In This Issue - White Mountain Research Center

White Mountain Research Center
University of California
Newsletter
S P R I N G — 2015
Owens Valley Station is in high demand
O
Inside this issue
 Research Highlights
Focus on Research
pen all year, the Owens Valley Station (OVS) is WMRC’s most heavily utilized station. This
-Alpine Flora and effects of
station reports an average of approximately 3,850 user nights each year. The majority of
Climate Change
these users are students in geology and are here with geologic field classes from colleges and uni-Sierra Nevada Willow Leaf
versities from a host of states, including California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, North
Beetles and Climate Change
Carolina and New Hampshire in addition to classes coming from as far away as Canada and England. A variety of researchers and other classes utilize OVS for disciplines in biology, anthropology,
 2015 WMRC
geography and the environmental sciences.
Mini-grant Recipients
T
he original WMRC Owens Valley headquarters was a warehouse in Big Pine, California, leased  From the WMRC
in 1958. The Big Pine location was very convenient for driving up highway 168 to reach the
Archives
upper stations. In 1962 WMRC (formerly WMRS) leased a 9 acre site 3.5 miles east of Bishop from
 Back-Page Pictures
the City of Los Angeles for a new headquarters. The move from Big Pine to Bishop was reportedly
motivated by
the desire for a
site that would
reduce flying
time of helicopters used in the
past to reach
the upper stations at Crooked Creek and
Buildings acquired from US Vanadium Corporation – L-R Main office, Kitchen, dining room, Dorm 1 and Manis Lab
Barcroft.
I
n 1965, three frame buildings -- one formerly an ice house -- were acquired from the US Vanadium Corporation and moved (presumably from its Pine Creek tungsten mine) to the site east
of Bishop. These buildings now house a dormitory, the Manis Lab, and the main office, kitchen and
dining room. In 1966 a pre-fabricated steel building was erected at the Bishop site to serve as a
classroom, and in 1970 another
was added to serve as a dormitory. All these buildings have
been repeatedly remodeled
and/or enlarged over the years.
Modular buildings and trailers
have all proliferated to create
the current Owens Valley
Station.
Dormitory building showing Dorms 2 –5
Focus on Research
Monitoring White Mountain Alpine Plants for Impacts of Climate Change
By Jim Bishop and Connie Millar
A
group of determined investigators trudge upward above the last of the bristlecone pines, climbing toward a summit that
will be their workplace for the day. Cold wind urges closed zippers and upturned collars. At their feet are hardy and beautiful alpine plants, living in a world of less wind and greater warmth than the hikers (and trees) feel. On the peak they’ll outline plots with string and spend the
day identifying the plants, characterizing their abundance and distribution, taking photos, and burying temperature loggers…much of the day spent staring at
the ground or hunched over windblown data sheets. If thunderstorms don’t
shorten the field day much, they should complete the summit by day’s end and
return to Crooked Creek Station with priceless data on dozens of sheets.
T
he upper limit that trees reach is imposed by the average temperature of
their environment. Above that point there is insufficient warmth during the
growing season to allow them to persist…basic processes of cell construction
and growth being too retarded by the low temperatures. A very plausible lowtemperature effect on cell development is on the slowing of “molecular motors”
that convey materials throughout the cell on the cytoskeletal framework, because they are critically dependent on thermal energy for their motion.
Y
Raspberry buckwheat on dolomite, White Mountain in the distance.
Photo: Stu Weiss
et alpine plants do grow above the trees. Their main trick is to remain lowstature, taking advantage of solar heating and minimizing airflow-induced
cooling to achieve sufficient warmth for growth. Many alpine plants avoid the
worst of winter’s bitter cold under the snowpack. The alpine flora prevails in microclimates of sufficient warmth and shelter, where cold air and soil keeps trees
at bay. It is a very climate-sensitive ecosystem, vulnerable to the ascent of trees,
the loss of habitat
with upward migration, and dependent on the snowpack. For the
most part they are undisturbed by human influence. Worldwide,
alpine zones span latitudes from polar to tropical, elevations from a
few hundred meters to over 5000 meters, and maritime as well as
continental climates. It is an ideal place to look for effects of climate
change on living things.
T
o better observe the impacts of climate change on the alpine
flora and its diversity, an international program was born at
the University of Vienna: The
GLobal Observation Research
Initiative in Alpine environments (GLORIA). GLORIA was
brought here by Connie MilAlpine flowers found in the White Mountains. Photos: Catie and Jim Bishop
lar (USFS Pacific Southwest
Research Station) and her colleagues, with the first sites in the western hemisphere being
established in 2004 in the White Mountains and the central Sierra Nevada. The basic protocol involves carefully observing the plant species, their coverage and distribution in the
zone that occupies the top 10 meters of each alpine peak. The survey also incorporates
temperature sensors buried 10 cm deep that record for years, and extensive photodocumentation of the plants and the survey system. Presently seven summits in the White
Mountains are systematically surveyed every 5 years. (continued on next page)
Laying out the original survey system. Photo: Jim Bishop
Monitoring White Mountain Alpine Plants for Impacts of Climate Change
(cont’d)
T
he White Mountain Research Center is deemed a GLORIA “world master site”. Here related studies in alpine ecology, climate, and geomorphology supplement the GLORIA alpine plant surveys. Such studies include insects, a butterfly count,
periglacial processes, detailed temperature observations over the terrain, mapping of upper treelines and shrublines, forest demography, and studies on the effects of climate on mountain mammals (pika, marmot). The potential for mutually beneficial
science catalyzed by this WMRC-GLORIA based collaboration is great.
T
wo important additions to the GLORIA methodology were developed in the White Mountains and
are now defined and available in the international protocol. First, it was realized early on that the estimates of
plant cover in the large survey plots were inaccurate,
and that the quantitative measures in the quadrat plots
covered too small an area. Thus a 10 m X 10 m plot was
developed that contains 400 survey points on a halfmeter grid. This plot gives good quantitative measures
over a larger and more representative area. Second,
while the summit plots are important, it is essential to
know more about the distribution of plants below the
summits to better interpret GLORIA observations. It is
also desirable to be able to quantify shifts in plantpopulation distributions. In addition to the 10 m X 10 m
plot developed above, the GLORIA team designed a series of “downslope surveys” on five of the slopes in the
White Mountains. At each 25 meter step below a summit, a 100 meter belt transect is laid out along a contour,
Plant identification, taking data, and documentation. Photos: Catie and Jim Bishop
which duplicates the area and sample point distribution of the 10 m X 10
m plots. This set of downslope surveys spans the elevation range from
the summit of White Mountain down into the bristlecone pine woodland
and sagebrush shrublands.
O
ne set of White Mountain summits has now been resurveyed at 5
and 10 years, and the other set at 5 years (the 10-year resurvey
there this summer). Physical climate trends (such as in temperature or
humidity) emerge on decadal timescales. But even the short-term
GLORIA results are interesting. They confirm the replicability of the survey protocol, with resurveys showing essentially the same species richness (to be expected with alpine plants being predominantly long-lived
perennials). They also reflect some of the short-term change that is imGLORIA field team getting organized. Photo: Connie Millar
posed on long-term trends, such as fluctuations in annual-plant
occurrence and some shrub mortality in low-snow winters. And
we may well get some ecological surprises with our 5-year resurveys. W
hite Mountain Research Center is a key focus of this important international program. Additional information can
be found at:
http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/cirmount/gloria/north_america/
california.shtml
Fieldwork finished, the team heads down from the summit of
White Mountain Peak. Photo: Connie Millar
Focus on Research
Sierra Nevada Willow-leaf Beetles Help to Unlock Secrets of Climate Change
By Elizabeth Dahlhoff and Nathan Rank
A
s Earth’s climate becomes warmer and more variable, understanding the characteristics that help organisms to cope with
stress becomes increasingly important. Primary investigators, Nathan Rank (Sonoma State University) and Elizabeth
Dahlhoff (Santa Clara University) were recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate willow beetles living at high elevation in the Sierra Nevada of California. They will be focusing on how variations in gene coding for proteins, which process energy and respond to stress, affect metabolism and performance. Their research seeks to discover the
contrasting roles of oxygen, which changes the rate at which metabolism occurs. The project is a synthesis of genomics, physiology, and animal natural history that will provide a unique opportunity to understand how organisms cope with environmental
change.
T
he research will test the hypothesis that interactions between genes on the mitochondrion and nucleus, which
function together to synthesize gene products such as enzymes
for metabolism and performance, have pervasive effects on an
organism’s ability to cope with stress and reproduce in the challenging conditions found within the beetle’s natural environment. To test this hypothesis, immature beetles (larvae) will be
reared at the Barcroft laboratory, 3,800 m above sea level, in
chambers where oxygen level and temperature will be manipulated. Researchers will study the effect of these rearing condiThe Willow Leaf Beetle, Chrysomela aeneicollis. Photo: Nathan Rank
tions on metabolic physiology, and on running speed, which is
an important measure of performance and reproduction. The work will be conducted by Rank and Dahlhoff and by a team of
undergraduate students, giving the latter opportunities to
conduct research and to acquire marketable skills for the
modern work environment.
T
his new work, starting in the 2015 field season, represents a continuation of a long-term research project on
the ecological and evolutionary factors influencing the Sierra
Nevada willow-leaf beetle. Work on the project began in the
summer of 1982 when John Smiley, then at the University of
California Irvine, visited Big Pine Creek with Richard McMillan,
a UC Irvine professor. John recognized that the steep elevational gradients along which the beetles could be seen represented interesting environmental gradients that would challenge beetles in different ways at different altitudes. He began
to study factors influencing beetle survival and the community
of plants they feed on. These studies grew into a comprehensive investigation of the importance of host plant, physical
environment, and the enemies of the beetle that also live
along the elevation gradients in the eastern Sierra Nevada.
N
John Smiley observing the nest holes occupied by the predatory wasp Symmorphus
cristatus. The holes are made by wood-boring beetles (not related to willow beetles);
the wasps take them over and make their nests inside. Photo: Nathan Rank
athan Rank joined the team in 1984 and he completed
his PhD with WMRC support in 1990 after six summers in the field. In 1998, Elizabeth Dahlhoff joined the team and her
expertise in the physiology of organisms living in challenging environments proved to be essential to the further progress of the
research. Since then, the team has worked every summer to tease out environmental and genetic factors influencing the success
of the leaf-beetle populations at different elevations. These researchers have supervised over (continued on next page)
Sierra Nevada Willow-leaf Beetles Help to Unlock Secrets of Climate Change (cont’d)
75 undergraduate and graduate students since 1998, who have gone on to careers in science, medicine and education.
W
ithin the past few years, researchers from New Zealand, Canada, and Finland have visited the study sites and participated in the work alongside Dahlhoff and Rank, and their students. Researchers in Belgium and Sweden have participated
in studies of the geographic differences in beetle populations and these have added to our understanding of how beetle populations in the Sierra Nevada became isolated from those in the rest of western North America, as well as expanding our
knowledge to the level of the genome.
I
Nathan Rank, Sonoma State University
n 2001, WMRC staff member Daniel
Pritchett discovered leaf beetles feeding
at high elevations in the White Mountains,
but these populations are so remote that the
team has left them alone after only a few visits. John Smiley has continued to study
changes in temperature and in the activities
of the wasp predators that feed on the beetles. Finally, the research was featured alongside other projects conducted at WMRC in
A handful of Team Beetle after working a transect below Temple Crag, North Fork Big
Pine Creek, Sierra Nevada. Pictured are: Maggie Mae Abercrombie, Sarah Heidl, Nic
Zavala and Julie Lynn Jette. Photo: Julie Lynn Jette.
the Emmy-award winning documentary “In the
Shadow of White Mountain,’ produced by
UCSD-TV and available online. Look for members of “Team Beetle” in the mountains
and around the WMRC stations this summer!
Surveying for willow-leaf beetles at Bluff Lake, South Fork Bishop
Creek, Sierra Nevada. Photo: Nathan Rank
Elizabeth Dahlhoff, Santa Clara University
Cynthia Dick, now NSF Pre-doctoral Fellow at UC Riverside, measuring running speed
of willow beetles in the Manis Lab at the Owens Valley Station. Photo: Nathan Rank
2015 WMRC Mini-Grant Recipients
Each year, WMRC offers modest mini-grants to graduate students to
help with their thesis-related research. The WMRC mini-grant program may fund up to 10 thesis-related research projects each
year, and is open to both UC and non-UC students. Funds are
typically granted to cover room, board and lab fees for staying
at any of the WMRC facilities. This program is typically announced in December with an application deadline in late January
and award announcements at the beginning of April. Four students
were selected for this season:
Forrest Brown, Department of Geography, California State University, Northridge
Geomorphic response to land-use change in McGee Creek, Long Valley, California
Brian Smithers, Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis
Climate-change effects on community composition in bristlecone pine forests
Courtney Collins, Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, University of California, Riverside
Impacts of shrub expansion on alpine plant mycorrhizal communities in the White Mountains, California
Meagan Oldfather, Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley
Demographic responses and range shifts in an arid alpine system
Support White Mountain Research Center
White Mountain Research Center sends thanks to all donors, past and present, for their generosity in support of the
Center. These donations help support research, education, and other public service events and activities at WMRC.
A special thank you goes out to Cameron Whiteman, of Vertum Partners, for a most generous donation to the Center. Vertum has built strong relationships with the UC system, including UCLA (Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Environmental Humanities, Office of Intellectual Property & Industry Sponsored Research, Department of
Atmospheric Science and Anderson School of Management), UCI and White Mountain Research Center. Vertum
Partners is an inaugural sponsor of the UCLA IoES Corporate Partners Program, where his company is recognized for
supporting clean technology development in the greater Los Angeles region.
Donations large and small to WMRC (in-kind or monetary) are very much appreciated. If you would like your donation to go to a specific location within WMRC (Owens Valley Station, Crooked Creek Station or Barcroft Station),
please include a short note saying this is a donation and include the name of the station you wish your gift to go to.
All donations are tax-deductible.
Please make your check payable to, “UC Regents” and send to:
White Mountain Research Center
3000 East Line Street
Bishop, CA 93514
http://www.wmrc.edu/
From the WMRC Archives
by Daniel Pritchett
Eastern Sierra Archaeology and WMRC
A
rchaeologist Greg Haverstock, from the Bishop field office of the Bureau of Land Management, and his colleague Bridget
Wall, of the Archaeological Research Center at California State University, Sacramento, were recent speakers in the annual
WMRC public lecture series. Their talk focused on the work of two avocational archaeologists, Grace and Rollin Enfield, school
teachers who retired to Bishop and documented over 1100 archaeological sites in the Eastern Sierra in the 1950s and 1960s.
T
he Enfields were effective advocates for the protection of archaeological sites, notably the preservation of the remains
of a large petroglyph site north of Bishop which was being destroyed by quarrying. They also supported the research of
Robert Bettinger, a WMRS-affiliated researcher, who became a prolific authority on the archaeology of the Eastern Sierra and
White Mountains.
H
earing about the Enfields led me to our archives, where I found a folder of their correspondence that included documents
on early attempts to establish a local repository for Native American artifacts collected in the Eastern Sierra. These archives also revealed that, in 1973, then WMRS Associate Director Tom Ledoux participated in discussions with the Owens Valley
Paiute, the Enfields, and representatives of local land management agencies, regarding such a repository. Some thought it
should be established on Paiute reservation land; others wanted it in established museums. No doubt Tom Ledoux recognized
that establishing a repository at WMRS itself would be consistent with the station’s academic mission within the University of
California. Notwithstanding the Enfields' energy and determination, nothing came of this initiative.
F
ederal law has longestablished criteria for
the storage of artifacts from
public lands. Because of the
cultural sensitivity of such artifacts and the fact that they are
irreplaceable, these criteria are
not easily met. In addition to
physical security and sophisticated climate controls, repositories must have a professional curator to make collections
available for research and
public viewing. No facility in
the Eastern Sierra presently
meets these criteria and as a
result neither the Enfields’ nor
any other collection of local
artifacts resides in the Eastern
Sierra. Whereas much of the
Euro-American history of Owens Valley has been destroyed,
the remains of our pre-EuroAmerican heritage are protected
but spread in a diaspora of repositories across the West.
T
A 1972 field trip to Red Canyon Petroglyphs: Grace and Rollin Enfield are third and fourth from the left in the
back row. Robert Bettinger is seated in the front left. Photo courtesy of BLM Bishop Field Office
his spring of 2015, 42 years after the 1973 meeting, we at WMRC are meeting with Paiute representatives and archaeologist, Greg Haverstock, to revisit the repository issue. This renewed effort may take time but we hope for success in returning these artifacts that are so closely woven into the cultural identity of the Eastern Sierra.
Late season snowstorm in the White Mountains, May 20, 2015 and WMRC staff plowing the road into the Barcroft Station. Photos: Steven Devanzo
Eastbay Astronomical Society meets and sets up telescopes at the Barcroft Station.
Photo: Jeremiah Eanes
UC Irvine Professor Don Blake and students collecting air samples
from Crooked Creek Station. Photo: Jeremiah Eanes
Masters level Earth Sciences students from Durham University prepare to depart the
Owens Valley Station for a geological field trip up Silver Canyon. Photo: Denise Waterbury
Native plant garden at the Owens Valley Station. Photo: Denise
Waterbury