents who have supported stewardship related projects, which included field work and trainings: Rebecca Reynolds, Mary Bernstein, Paul Heiple, Kit Gordon, Perry McCarty, Alice Cummings, Teal Derrer, Nona Chiariello, Catherine Magill, Diane Renshaw, Dawn Neisser, John Rawlings.

 

 

To support JRBP ('O'O) in its new challenges, please visit our Donate page (link here), thank you!

 

 

Summer is here, and we are excited for the third summer of our Stewardship Intern students, Atash Heil and Jaime Yu! Read the blog to learn more about Atash and Jaime. They will be focusing on stewardship efforts at the preserve and working with researchers, faculty, and docents. Photo credit: Sheena Sidhu.