Wildlife Responses to California Wildfires
Justin Brashares, Professor
Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2024 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2025.
Several aspects of global change are changing the dynamics of fire ecology across California and around the world. Recent fires have had devastating effects on livelihoods across the state, but little remains known of the direct and indirect impacts of these fires on wildlife species and the implications of those impacts for their future conservation.
The 2018 River Fire, the southern half of the Mendocino Complex (now the largest fire in California's history), entered the Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC) in late July and burned approximately 3,000 acres (over half of the center’s total acreage). The center is composed of a diverse range of habitat types including grassland, oak woodland, and chaparral, all represented by plant species characteristic of a mixed-severity fire regime. HREC is situated at an intersection of wildlands and ranchlands; it provides habitat for a diverse range of wildlife and also serves as pastoral land for people and livestock. As is becoming increasingly common while human populations expand outward towards wilderness lands, HREC straddles landscapes for both wildlife and human settlement. These Urban-Wildland Interfaces have also received recent attention as being areas of high risk for future fires. As more of California begins to resemble Hopland and other WUIs, HREC presents itself as a unique and powerful opportunity to study the future implications of fire for the rest of the state and, perhaps, provide insights on how we can best build ecosystems resilient to this threat. We use a combination of biodiversity monitoring methods (camera traps, acoustic monitors, and ultrasonic monitors) to assess wildlife presence across this landscape.
To better understand the mechanisms of recovery in this system I plan to perform the following studies and ask these questions:
1. How are the distributions of species across the Hopland Research Center directly impacted by this recent wildfire?
2. How may the direct impacts on certain species impact the interactions between other species as well as the structure of ecological communities.
3. How may these interactions change over time in response to the environment recovering over time.
Role: The student will be responsible for assisting in the organization of collected camera trap images. The student will sort camera trap photos and identify wildlife within them. This is the main focus for the URAP position and can be done remotely.
All work for this project can be done remotely, off campus.
Qualifications: Students with skills in identifying medium-large sized mammals native to California is desired. Attention to detail and good organizational skills are required for cleaning camera trap data.
Remote trainings will be provided for students participating.
Hours: to be negotiated
Off-Campus Research Site: All work will be done remotely, but we'll plan to have regular check-ins via Zoom.
Social Sciences Environmental Issues