Avena Fatua, is an oatgrass, invasive in this area of southern California, which dries out in early summer contributing to the high fire threats.
This internship is placed at the San Diego Zoological Institute for Conservation Research, our main goal is to collect SOS seeds for restoration. This location is nice since we have the opportunity to not only collect in the desert, but also chaparral, and coastal sage scrub. We were also fortunate enough to help with various other research projects including, Herp Array monitoring for biodiversity and Stephen’s Kangaroo Rat Habitat Monitoring, which included a prescribed burn.
The Biodiversity study, located on the 900 acre preserve adjunct to the Wild Animal Park, is meant to monitor small mammals, reptiles and amphibians living in the preserve. A series of several herp arrays with buried buckets trap creatures at night and then are assessed by scientists and volunteers the next morning.
Three arrays radiate from the center bucket of herp array 9. The plastic fencing serves to drive the creatures towards the bucket as they look for a way around.
My fellow intern and I got to help with this assessment for two days and saw a few species of snake, pocket mice, kangaroo rats, and tons of lizards! It was very educational to be exposed to the different techniques of weighing the animals, marking the lizards, capture and rerelease.
This side blotch lizard was captured in one of the herp arrays
The Stephen’s Kangaroo Rat Study takes place an hour and half North of the Institute near Temecula, CA. The Applied Plant Ecology Division is working on assessing the grassland vegetation in the area for release of Stephen’s Kangaroo Rats (SKR) that will be released later in the fall. The plots are actually hexagons with various treatments for invasive including herbicide, mowing, sheep grazing, and fire. Monitoring these plots was actually really fun because we had great weather and got to learn about 5 invasive grass species in one day. Along with assisting in habitat enrichment, control of the invasive grasses should limit the amount of fuels available for wildfires.
I am holding a species of Kangaroo Rat, which looks similar to the SKR targeted in the study.
Posing with our favorite field guide: Native Plants of San Diego County. Thank you James Lightner!
A great part of this placement is that not only do we get to work in gorgeous natural areas but also we are also very close to San Diego. The Marina is a great place for sunsets and sailboats.
Angelique Herman
San Diego Zoological Institute for Conservation Research
Escondido, CA